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Freeman Dyson
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Freeman John Dyson FRS (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was a British-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics, condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, and engineering. He was professor emeritus in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and a member of the board of sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Dyson originated several concepts that bear his name, such as Dyson's transform, a fundamental technique in additive number theory, which he developed as part of his proof of Mann's theorem; the Dyson tree, a hypothetical genetically engineered plant capable of growing in a comet; the Dyson series, a perturbative series where each term is represented by Feynman diagrams; the Dyson sphere, a thought experiment that attempts to explain how a space-faring civilization would meet its energy requirements with a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output; and Dyson's eternal intelligence, a means by which an immortal society of intelligent beings in an open universe could escape the prospect of the heat death of the universe by extending subjective time to infinity while expending only a finite amount of energy.
Dyson disagreed with the scientific consensus on climate change. He believed that some of the effects of increased CO2 levels are favourable and not taken into account by climate scientists, such as increased agricultural yield, and further that the positive benefits of CO2 likely outweigh the negative effects. He was skeptical about the simulation models used to predict climate change, arguing that political efforts to reduce causes of climate change distract from other global problems that should take priority.
Dyson was born on 15 December 1923, in Crowthorne in Berkshire, England. He was the son of Mildred (née Atkey) and the composer George Dyson, who was later knighted. His mother had a law degree, and after Dyson was born she worked as a social worker. Dyson had one sibling, his older sister, Alice, who remembered him as a boy surrounded by encyclopedias and always calculating on sheets of paper. At the age of four he tried to calculate the number of atoms in the Sun. As a child, he showed an interest in large numbers and in the solar system, and was strongly influenced by the book Men of Mathematics by Eric Temple Bell. Politically, Dyson said he was "brought up as a socialist".
From 1936 to 1941 Dyson was a scholar at Winchester College, where his father was Director of Music. At the age of 17 he studied pure mathematics with Abram Besicovitch as his tutor at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won a scholarship at age 15. During this stay, Dyson also practiced night climbing on the university buildings, and once walked from Cambridge to London in a day with his friend Oscar Hahn, nephew of Kurt Hahn, who was a wheelchair user due to polio.
At the age of 19 he was assigned to war work in the Operational Research Section (ORS) of RAF Bomber Command, where he developed analytical methods for calculating the ideal density for bomber formations to help the Royal Air Force bomb German targets during the Second World War. After the war, Dyson was readmitted to Trinity College, where he obtained a BA degree in mathematics. From 1946 to 1949 he was a fellow of his college, occupying rooms just below those of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who resigned his professorship in 1947.
In 1947 Dyson published two papers in number theory. Friends and colleagues described him as shy and self-effacing, with a contrarian streak that his friends found refreshing but intellectual opponents found exasperating. "I have the sense that when consensus is forming like ice hardening on a lake, Dyson will do his best to chip at the ice", Steven Weinberg said of him. His friend the neurologist and author Oliver Sacks said: "A favourite word of Freeman's about doing science and being creative is the word 'subversive'. He feels it's rather important not only to be not orthodox, but to be subversive, and he's done that all his life."
On G. I. Taylor's advice and recommendation, Dyson moved to the United States in 1947 as a Commonwealth Fellow for postgraduate study with Hans Bethe at Cornell University (1947–1948). There he made the acquaintance of Richard Feynman. Dyson recognized the brilliance of the flamboyant American and worked with him. He then moved to the Institute for Advanced Study (1948–1949), before returning to England (1949–51), where he was a research fellow at the University of Birmingham. In 1949, Dyson demonstrated the equivalence of two formulations of quantum electrodynamics (QED): Richard Feynman's diagrams and the operator method developed by Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichirō Tomonaga. He was the first person after their creator to appreciate the power of Feynman diagrams and his paper written in 1948 and published in 1949 was the first to make use of them. He said in that paper that Feynman diagrams were not just a computational tool but a physical theory and developed rules for the diagrams that completely solved the renormalization problem. Dyson's paper and also his lectures presented Feynman's theories of QED in a form that other physicists could understand, facilitating the physics community's acceptance of Feynman's work. J. Robert Oppenheimer, in particular, was persuaded by Dyson that Feynman's new theory was as valid as Schwinger's and Tomonaga's. Also in 1949, in related work, Dyson invented the Dyson series. It was this paper that inspired John Ward to derive his celebrated Ward–Takahashi identity.
Dyson joined the faculty at Cornell as a physics professor in 1951, though he still had no doctorate. In December 1952, Oppenheimer, the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, offered Dyson a lifetime appointment at the institute, "for proving me wrong", in Oppenheimer's words. Dyson remained at the Institute until the end of his career. In 1957 he became a US citizen. From 1957 to 1961 Dyson worked on Project Orion, which proposed the possibility of space-flight using nuclear pulse propulsion. A prototype was demonstrated using conventional explosives, but the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, in which Dyson was involved and which he supported, permitted only underground nuclear weapons testing, and the project was abandoned in 1965.
In 1958 Dyson was a member of the design team under Edward Teller for TRIGA, a small, inherently safe nuclear reactor used throughout the world in hospitals and universities for the production of medical isotopes.
In 1966, independently of Elliott H. Lieb and Walter Thirring, Dyson and Andrew Lenard published a paper proving that the Pauli exclusion principle plays the main role in the stability of matter. Hence it is not the electromagnetic repulsion between outer-shell orbital electrons that prevents two stacked wood blocks from coalescing into a single piece, but the exclusion principle applied to electrons and protons that generates the classical macroscopic normal force. In condensed matter physics, Dyson also analysed the phase transition of the Ising model in one dimension and spin waves.
Dyson also did work in a variety of topics in mathematics, such as topology, analysis, number theory and random matrices. In 1973 the number theorist Hugh Lowell Montgomery was visiting the Institute for Advanced Study and had just made his pair correlation conjecture concerning the distribution of the zeros of the Riemann zeta function. He showed his formula to the mathematician Atle Selberg, who said that it looked like something in mathematical physics and that Montgomery should show it to Dyson, which he did. Dyson recognized the formula as the pair correlation function of the Gaussian unitary ensemble, which physicists have studied extensively. This suggested that there might be an unexpected connection between the distribution of primes (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, ...) and the energy levels in the nuclei of heavy elements such as uranium.
Around 1979 Dyson worked with the Institute for Energy Analysis on climate studies. This group, under Alvin Weinberg's direction, pioneered multidisciplinary climate studies, including a strong biology group. Also during the 1970s, Dyson worked on climate studies conducted by the JASON defense advisory group.
Dyson retired from the Institute for Advanced Study in 1994. In 1998 he joined the board of the Solar Electric Light Fund. As of 2003 he was president of the Space Studies Institute, the space research organization founded by Gerard K. O'Neill; as of 2013 he was on its board of trustees. Dyson was a longtime member of the JASON group.
Dyson won numerous scientific awards, but never a Nobel Prize. Nobel physics laureate Steven Weinberg said that the Nobel committee "fleeced" Dyson, but Dyson remarked in 2009, "I think it's almost true without exception if you want to win a Nobel Prize, you should have a long attention span, get hold of some deep and important problem and stay with it for ten years. That wasn't my style." Dyson was a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and published a memoir, Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography Through Letters in 2018.
In 2012 Dyson published (with William H. Press) a fundamental new result about the prisoner's dilemma in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. He wrote a foreword to a treatise on psychic phenomena in which he concluded that "ESP is real... but cannot be tested with the clumsy tools of science".
Dyson married his first wife, the Swiss mathematician Verena Huber, on 11 August 1950. They had two children, Esther and George, before divorcing in 1958. In November 1958 he married Imme Jung (born 1936) and they had four more children: Dorothy, Mia, Rebecca, and Emily Dyson.
Dyson's eldest daughter, Esther, is a digital technology consultant and investor; she has been called "the most influential woman in all the computer world". His son George is a historian of science, one of whose books is Project Orion: The Atomic Spaceship 1957–1965.
Dyson died on 28 February 2020 at a hospital near Princeton, New Jersey, from complications following a fall. He was 96.
Dyson admitted his record as a prophet was mixed, but thought it is better to be wrong than vague, and that in meeting the world's material needs, technology must be beautiful and cheap.
My book The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet (1999) describes a vision of green technology enriching villages all over the world and halting the migration from villages to megacities. The three components of the vision are all essential: the sun to provide energy where it is needed, the genome to provide plants that can convert sunlight into chemical fuels cheaply and efficiently, the Internet to end the intellectual and economic isolation of rural populations. With all three components in place, every village in Africa could enjoy its fair share of the blessings of civilization.
Dyson coined the term "green technologies", based on biology instead of physics or chemistry, to describe new species of microorganisms and plants designed to meet human needs. He argued that such technologies would be based on solar power rather than the fossil fuels whose use he saw as part of what he calls "gray technologies" of industry. He believed that genetically engineered crops, which he described as green, can help end rural poverty, with a movement based in ethics to end the inequitable distribution of wealth on the planet.
Dyson favored the dual origin theory: that life first formed as cells, then enzymes, and finally, much later, genes. This was first propounded by the Russian biochemist, Alexander Oparin. J. B. S. Haldane developed the same theory independently. In Dyson's version of the theory life evolved in two stages, widely separated in time. Because of the biochemistry he regards it as too unlikely that genes could have developed fully blown in one process. Current cells contain adenosine triphosphate or ATP and adenosine 5'-monophosphate or AMP, which greatly resemble each other but have completely different functions. ATP transports energy around the cell, and AMP is part of RNA and the genetic apparatus. Dyson proposed that in a primitive early cell containing ATP and AMP, RNA and replication came into existence only because of the similarity between AMP and RNA. He suggested that AMP was produced when ATP molecules lost two of their phosphate radicals, and then one cell somewhere performed Eigen's experiment and produced RNA.
There is no direct evidence for the dual origin theory, because once genes developed, they took over, obliterating all traces of the earlier forms of life. In the first origin, the cells were probably just drops of water held together by surface tension, teeming with enzymes and chemical reactions, and having a primitive kind of growth or replication. When the liquid drop became too big, it split into two drops. Many complex molecules formed in these "little city economies" and the probability that genes would eventually develop in them was much greater than in the prebiotic environment.
In 1960 Dyson wrote a short paper for the journal Science titled "Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation". In it he speculated that a technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilization might surround its native star with artificial structures to maximize the capture of the star's energy. Eventually the civilization would enclose the star, intercepting electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths from visible light downward and radiating waste heat outward as infrared radiation. One method of searching for extraterrestrial civilizations would be to look for large objects radiating in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
One should expect that, within a few thousand years of its entering the stage of industrial development, any intelligent species should be found occupying an artificial biosphere which surrounds its parent star.
Dyson conceived that such structures would be clouds of asteroid-sized space habitats, though science fiction writers have preferred a solid structure: either way, such an artifact is often called a Dyson sphere, although Dyson used the term "shell". Dyson said that he used the term "artificial biosphere" in the article to mean a habitat, not a shape. The general concept of such an energy-transferring shell had been created decades earlier by science fiction writer Olaf Stapledon in his 1937 novel Star Maker, a source which Dyson credited publicly.
Dyson also proposed the creation of a Dyson tree, a genetically engineered plant capable of growing inside a comet. He suggested that comets could be engineered to contain hollow spaces filled with a breathable atmosphere, thus providing self-sustaining habitats for humanity in the outer Solar System.
Plants could grow greenhouses… just as turtles grow shells and polar bears grow fur and polyps build coral reefs in tropical seas. These plants could keep warm by the light from a distant Sun and conserve the oxygen that they produce by photosynthesis. The greenhouse would consist of a thick skin providing thermal insulation, with small transparent windows to admit sunlight. Outside the skin would be an array of simple lenses, focusing sunlight through the windows into the interior… Groups of greenhouses could grow together to form extended habitats for other species of plants and animals.
I've done some historical research on the costs of the Mayflower's voyage, and on the Mormons' emigration to Utah, and I think it's possible to go into space on a much smaller scale. A cost on the order of $40,000 per person [1978 dollars, $181,600 in 2022 dollars] would be the target to shoot for; in terms of real wages, that would make it comparable to the colonization of America. Unless it's brought down to that level it's not really interesting to me, because otherwise it would be a luxury that only governments could afford.
Dyson was interested in space travel since he was a child, reading such science fiction classics as Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker. As a young man, he worked for General Atomics on the nuclear-powered Orion spacecraft. He hoped Project Orion would put men on Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970. For a quarter-century Dyson was unhappy about how the government conducts space travel:
The problem is, of course, that they can't afford to fail. The rules of the game are that you don't take a chance, because if you fail, then probably your whole program gets wiped out.
Dyson still hoped for cheap space travel, but was resigned to waiting for private entrepreneurs to develop something new and inexpensive.
No law of physics or biology forbids cheap travel and settlement all over the solar system and beyond. But it is impossible to predict how long this will take. Predictions of the dates of future achievements are notoriously fallible. My guess is that the era of cheap unmanned missions will be the next fifty years, and the era of cheap manned missions will start sometime late in the twenty-first century. Any affordable program of manned exploration must be centered in biology, and its time frame tied to the time frame of biotechnology; a hundred years, roughly the time it will take us to learn to grow warm-blooded plants, is probably reasonable.
A direct search for life in Europa's ocean would today be prohibitively expensive. Impacts on Europa give us an easier way to look for evidence of life there. Every time a major impact occurs on Europa, a vast quantity of water is splashed from the ocean into the space around Jupiter. Some of the water evaporates, and some condenses into snow. Creatures living in the water far enough from the impact have a chance of being splashed intact into space and quickly freeze-dried. Therefore, an easy way to look for evidence of life in Europa's ocean is to look for freeze-dried fish in the ring of space debris orbiting Jupiter. Freeze-dried fish orbiting Jupiter is a fanciful notion, but nature in the biological realm has a tendency to be fanciful. Nature is usually more imaginative than we are. …To have the best chance of success, we should keep our eyes open for all possibilities.
Dyson proposed that an immortal group of intelligent beings could escape the prospect of heat death by extending time to infinity while expending only a finite amount of energy. This is also known as the Dyson scenario.
His concept "Dyson's transform" led to one of the most important lemmas of Olivier Ramaré's theorem: that every even integer can be written as a sum of no more than six primes.
The Dyson series, the formal solution of an explicitly time-dependent Schrödinger equation by iteration, and the corresponding Dyson time-ordering operator T , {\displaystyle {\mathcal {T}}\,,} an entity of basic importance in the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics, are also named after Dyson.
Dyson and Hugh Montgomery discovered an intriguing connection between quantum physics and Montgomery's pair correlation conjecture about the zeros of the zeta function. The primes 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19,... are described by the Riemann zeta function, and Dyson had previously developed a description of quantum physics based on m by m arrays of totally random numbers. Montgomery and Dyson discovered that the eigenvalues of these matrices are spaced apart in exactly the same manner as Montgomery conjectured for the nontrivial zeros of the zeta function. Andrew Odlyzko has verified the conjecture on a computer, using his Odlyzko–Schönhage algorithm to calculate many zeros.
There are in nature one, two, and three dimensional quasicrystals. Mathematicians define a quasicrystal as a set of discrete points whose Fourier transform is also a set of discrete points. Odlyzko has done extensive computations of the Fourier transform of the nontrivial zeros of the zeta function, and they seem to form a one-dimensional quasicrystal. This would in fact follow from the Riemann hypothesis.
In number theory and combinatorics rank of a partition of a positive integer is a certain integer associated with the partition. Dyson introduced the concept in a paper published in the journal Eureka. It was presented in the context of a study of certain congruence properties of the partition function discovered by the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.
In number theory, the crank of a partition is a certain integer associated with the partition in number theory. Dyson first introduced the term without a definition in a 1944 paper in a journal published by the Mathematics Society of Cambridge University. He then gave a list of properties this yet-to-be-defined quantity should have. In 1988, George E. Andrews and Frank Garvan discovered a definition for the crank satisfying the properties Dyson had hypothesized.
Astrochicken is the name given to a thought experiment Dyson expounded in his book Disturbing the Universe (1979). He contemplated how humanity could build a small, self-replicating automaton that could explore space more efficiently than a crewed craft could. He attributed the general idea to John von Neumann, based on a lecture von Neumann gave in 1948 titled The General and Logical Theory of Automata. Dyson expanded on von Neumann's automata theories and added a biological component.
Dyson suggested that philosophers can be broadly, if simplistically, divided into lumpers and splitters. These roughly correspond to Platonists, who regard the world as made up of ideas, and materialists, who imagine it divided into atoms.
Dyson agreed that technically humans and additional CO2 emissions contribute to warming. However, he felt that the benefits of additional CO2 outweighed any associated negative effects. He said that in many ways increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is beneficial, and that it is increasing biological growth, agricultural yields and forests. He believed that existing simulation models of climate change fail to account for some important factors, and that the results thus contain too great a margin of error to reliably predict trends. He argued that political efforts to reduce the causes of climate change distract from other global problems that should take priority and compared acceptance of climate change as real, to religion.
In 2009, Dyson criticised James Hansen's climate-change activism. "The person who is really responsible for this overestimate of global warming is Jim Hansen. He consistently exaggerates all the dangers... Hansen has turned his science into ideology." Hansen responded that Dyson "doesn't know what he's talking about... If he's going to wander into something with major consequences for humanity and other life on the planet, then he should first do his homework- which he obviously has not done on global warming". Dyson replied that "[m]y objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it's rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have." Dyson stated in an interview that the argument with Hansen was exaggerated by The New York Times, stating that he and Hansen are "friends, but we don't agree on everything."
Since originally taking interest in climate studies in the 1970s, Dyson suggested that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere could be controlled by planting fast-growing trees. He calculated that it would take a trillion trees to remove all carbon from the atmosphere. In a 2014 interview he said, "What I'm convinced of is that we don't understand climate… It will take a lot of very hard work before that question is settled."
Dyson was a member of the academic advisory council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation
At RAF Bomber Command, Dyson and colleagues proposed removing two gun turrets from Avro Lancaster bombers, to cut the catastrophic losses due to German fighters in the Battle of Berlin. A Lancaster without turrets could fly 50 mph (80 km/h) faster and be much more maneuverable.
All our advice to the commander in chief [went] through the chief of our section, who was a career civil servant. His guiding principle was to tell the commander in chief things that the commander in chief liked to hear… To push the idea of ripping out gun turrets, against the official mythology of the gallant gunner defending his crew mates… was not the kind of suggestion the commander in chief liked to hear.
On hearing the news of the bombing of Hiroshima:
I agreed emphatically with Henry Stimson. Once we had got ourselves into the business of bombing cities, we might as well do the job competently and get it over with. I felt better that morning than I had felt for years… Those fellows who had built the atomic bombs obviously knew their stuff… Later, much later, I would remember [the downside].
I am convinced that to avoid nuclear war it is not sufficient to be afraid of it. It is necessary to be afraid, but it is equally necessary to understand. And the first step in understanding is to recognize that the problem of nuclear war is basically not technical but human and historical. If we are to avoid destruction we must first of all understand the human and historical context out of which destruction arises.
In 1967, in his capacity as a military adviser, Dyson wrote an influential paper on the issue of possible US use of tactical nuclear weapons in the Vietnam War. When a general said in a meeting, "I think it might be a good idea to throw in a nuke now and then, just to keep the other side guessing…" Dyson became alarmed and obtained permission to write a report on the pros and cons of using such weapons from a purely military point of view. (This report, Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia, published by the Institute for Defense Analyses, was obtained, with some redactions, by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability under the Freedom of Information act in 2002.) It was sufficiently objective that both sides in the debate based their arguments on it. Dyson says that the report showed that, even from a narrow military point of view, the US was better off not using nuclear weapons.
Dyson opposed the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq. He supported Barack Obama in the 2008 US presidential election and The New York Times described him as a political liberal. He was one of 29 leading US scientists who wrote Obama a strongly supportive letter about his administration's 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
Dyson was raised in what he described as a "watered-down Church of England Christianity". He was a nondenominational Christian and attended various churches, from Presbyterian to Roman Catholic. Regarding doctrinal or Christological issues, he said, "I am neither a saint nor a theologian. To me, good works are more important than theology."
Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect. Trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute. The media exaggerate their numbers and importance. The media rarely mention the fact that the great majority of religious people belong to moderate denominations that treat science with respect, or the fact that the great majority of scientists treat religion with respect so long as religion does not claim jurisdiction over scientific questions.
Dyson partially disagreed with the remark by his fellow physicist Steven Weinberg that "With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil – that takes religion."
Weinberg's statement is true as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth. To make it the whole truth, we must add an additional clause: "And for bad people to do good things – that [also] takes religion." The main point of Christianity is that it is a religion for sinners. Jesus made that very clear. When the Pharisees asked his disciples, "Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?" he said, "I come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance." Only a small fraction of sinners repent and do good things but only a small fraction of good people are led by their religion to do bad things.
Dyson identified himself as agnostic about some of the specifics of his faith. For example, in reviewing The God of Hope and the End of the World by John Polkinghorne, Dyson wrote:
I am myself a Christian, a member of a community that preserves an ancient heritage of great literature and great music, provides help and counsel to young and old when they are in trouble, educates children in moral responsibility, and worships God in its own fashion. But I find Polkinghorne's theology altogether too narrow for my taste. I have no use for a theology that claims to know the answers to deep questions but bases its arguments on the beliefs of a single tribe. I am a practicing Christian but not a believing Christian. To me, to worship God means to recognize that mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of our universe in a way that altogether surpasses our comprehension.
In The God Delusion (2006), evolutionary biologist and atheist activist Richard Dawkins singled out Dyson for accepting the Templeton Prize in 2000: "It would be taken as an endorsement of religion by one of the world's most distinguished physicists." In 2000, Dyson declared that he was a (non-denominational) Christian, and he disagreed with Dawkins on several subjects, such as that group selection is less important than individual selection on the subject of evolution.
Aaserud, Finn (17 December 1986). "Freeman Dyson". Oral History Interviews (Interview). Interviewed by Finn Aaserud. Princeton, New Jersey: American Institute of Physics.
|
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"text": "Freeman John Dyson FRS (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was a British-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics, condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, and engineering. He was professor emeritus in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and a member of the board of sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.",
"title": ""
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"text": "Dyson originated several concepts that bear his name, such as Dyson's transform, a fundamental technique in additive number theory, which he developed as part of his proof of Mann's theorem; the Dyson tree, a hypothetical genetically engineered plant capable of growing in a comet; the Dyson series, a perturbative series where each term is represented by Feynman diagrams; the Dyson sphere, a thought experiment that attempts to explain how a space-faring civilization would meet its energy requirements with a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output; and Dyson's eternal intelligence, a means by which an immortal society of intelligent beings in an open universe could escape the prospect of the heat death of the universe by extending subjective time to infinity while expending only a finite amount of energy.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Dyson disagreed with the scientific consensus on climate change. He believed that some of the effects of increased CO2 levels are favourable and not taken into account by climate scientists, such as increased agricultural yield, and further that the positive benefits of CO2 likely outweigh the negative effects. He was skeptical about the simulation models used to predict climate change, arguing that political efforts to reduce causes of climate change distract from other global problems that should take priority.",
"title": ""
},
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"text": "Dyson was born on 15 December 1923, in Crowthorne in Berkshire, England. He was the son of Mildred (née Atkey) and the composer George Dyson, who was later knighted. His mother had a law degree, and after Dyson was born she worked as a social worker. Dyson had one sibling, his older sister, Alice, who remembered him as a boy surrounded by encyclopedias and always calculating on sheets of paper. At the age of four he tried to calculate the number of atoms in the Sun. As a child, he showed an interest in large numbers and in the solar system, and was strongly influenced by the book Men of Mathematics by Eric Temple Bell. Politically, Dyson said he was \"brought up as a socialist\".",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "From 1936 to 1941 Dyson was a scholar at Winchester College, where his father was Director of Music. At the age of 17 he studied pure mathematics with Abram Besicovitch as his tutor at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won a scholarship at age 15. During this stay, Dyson also practiced night climbing on the university buildings, and once walked from Cambridge to London in a day with his friend Oscar Hahn, nephew of Kurt Hahn, who was a wheelchair user due to polio.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "At the age of 19 he was assigned to war work in the Operational Research Section (ORS) of RAF Bomber Command, where he developed analytical methods for calculating the ideal density for bomber formations to help the Royal Air Force bomb German targets during the Second World War. After the war, Dyson was readmitted to Trinity College, where he obtained a BA degree in mathematics. From 1946 to 1949 he was a fellow of his college, occupying rooms just below those of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who resigned his professorship in 1947.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1947 Dyson published two papers in number theory. Friends and colleagues described him as shy and self-effacing, with a contrarian streak that his friends found refreshing but intellectual opponents found exasperating. \"I have the sense that when consensus is forming like ice hardening on a lake, Dyson will do his best to chip at the ice\", Steven Weinberg said of him. His friend the neurologist and author Oliver Sacks said: \"A favourite word of Freeman's about doing science and being creative is the word 'subversive'. He feels it's rather important not only to be not orthodox, but to be subversive, and he's done that all his life.\"",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "On G. I. Taylor's advice and recommendation, Dyson moved to the United States in 1947 as a Commonwealth Fellow for postgraduate study with Hans Bethe at Cornell University (1947–1948). There he made the acquaintance of Richard Feynman. Dyson recognized the brilliance of the flamboyant American and worked with him. He then moved to the Institute for Advanced Study (1948–1949), before returning to England (1949–51), where he was a research fellow at the University of Birmingham. In 1949, Dyson demonstrated the equivalence of two formulations of quantum electrodynamics (QED): Richard Feynman's diagrams and the operator method developed by Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichirō Tomonaga. He was the first person after their creator to appreciate the power of Feynman diagrams and his paper written in 1948 and published in 1949 was the first to make use of them. He said in that paper that Feynman diagrams were not just a computational tool but a physical theory and developed rules for the diagrams that completely solved the renormalization problem. Dyson's paper and also his lectures presented Feynman's theories of QED in a form that other physicists could understand, facilitating the physics community's acceptance of Feynman's work. J. Robert Oppenheimer, in particular, was persuaded by Dyson that Feynman's new theory was as valid as Schwinger's and Tomonaga's. Also in 1949, in related work, Dyson invented the Dyson series. It was this paper that inspired John Ward to derive his celebrated Ward–Takahashi identity.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Dyson joined the faculty at Cornell as a physics professor in 1951, though he still had no doctorate. In December 1952, Oppenheimer, the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, offered Dyson a lifetime appointment at the institute, \"for proving me wrong\", in Oppenheimer's words. Dyson remained at the Institute until the end of his career. In 1957 he became a US citizen. From 1957 to 1961 Dyson worked on Project Orion, which proposed the possibility of space-flight using nuclear pulse propulsion. A prototype was demonstrated using conventional explosives, but the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, in which Dyson was involved and which he supported, permitted only underground nuclear weapons testing, and the project was abandoned in 1965.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 1958 Dyson was a member of the design team under Edward Teller for TRIGA, a small, inherently safe nuclear reactor used throughout the world in hospitals and universities for the production of medical isotopes.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 1966, independently of Elliott H. Lieb and Walter Thirring, Dyson and Andrew Lenard published a paper proving that the Pauli exclusion principle plays the main role in the stability of matter. Hence it is not the electromagnetic repulsion between outer-shell orbital electrons that prevents two stacked wood blocks from coalescing into a single piece, but the exclusion principle applied to electrons and protons that generates the classical macroscopic normal force. In condensed matter physics, Dyson also analysed the phase transition of the Ising model in one dimension and spin waves.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Dyson also did work in a variety of topics in mathematics, such as topology, analysis, number theory and random matrices. In 1973 the number theorist Hugh Lowell Montgomery was visiting the Institute for Advanced Study and had just made his pair correlation conjecture concerning the distribution of the zeros of the Riemann zeta function. He showed his formula to the mathematician Atle Selberg, who said that it looked like something in mathematical physics and that Montgomery should show it to Dyson, which he did. Dyson recognized the formula as the pair correlation function of the Gaussian unitary ensemble, which physicists have studied extensively. This suggested that there might be an unexpected connection between the distribution of primes (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, ...) and the energy levels in the nuclei of heavy elements such as uranium.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Around 1979 Dyson worked with the Institute for Energy Analysis on climate studies. This group, under Alvin Weinberg's direction, pioneered multidisciplinary climate studies, including a strong biology group. Also during the 1970s, Dyson worked on climate studies conducted by the JASON defense advisory group.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Dyson retired from the Institute for Advanced Study in 1994. In 1998 he joined the board of the Solar Electric Light Fund. As of 2003 he was president of the Space Studies Institute, the space research organization founded by Gerard K. O'Neill; as of 2013 he was on its board of trustees. Dyson was a longtime member of the JASON group.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Dyson won numerous scientific awards, but never a Nobel Prize. Nobel physics laureate Steven Weinberg said that the Nobel committee \"fleeced\" Dyson, but Dyson remarked in 2009, \"I think it's almost true without exception if you want to win a Nobel Prize, you should have a long attention span, get hold of some deep and important problem and stay with it for ten years. That wasn't my style.\" Dyson was a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and published a memoir, Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography Through Letters in 2018.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 2012 Dyson published (with William H. Press) a fundamental new result about the prisoner's dilemma in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. He wrote a foreword to a treatise on psychic phenomena in which he concluded that \"ESP is real... but cannot be tested with the clumsy tools of science\".",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Dyson married his first wife, the Swiss mathematician Verena Huber, on 11 August 1950. They had two children, Esther and George, before divorcing in 1958. In November 1958 he married Imme Jung (born 1936) and they had four more children: Dorothy, Mia, Rebecca, and Emily Dyson.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Dyson's eldest daughter, Esther, is a digital technology consultant and investor; she has been called \"the most influential woman in all the computer world\". His son George is a historian of science, one of whose books is Project Orion: The Atomic Spaceship 1957–1965.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Dyson died on 28 February 2020 at a hospital near Princeton, New Jersey, from complications following a fall. He was 96.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Dyson admitted his record as a prophet was mixed, but thought it is better to be wrong than vague, and that in meeting the world's material needs, technology must be beautiful and cheap.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "My book The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet (1999) describes a vision of green technology enriching villages all over the world and halting the migration from villages to megacities. The three components of the vision are all essential: the sun to provide energy where it is needed, the genome to provide plants that can convert sunlight into chemical fuels cheaply and efficiently, the Internet to end the intellectual and economic isolation of rural populations. With all three components in place, every village in Africa could enjoy its fair share of the blessings of civilization.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Dyson coined the term \"green technologies\", based on biology instead of physics or chemistry, to describe new species of microorganisms and plants designed to meet human needs. He argued that such technologies would be based on solar power rather than the fossil fuels whose use he saw as part of what he calls \"gray technologies\" of industry. He believed that genetically engineered crops, which he described as green, can help end rural poverty, with a movement based in ethics to end the inequitable distribution of wealth on the planet.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Dyson favored the dual origin theory: that life first formed as cells, then enzymes, and finally, much later, genes. This was first propounded by the Russian biochemist, Alexander Oparin. J. B. S. Haldane developed the same theory independently. In Dyson's version of the theory life evolved in two stages, widely separated in time. Because of the biochemistry he regards it as too unlikely that genes could have developed fully blown in one process. Current cells contain adenosine triphosphate or ATP and adenosine 5'-monophosphate or AMP, which greatly resemble each other but have completely different functions. ATP transports energy around the cell, and AMP is part of RNA and the genetic apparatus. Dyson proposed that in a primitive early cell containing ATP and AMP, RNA and replication came into existence only because of the similarity between AMP and RNA. He suggested that AMP was produced when ATP molecules lost two of their phosphate radicals, and then one cell somewhere performed Eigen's experiment and produced RNA.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "There is no direct evidence for the dual origin theory, because once genes developed, they took over, obliterating all traces of the earlier forms of life. In the first origin, the cells were probably just drops of water held together by surface tension, teeming with enzymes and chemical reactions, and having a primitive kind of growth or replication. When the liquid drop became too big, it split into two drops. Many complex molecules formed in these \"little city economies\" and the probability that genes would eventually develop in them was much greater than in the prebiotic environment.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In 1960 Dyson wrote a short paper for the journal Science titled \"Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation\". In it he speculated that a technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilization might surround its native star with artificial structures to maximize the capture of the star's energy. Eventually the civilization would enclose the star, intercepting electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths from visible light downward and radiating waste heat outward as infrared radiation. One method of searching for extraterrestrial civilizations would be to look for large objects radiating in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "One should expect that, within a few thousand years of its entering the stage of industrial development, any intelligent species should be found occupying an artificial biosphere which surrounds its parent star.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Dyson conceived that such structures would be clouds of asteroid-sized space habitats, though science fiction writers have preferred a solid structure: either way, such an artifact is often called a Dyson sphere, although Dyson used the term \"shell\". Dyson said that he used the term \"artificial biosphere\" in the article to mean a habitat, not a shape. The general concept of such an energy-transferring shell had been created decades earlier by science fiction writer Olaf Stapledon in his 1937 novel Star Maker, a source which Dyson credited publicly.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Dyson also proposed the creation of a Dyson tree, a genetically engineered plant capable of growing inside a comet. He suggested that comets could be engineered to contain hollow spaces filled with a breathable atmosphere, thus providing self-sustaining habitats for humanity in the outer Solar System.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Plants could grow greenhouses… just as turtles grow shells and polar bears grow fur and polyps build coral reefs in tropical seas. These plants could keep warm by the light from a distant Sun and conserve the oxygen that they produce by photosynthesis. The greenhouse would consist of a thick skin providing thermal insulation, with small transparent windows to admit sunlight. Outside the skin would be an array of simple lenses, focusing sunlight through the windows into the interior… Groups of greenhouses could grow together to form extended habitats for other species of plants and animals.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "I've done some historical research on the costs of the Mayflower's voyage, and on the Mormons' emigration to Utah, and I think it's possible to go into space on a much smaller scale. A cost on the order of $40,000 per person [1978 dollars, $181,600 in 2022 dollars] would be the target to shoot for; in terms of real wages, that would make it comparable to the colonization of America. Unless it's brought down to that level it's not really interesting to me, because otherwise it would be a luxury that only governments could afford.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Dyson was interested in space travel since he was a child, reading such science fiction classics as Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker. As a young man, he worked for General Atomics on the nuclear-powered Orion spacecraft. He hoped Project Orion would put men on Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970. For a quarter-century Dyson was unhappy about how the government conducts space travel:",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The problem is, of course, that they can't afford to fail. The rules of the game are that you don't take a chance, because if you fail, then probably your whole program gets wiped out.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Dyson still hoped for cheap space travel, but was resigned to waiting for private entrepreneurs to develop something new and inexpensive.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "No law of physics or biology forbids cheap travel and settlement all over the solar system and beyond. But it is impossible to predict how long this will take. Predictions of the dates of future achievements are notoriously fallible. My guess is that the era of cheap unmanned missions will be the next fifty years, and the era of cheap manned missions will start sometime late in the twenty-first century. Any affordable program of manned exploration must be centered in biology, and its time frame tied to the time frame of biotechnology; a hundred years, roughly the time it will take us to learn to grow warm-blooded plants, is probably reasonable.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "A direct search for life in Europa's ocean would today be prohibitively expensive. Impacts on Europa give us an easier way to look for evidence of life there. Every time a major impact occurs on Europa, a vast quantity of water is splashed from the ocean into the space around Jupiter. Some of the water evaporates, and some condenses into snow. Creatures living in the water far enough from the impact have a chance of being splashed intact into space and quickly freeze-dried. Therefore, an easy way to look for evidence of life in Europa's ocean is to look for freeze-dried fish in the ring of space debris orbiting Jupiter. Freeze-dried fish orbiting Jupiter is a fanciful notion, but nature in the biological realm has a tendency to be fanciful. Nature is usually more imaginative than we are. …To have the best chance of success, we should keep our eyes open for all possibilities.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Dyson proposed that an immortal group of intelligent beings could escape the prospect of heat death by extending time to infinity while expending only a finite amount of energy. This is also known as the Dyson scenario.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "His concept \"Dyson's transform\" led to one of the most important lemmas of Olivier Ramaré's theorem: that every even integer can be written as a sum of no more than six primes.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The Dyson series, the formal solution of an explicitly time-dependent Schrödinger equation by iteration, and the corresponding Dyson time-ordering operator T , {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {T}}\\,,} an entity of basic importance in the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics, are also named after Dyson.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Dyson and Hugh Montgomery discovered an intriguing connection between quantum physics and Montgomery's pair correlation conjecture about the zeros of the zeta function. The primes 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19,... are described by the Riemann zeta function, and Dyson had previously developed a description of quantum physics based on m by m arrays of totally random numbers. Montgomery and Dyson discovered that the eigenvalues of these matrices are spaced apart in exactly the same manner as Montgomery conjectured for the nontrivial zeros of the zeta function. Andrew Odlyzko has verified the conjecture on a computer, using his Odlyzko–Schönhage algorithm to calculate many zeros.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "There are in nature one, two, and three dimensional quasicrystals. Mathematicians define a quasicrystal as a set of discrete points whose Fourier transform is also a set of discrete points. Odlyzko has done extensive computations of the Fourier transform of the nontrivial zeros of the zeta function, and they seem to form a one-dimensional quasicrystal. This would in fact follow from the Riemann hypothesis.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In number theory and combinatorics rank of a partition of a positive integer is a certain integer associated with the partition. Dyson introduced the concept in a paper published in the journal Eureka. It was presented in the context of a study of certain congruence properties of the partition function discovered by the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In number theory, the crank of a partition is a certain integer associated with the partition in number theory. Dyson first introduced the term without a definition in a 1944 paper in a journal published by the Mathematics Society of Cambridge University. He then gave a list of properties this yet-to-be-defined quantity should have. In 1988, George E. Andrews and Frank Garvan discovered a definition for the crank satisfying the properties Dyson had hypothesized.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Astrochicken is the name given to a thought experiment Dyson expounded in his book Disturbing the Universe (1979). He contemplated how humanity could build a small, self-replicating automaton that could explore space more efficiently than a crewed craft could. He attributed the general idea to John von Neumann, based on a lecture von Neumann gave in 1948 titled The General and Logical Theory of Automata. Dyson expanded on von Neumann's automata theories and added a biological component.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Dyson suggested that philosophers can be broadly, if simplistically, divided into lumpers and splitters. These roughly correspond to Platonists, who regard the world as made up of ideas, and materialists, who imagine it divided into atoms.",
"title": "Concepts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Dyson agreed that technically humans and additional CO2 emissions contribute to warming. However, he felt that the benefits of additional CO2 outweighed any associated negative effects. He said that in many ways increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is beneficial, and that it is increasing biological growth, agricultural yields and forests. He believed that existing simulation models of climate change fail to account for some important factors, and that the results thus contain too great a margin of error to reliably predict trends. He argued that political efforts to reduce the causes of climate change distract from other global problems that should take priority and compared acceptance of climate change as real, to religion.",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "In 2009, Dyson criticised James Hansen's climate-change activism. \"The person who is really responsible for this overestimate of global warming is Jim Hansen. He consistently exaggerates all the dangers... Hansen has turned his science into ideology.\" Hansen responded that Dyson \"doesn't know what he's talking about... If he's going to wander into something with major consequences for humanity and other life on the planet, then he should first do his homework- which he obviously has not done on global warming\". Dyson replied that \"[m]y objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it's rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have.\" Dyson stated in an interview that the argument with Hansen was exaggerated by The New York Times, stating that he and Hansen are \"friends, but we don't agree on everything.\"",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Since originally taking interest in climate studies in the 1970s, Dyson suggested that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere could be controlled by planting fast-growing trees. He calculated that it would take a trillion trees to remove all carbon from the atmosphere. In a 2014 interview he said, \"What I'm convinced of is that we don't understand climate… It will take a lot of very hard work before that question is settled.\"",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Dyson was a member of the academic advisory council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "At RAF Bomber Command, Dyson and colleagues proposed removing two gun turrets from Avro Lancaster bombers, to cut the catastrophic losses due to German fighters in the Battle of Berlin. A Lancaster without turrets could fly 50 mph (80 km/h) faster and be much more maneuverable.",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "All our advice to the commander in chief [went] through the chief of our section, who was a career civil servant. His guiding principle was to tell the commander in chief things that the commander in chief liked to hear… To push the idea of ripping out gun turrets, against the official mythology of the gallant gunner defending his crew mates… was not the kind of suggestion the commander in chief liked to hear.",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "On hearing the news of the bombing of Hiroshima:",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "I agreed emphatically with Henry Stimson. Once we had got ourselves into the business of bombing cities, we might as well do the job competently and get it over with. I felt better that morning than I had felt for years… Those fellows who had built the atomic bombs obviously knew their stuff… Later, much later, I would remember [the downside].",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "I am convinced that to avoid nuclear war it is not sufficient to be afraid of it. It is necessary to be afraid, but it is equally necessary to understand. And the first step in understanding is to recognize that the problem of nuclear war is basically not technical but human and historical. If we are to avoid destruction we must first of all understand the human and historical context out of which destruction arises.",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "In 1967, in his capacity as a military adviser, Dyson wrote an influential paper on the issue of possible US use of tactical nuclear weapons in the Vietnam War. When a general said in a meeting, \"I think it might be a good idea to throw in a nuke now and then, just to keep the other side guessing…\" Dyson became alarmed and obtained permission to write a report on the pros and cons of using such weapons from a purely military point of view. (This report, Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia, published by the Institute for Defense Analyses, was obtained, with some redactions, by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability under the Freedom of Information act in 2002.) It was sufficiently objective that both sides in the debate based their arguments on it. Dyson says that the report showed that, even from a narrow military point of view, the US was better off not using nuclear weapons.",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Dyson opposed the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq. He supported Barack Obama in the 2008 US presidential election and The New York Times described him as a political liberal. He was one of 29 leading US scientists who wrote Obama a strongly supportive letter about his administration's 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Dyson was raised in what he described as a \"watered-down Church of England Christianity\". He was a nondenominational Christian and attended various churches, from Presbyterian to Roman Catholic. Regarding doctrinal or Christological issues, he said, \"I am neither a saint nor a theologian. To me, good works are more important than theology.\"",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect. Trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute. The media exaggerate their numbers and importance. The media rarely mention the fact that the great majority of religious people belong to moderate denominations that treat science with respect, or the fact that the great majority of scientists treat religion with respect so long as religion does not claim jurisdiction over scientific questions.",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Dyson partially disagreed with the remark by his fellow physicist Steven Weinberg that \"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil – that takes religion.\"",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Weinberg's statement is true as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth. To make it the whole truth, we must add an additional clause: \"And for bad people to do good things – that [also] takes religion.\" The main point of Christianity is that it is a religion for sinners. Jesus made that very clear. When the Pharisees asked his disciples, \"Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?\" he said, \"I come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.\" Only a small fraction of sinners repent and do good things but only a small fraction of good people are led by their religion to do bad things.",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Dyson identified himself as agnostic about some of the specifics of his faith. For example, in reviewing The God of Hope and the End of the World by John Polkinghorne, Dyson wrote:",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "I am myself a Christian, a member of a community that preserves an ancient heritage of great literature and great music, provides help and counsel to young and old when they are in trouble, educates children in moral responsibility, and worships God in its own fashion. But I find Polkinghorne's theology altogether too narrow for my taste. I have no use for a theology that claims to know the answers to deep questions but bases its arguments on the beliefs of a single tribe. I am a practicing Christian but not a believing Christian. To me, to worship God means to recognize that mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of our universe in a way that altogether surpasses our comprehension.",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "In The God Delusion (2006), evolutionary biologist and atheist activist Richard Dawkins singled out Dyson for accepting the Templeton Prize in 2000: \"It would be taken as an endorsement of religion by one of the world's most distinguished physicists.\" In 2000, Dyson declared that he was a (non-denominational) Christian, and he disagreed with Dawkins on several subjects, such as that group selection is less important than individual selection on the subject of evolution.",
"title": "Views"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Aaserud, Finn (17 December 1986). \"Freeman Dyson\". Oral History Interviews (Interview). Interviewed by Finn Aaserud. Princeton, New Jersey: American Institute of Physics.",
"title": "References"
}
] |
Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was a British-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics, condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, and engineering. He was professor emeritus in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and a member of the board of sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Dyson originated several concepts that bear his name, such as Dyson's transform, a fundamental technique in additive number theory, which he developed as part of his proof of Mann's theorem; the Dyson tree, a hypothetical genetically engineered plant capable of growing in a comet; the Dyson series, a perturbative series where each term is represented by Feynman diagrams; the Dyson sphere, a thought experiment that attempts to explain how a space-faring civilization would meet its energy requirements with a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output; and Dyson's eternal intelligence, a means by which an immortal society of intelligent beings in an open universe could escape the prospect of the heat death of the universe by extending subjective time to infinity while expending only a finite amount of energy. Dyson disagreed with the scientific consensus on climate change. He believed that some of the effects of increased CO2 levels are favourable and not taken into account by climate scientists, such as increased agricultural yield, and further that the positive benefits of CO2 likely outweigh the negative effects. He was skeptical about the simulation models used to predict climate change, arguing that political efforts to reduce causes of climate change distract from other global problems that should take priority.
|
2001-10-24T10:45:04Z
|
2023-12-26T16:27:44Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson
|
11,399 |
Fourth Council of the Lateran
|
The Fourth Council of the Lateran or Lateran IV was convoked by Pope Innocent III in April 1213 and opened at the Lateran Palace in Rome on 11 November 1215. Due to the great length of time between the council's convocation and its meeting, many bishops had the opportunity to attend this council, which is considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be the twelfth ecumenical council. The council addressed a number of issues, including the sacraments, the role of the laity, the treatment of heretics, and the organization of the church.
Innocent III first mooted organizing an ecumenical council in November 1199. In his letter titled Vineam Domini, dated 19 April 1213, the Pope writes of the urgent need to recover the Holy Land and reform the Church. The letter, which also served as a summons to an ecumenical council, was included alongside the Pope's papal bull Quia maior. In preparing for the council, the Pope spearheaded the extensive refurbishment of the old St. Peter's Basilica, which he designated as the "centrepiece for display and decoration" during the council. The lunette of the main door leading to the tomb of St. Peter had engravings of Old Testament prophets and twenty-four bishops, alongside the messages, "Feed your Sheep" and "This is the Door of the Sheep".
Innocent III deliberately chose for the Fourth Council to meet in November, during which there were numerous feast days. A preliminary legal session took place on 4 November, while the opening ceremony of the council was held on St. Martin's Day and began with a private morning Mass. Afterwards, at the start of the first plenary session in the Lateran Palace, the Pope led the singing of "Veni Creator Spiritus" and preached about Jesus' words to his disciples at the Last Supper, quoting from Luke 22. In his next two sermons, one on the need to recover the Holy Land and the other on dealing with heretics, the Pope was joined on stage by Raoul of Mérencourt and Thedisius of Agde respectively.
On 14 November, there were violent scenes between the partisans of Simon de Montfort among the French bishops and those of the Count of Toulouse. Raymond VI of Toulouse, his son (afterwards Raymond VII), and Raymond-Roger of Foix attended the council to dispute the threatened confiscation of their territories; Bishop Foulques and Guy de Montfort (brother of Simon de Montfort) argued in favour of the confiscation. All of Raymond VI's lands were confiscated, save Provence, which was kept in trust to be restored to Raymond VII. Pierre-Bermond of Sauve's claim to Toulouse was rejected and Toulouse was awarded to de Montfort, while the lordship of Melgueil was separated from Toulouse and entrusted to the bishops of Maguelonne.
The next day, in a ceremony attended by many council participants, the Pope consecrated the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, which had been rebuilt by Callixtus II. Four days later, the anniversary celebration at St. Peter's Basilica brought together such a large gathering that the Pope himself had trouble entering the premises.
The second plenary session was held on 20 November; the Pope was scheduled to preach about church reform, but proceedings were disrupted by bishops who opposed the designation of Frederick II as Holy Roman Emperor. The council concluded on 30 November, Saint Andrew's Day, during which the Pope preached on the Nicene Creed and concluded his remarks by raising up a relic of the True Cross. The archbishop of Mainz attempted to interrupt the speech, although he complied with the Pope's raising of his hand—a command to stay silent.
Lateran IV had three objectives: crusading, Church reform, and combating heresy. The seventy-one Lateran canons, which were not debated, were only formally adopted on the last day of the council; according to Anne J. Duggan, the "scholarly consensus" is that they were drafted by Innocent III himself. They cover a range of themes including Church reform and elections, taxation, matrimony, tithing, simony, and Judaism. After being recorded in the papal registers, the canons were quickly circulated in law schools. Effective application of the decrees varied according to local conditions and customs.
While the proceedings were not officially recorded, unlike in previous councils, evidence of the events have been found in various manuscripts by observers of the council. The Chronica Majora by Matthew Paris contains a line drawing of one of the sessions at the council which his abbot William of St Albans had personally attended. An extensive eyewitness account by an anonymous German cleric was copied into a manuscript that was published in 1964, in commemoration of the Second Vatican Council, and is now housed at the University of Giessen.
Henry of Segusio likened the council to the "four great councils of antiquity". Lateran IV is sometimes referred to as the "Great Council of the Lateran" due to the presence of 404 or 412 bishops (including 71 cardinals and archbishops) and over 800 abbots and priors representing some eighty ecclesiastical provinces, together with 23 Latin-speaking prelates from the Eastern Orthodox Church and representatives of several monarchs, including Frederick II, Otto IV, the Latin Emperor of Constantinople, John, King of England, Andrew II of Hungary, Philip II of France, and the kings of Aragon, Cyprus, and Jerusalem. This made it the largest ecumenical council between the Council of Chalcedon and the Second Vatican Council; Anne J. Duggan writes that "it was the largest, most representative, and most influential council assembled under papal leadership before the end of the fourteenth century." According to F. Donald Logan, "the Fourth Lateran Council was the most important general council of the church in the Middle Ages", whose effects "were felt for centuries."
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Fourth Council of the Lateran or Lateran IV was convoked by Pope Innocent III in April 1213 and opened at the Lateran Palace in Rome on 11 November 1215. Due to the great length of time between the council's convocation and its meeting, many bishops had the opportunity to attend this council, which is considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be the twelfth ecumenical council. The council addressed a number of issues, including the sacraments, the role of the laity, the treatment of heretics, and the organization of the church.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Innocent III first mooted organizing an ecumenical council in November 1199. In his letter titled Vineam Domini, dated 19 April 1213, the Pope writes of the urgent need to recover the Holy Land and reform the Church. The letter, which also served as a summons to an ecumenical council, was included alongside the Pope's papal bull Quia maior. In preparing for the council, the Pope spearheaded the extensive refurbishment of the old St. Peter's Basilica, which he designated as the \"centrepiece for display and decoration\" during the council. The lunette of the main door leading to the tomb of St. Peter had engravings of Old Testament prophets and twenty-four bishops, alongside the messages, \"Feed your Sheep\" and \"This is the Door of the Sheep\".",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Innocent III deliberately chose for the Fourth Council to meet in November, during which there were numerous feast days. A preliminary legal session took place on 4 November, while the opening ceremony of the council was held on St. Martin's Day and began with a private morning Mass. Afterwards, at the start of the first plenary session in the Lateran Palace, the Pope led the singing of \"Veni Creator Spiritus\" and preached about Jesus' words to his disciples at the Last Supper, quoting from Luke 22. In his next two sermons, one on the need to recover the Holy Land and the other on dealing with heretics, the Pope was joined on stage by Raoul of Mérencourt and Thedisius of Agde respectively.",
"title": "Proceedings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "On 14 November, there were violent scenes between the partisans of Simon de Montfort among the French bishops and those of the Count of Toulouse. Raymond VI of Toulouse, his son (afterwards Raymond VII), and Raymond-Roger of Foix attended the council to dispute the threatened confiscation of their territories; Bishop Foulques and Guy de Montfort (brother of Simon de Montfort) argued in favour of the confiscation. All of Raymond VI's lands were confiscated, save Provence, which was kept in trust to be restored to Raymond VII. Pierre-Bermond of Sauve's claim to Toulouse was rejected and Toulouse was awarded to de Montfort, while the lordship of Melgueil was separated from Toulouse and entrusted to the bishops of Maguelonne.",
"title": "Proceedings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The next day, in a ceremony attended by many council participants, the Pope consecrated the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, which had been rebuilt by Callixtus II. Four days later, the anniversary celebration at St. Peter's Basilica brought together such a large gathering that the Pope himself had trouble entering the premises.",
"title": "Proceedings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The second plenary session was held on 20 November; the Pope was scheduled to preach about church reform, but proceedings were disrupted by bishops who opposed the designation of Frederick II as Holy Roman Emperor. The council concluded on 30 November, Saint Andrew's Day, during which the Pope preached on the Nicene Creed and concluded his remarks by raising up a relic of the True Cross. The archbishop of Mainz attempted to interrupt the speech, although he complied with the Pope's raising of his hand—a command to stay silent.",
"title": "Proceedings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Lateran IV had three objectives: crusading, Church reform, and combating heresy. The seventy-one Lateran canons, which were not debated, were only formally adopted on the last day of the council; according to Anne J. Duggan, the \"scholarly consensus\" is that they were drafted by Innocent III himself. They cover a range of themes including Church reform and elections, taxation, matrimony, tithing, simony, and Judaism. After being recorded in the papal registers, the canons were quickly circulated in law schools. Effective application of the decrees varied according to local conditions and customs.",
"title": "Outcomes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "While the proceedings were not officially recorded, unlike in previous councils, evidence of the events have been found in various manuscripts by observers of the council. The Chronica Majora by Matthew Paris contains a line drawing of one of the sessions at the council which his abbot William of St Albans had personally attended. An extensive eyewitness account by an anonymous German cleric was copied into a manuscript that was published in 1964, in commemoration of the Second Vatican Council, and is now housed at the University of Giessen.",
"title": "Records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Henry of Segusio likened the council to the \"four great councils of antiquity\". Lateran IV is sometimes referred to as the \"Great Council of the Lateran\" due to the presence of 404 or 412 bishops (including 71 cardinals and archbishops) and over 800 abbots and priors representing some eighty ecclesiastical provinces, together with 23 Latin-speaking prelates from the Eastern Orthodox Church and representatives of several monarchs, including Frederick II, Otto IV, the Latin Emperor of Constantinople, John, King of England, Andrew II of Hungary, Philip II of France, and the kings of Aragon, Cyprus, and Jerusalem. This made it the largest ecumenical council between the Council of Chalcedon and the Second Vatican Council; Anne J. Duggan writes that \"it was the largest, most representative, and most influential council assembled under papal leadership before the end of the fourteenth century.\" According to F. Donald Logan, \"the Fourth Lateran Council was the most important general council of the church in the Middle Ages\", whose effects \"were felt for centuries.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
}
] |
The Fourth Council of the Lateran or Lateran IV was convoked by Pope Innocent III in April 1213 and opened at the Lateran Palace in Rome on 11 November 1215. Due to the great length of time between the council's convocation and its meeting, many bishops had the opportunity to attend this council, which is considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be the twelfth ecumenical council. The council addressed a number of issues, including the sacraments, the role of the laity, the treatment of heretics, and the organization of the church.
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2001-10-24T15:20:47Z
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2023-11-11T20:02:00Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Council_of_the_Lateran
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Franconia
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Franconia (German: Franken, pronounced [ˈfʁaŋkŋ̍] ; Franconian: Franggn [ˈfrɑŋɡŋ̍]; Bavarian: Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: Fränkisch).
Franconia is made up of the three Regierungsbezirke of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia in Bavaria, the adjacent, Franconian-speaking, South Thuringia, south of the Thuringian Forest—which constitutes the language boundary between Franconian and Thuringian— and the eastern parts of Heilbronn-Franconia in Baden-Württemberg.
Those parts of the Vogtland lying in Saxony (largest city: Plauen) are sometimes regarded as Franconian as well, because the Vogtlandian dialects are mostly East Franconian. The inhabitants of Saxon Vogtland, however, mostly do not consider themselves as Franconian. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the Hessian-speaking parts of Lower Franconia west of the Spessart (largest city: Aschaffenburg) do consider themselves as Franconian, although not speaking the dialect. Heilbronn-Franconia's largest city of Heilbronn and its surrounding areas are South Franconian-speaking, and therefore only sometimes regarded as Franconian. In Hesse, the east of the Fulda District is Franconian-speaking, and parts of the Oden Forest District are sometimes regarded as Franconian for historical reasons, but a Franconian identity did not develop there.
Franconia's largest city and unofficial capital is Nuremberg, which is contiguous with Erlangen and Fürth, with which it forms the Franconian conurbation with around 1.3 million inhabitants. Other important Franconian cities are Würzburg, Bamberg, Bayreuth, Ansbach and Coburg in Bavaria, Suhl and Meiningen in Thuringia, and Schwäbisch Hall in Baden-Württemberg.
The German word Franken—Franconians—also refers to the ethnic group, which is mainly to be found in this region. They are to be distinguished from the Germanic people of the Franks, and historically formed their easternmost settlement area. The origins of Franconia lie in the settlement of the Franks from the 6th century in the area probably populated until then mainly by the Elbe Germanic people in the Main river area, known from the 9th century as East Francia (Francia Orientalis). In the Middle Ages the region formed much of the eastern part of the Duchy of Franconia and, from 1500, the Franconian Circle. The restructuring of the south German states by Napoleon, after the demise of the Holy Roman Empire, saw most of Franconia awarded to Bavaria.
The German name for Franconia, Franken, comes from the dative plural form of Franke, a member of the Germanic people known as the Franks. The name of the Franks in turn derives from a word meaning "daring, bold", cognate with old Norwegian frakkr, "quick, bold". Franks from the Middle and Lower Rhine gradually gained control of (and so gave their name to) what is now Franconia during the 6th to 8th centuries. English distinguishes between Franks (the early medieval Germanic people) and Franconians in reference to the high medieval stem duchy, following Middle Latin use of Francia for France vs. Franconia for the German duchy. In German the name Franken is equally used for both, while the French are called Franzosen, after Old French françois, from Latin franciscus, from Late Latin Francus, from Frank, the Germanic people.
The Franconian lands lie principally in Bavaria, north and south of the sinuous River Main which, together with the left (southern) Regnitz tributary, including its Rednitz and Pegnitz headstreams, drains most of Franconia. Other large rivers include the upper Werra in Thuringia and the Tauber, as well as the upper Jagst and Kocher streams in the west, both right tributaries of the Neckar. In southern Middle Franconia, the Altmühl flows towards the Danube; the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal crosses the European Watershed. The man-made Franconian Lake District has become a popular destination for day-trippers and tourists.
The landscape is characterized by numerous Mittelgebirge ranges of the German Central Uplands. The Western natural border of Franconia is formed by the Spessart and Rhön Mountains, separating it from the former Rhenish Franconian lands around Aschaffenburg (officially part of Lower Franconia), whose inhabitants speak Hessian dialects. To the north rise the Rennsteig ridge of the Thuringian Forest, the Thuringian Highland and the Franconian Forest, the border with the Upper Saxon lands of Thuringia. The Franconian lands include the present-day South Thuringian districts of Schmalkalden-Meiningen, Hildburghausen and Sonneberg, the historical Gau of Grabfeld, held by the House of Henneberg from the 11th century and later part of the Wettin duchy of Saxe-Meiningen.
In the east, the Fichtel Mountains lead to Vogtland, Bohemian Egerland (Chebsko) in the Czech Republic, and the Bavarian Upper Palatinate. The hills of the Franconian Jura in the south mark the border with the Upper Bavarian region (Altbayern), historical Swabia, and the Danube basin. The northern parts of the Upper Bavarian Eichstätt District, territory of the historical Bishopric of Eichstätt, are also counted as part of Franconia.
In the west, Franconia proper comprises the Tauber Franconia region along the Tauber river, which as of 2014 is largely part of the Main-Tauber-Kreis in Baden-Württemberg. The state's larger Heilbronn-Franken region also includes the adjacent Hohenlohe and Schwäbisch Hall districts. In the city of Heilbronn, beyond the Haller Ebene plateau, South Franconian dialects are spoken. Furthermore, in those easternmost parts of the Neckar-Odenwald-Kreis which had formerly belonged to the Bishopric of Würzburg, the inhabitants have preserved their Franconian identity. Franconian areas in East Hesse along Spessart and Rhön comprise Gersfeld and Ehrenberg.
The two largest cities of Franconia are Nuremberg and Fürth. Though located on the southeastern periphery of the area, the Nuremberg metropolitan area is often identified as the economic and cultural centre of Franconia. Further cities in Bavarian Franconia include Würzburg, Erlangen, Bayreuth, Bamberg, Aschaffenburg, Schweinfurt, Hof, Coburg, Ansbach and Schwabach. The major (East) Franconian towns in Baden-Württemberg are Schwäbisch Hall on the Kocher — the imperial city declared itself "Swabian" in 1442 — and Crailsheim on the Jagst river. The main towns in Thuringia are Suhl and Meiningen.
Franconia may be distinguished from the regions that surround it by its peculiar historical factors and its cultural and especially linguistic characteristics, but it is not a political entity with a fixed or tightly defined area. As a result, it is debated whether some areas belong to Franconia or not. Pointers to a more precise definition of Franconia's boundaries include: the territories covered by the former Duchy of Franconia and former Franconian Circle, the range of the East Franconian dialect group, the common culture and history of the region and the use of the Franconian Rake on coats of arms, flags and seals. However, a sense of popular consciousness of being Franconian is only detectable from the 19th century onwards, which is why the circumstances of the emergence of a Frankish identity are disputed. Franconia has many cultural peculiarities which have been adopted from other regions and further developed.
The following regions are counted as part of Franconia today: the Bavarian provinces of Lower Franconia, Upper Franconia and Middle Franconia, the municipality of Pyrbaum in the county of Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, the northwestern part of the Upper Bavarian county of Eichstätt (covering the same area as the old county of Alt-Eichstätt), the East Franconian counties of South Thuringia, parts of Fulda and the Odenwaldkreis in Hesse, the Baden-Württemberg regions of Tauber Franconia and Hohenlohe as well as the region around the Badenian Buchen.
In individual cases the membership of some areas is disputed. These include the Bavarian language area of Alt-Eichstätt and the Hessian-speaking region around Aschaffenburg, which was never part of the Franconian Imperial Circle. The affiliation of the city of Heilbronn, whose inhabitants do not call themselves Franks, is also controversial. Moreover, the sense of belonging to Franconia in the Frankish-speaking areas of Upper Palatinate, South Thuringia and Hesse is sometimes less marked.
The region of Franconia is divided among the states of Hesse, Thuringia, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. The largest part of Franconia, both by population and area, belongs to the Free State of Bavaria and is divided into the three administrative regions (Regierungsbezirke) of Middle Franconia (capital: Ansbach), Upper Franconia (capital: Bayreuth) and Lower Franconia (capital: Würzburg). The name of these regions, as in the case of Upper and Lower Bavaria, refers to their situation with respect to the river Main. Thus Upper Franconia lies on the upper reaches of the river, Lower Franconia on its lower reaches and Middle Franconia lies in between, although the Main itself does not flow through Middle Franconia. Where the boundaries of these three provinces meet (the 'tripoint') is the Dreifrankenstein ("Three Franconias Rock"). Small parts of Franconia also belong to the Bavarian regions of Upper Palatinate and Upper Bavaria.
The Franconian territories of Baden-Württemberg are the regions of Tauber Franconia and Hohenlohe (which belong to the Heilbronn-Franconia Region with its office in Heilbronn and form part of the Stuttgart Region) and the area around the Badenian Buchen in the Rhein-Neckar Region.
The Franconian parts of Thuringia (Henneberg Franconia) lie within the Southwest Thuringia Planning Region.
The Franconian regions in Hesse form the smaller parts of the districts of Fulda (Kassel region) and the Odenwaldkreis (Darmstadt region), or lie on the borders with Bavaria or Thuringia.
The two most important rivers of the region are the Main and its primary tributary, the Regnitz. The tributaries of these two rivers in Franconia are the Tauber, Pegnitz, Rednitz and Franconian Saale. Other major rivers in the region are the Jagst and Kocher in Hohenlohe-Franconia, which empty into the Neckar north of Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg, the Altmühl and the Wörnitz in Middle Franconia, both tributaries of the Danube, and the upper and middle reaches of the Werra, the right-hand headstream of the Weser. In the northeast of Upper Franconia rise two left-hand tributaries of the Elbe: the Saxon Saale and the Eger.
The Main-Danube Canal connects the Main and Danube across Franconia, running from Bamberg via Nuremberg to Kelheim. It thus complements the Rhine, Main and Danube, helping to ensure a continuous navigable waterway between the North Sea and the Black Sea. In Franconia, there are only a few, often very small, natural lakes. This is due to fact that most natural lakes in Germany are glacial or volcanic in origin, and Franconia escaped both influences in recent earth history. Among the largest waterbodies are reservoirs, which are mostly used as water reserves for the relatively dry landscapes of Franconia. These includes the waters of the Franconian Lake District, which was established in the 1970s and is also a tourist attraction. The heart of these lakes is the Großer Brombachsee, which has an area of 8.7 km and is thus the largest waterbody in Franconia by surface area.
Several Central Upland ranges dominate the Franconian countryside. In the southeast, Franconia is shielded from the rest of Bavaria by the Franconian Jura. In the east, the Fichtel Mountains form the border; in the north are Franconian Forest, the Thuringian Forest, the Rhön Mountains and the Spessart form a kind of natural barrier. To the west are the Franconian Heights and the Swabian-Franconian Forest. In the Franconian part of South Hesse is the Odenwald. Parts of the southern Thuringian Forest border on Franconia. The most important hill ranges in the interior of the region are the Steigerwald and the Franconian Jura with their sub-ranges of Hahnenkamm and Franconian Switzerland. The highest mountain in Franconia is the Schneeberg in the Fichtel Mountains which is 1,051 m above sea level (NHN). Other well-known mountains include the Ochsenkopf (1,024m), the Kreuzberg (927.8m) and the Hesselberg (689.4m). The outliers of the region include the Hesselberg and the Gleichberge. The lowest point in Franconia is the water level of the river Main in Kahl which lies at a height of 100 metres above sea level.
In addition to the hill and mountain ranges, there are also several very level areas, including the Middle Franconian Basin and the Hohenlohe Plain. In the south of Franconia are smaller parts of the flat Nördlinger Ries, one of the best preserved impact craters on earth.
Franconia's flora is dominated by deciduous and coniferous forests. Natural forests in Franconia occur mainly in the ranges of the Spessart, Franconian Forest, Odenwald and Steigerwald. The Nuremberg Reichswald is another great forest, located within the metropolitan region of Nuremberg. Other large areas of forest in the region are the Mönchswald, the Reichsforst in the Fichtel Mountains and the Selb Forest. In the river valleys along the Main and Tauber, the countryside was developed for viticulture. In Spessart there are great oak forests. Also widespread are calcareous grasslands, extensively used pastures on very oligotrophic, poor sites. In particular, the southern Franconian Jura, with the Altmühl Valley, is characterized by poor grassland of this type. Many of these places have been designated as a protected areas.
Franconia has several regions with sandy habitats that are unique for south Germany and are protected as the so-called Sand Belt of Franconia or Sandachse Franken. When the Altmühlsee reservoir was built, a bird island was created and designated as a nature reserve where a variety of birds nest. Another important reserve is the Black Moor in the Rhön, which is one of the most important bog areas in Central Europe. A well known reserve is the Luisenburg Rock Labyrinth at Wunsiedel, a felsenmeer of granite blocks up to several metres across. The establishment of the first Franconian national park in the Steigerwald caused controversy and its designation was rejected in July 2011 by the Bavarian government. The reason was the negative attitude of local population. Conservationists are now demanding protection for parts of the Steigerwald by nominating it for a World Heritage Site. There are several nature parks in Franconia, including the Altmühl Valley Nature Park, which, since 1969, has been one of the largest in Germany.
Other nature parks are the Swabian-Franconian Forest Nature Park in Baden-Württemberg, and the nature parks of Bavarian Rhön, Fichtel Mountains, Franconian Heights, Franconian Forest, Franconian Switzerland-Franconian Jura, Haßberge, Spessart and Steigerwald in Bavaria, as well as the Bergstraße-Odenwald Nature Park which straddles Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hesse. Nature parks cover almost half the area of Franconia.
In 1991 UNESCO recognised the Rhön as a biosphere reserve. Among the most picturesque geotopes in Bavaria, are the Franconian sites of Fossa Carolina, the Twelve Apostle Rocks (Zwölf-Apostel-Felsen), the Ehrenbürg, the cave ruins of Riesenburg and the lake of Frickenhäuser See. The European Bird Reserves in Franconia are found mainly in uplands like the Steigerwald, in large forests like Nuremberg's Imperial Forest or along rivers like the Altmühl. There are also numerous Special Areas of Conservation and protected landscapes. In Franconia there are very many tufas, raised stream beds near river sources within the karst landscape that are known as 'stone runnels' (Steinerne Rinnen). There are protected examples at Heidenheim and Wolfsbronn.
Like large parts of Germany, Franconia only has a few large species of wild animal. Forest dwellers include various species of marten, fallow deer, red deer, roe deer, wild boar and fox. In natural areas such as the Fichtel mountains there are populations of lynx and capercaillie, and beaver and otter have grown in numbers. There are occasional sightings of animals that had long been extinct in Central Europe, for example, the wolf.
Only in the extreme northeast of Franconia and in the Spessart are there Variscan outcrops of the crystalline basement, which were uplifted from below the surface when the Alps exerted a northwards-oriented pressure. These are rocks of pre-Permian vintage, which were folded during various stages of Variscan orogeny in the Late Palaeozoic - before about 380 to 300 million years ago - and, in places, were metamorphosed under high pressure and temperature or were crystallized by ascending magma in the Earth's crust. Rocks which were unchanged or only lightly metamorphosed, because they had been deformed at shallow crustal depths, include the Lower Carboniferous shale and greywacke of Franconian Forest. The Fichtel mountains, the Münchberg Plateau and the Spessart, by contrast, have more metamorphic rocks (phyllite, schist, amphibolite, gneiss). The Fichtel mountains are also characterized by large granite bodies, called post-kinematic plutons which, in the late phase of Variscan orogeny, intruded into the metamorphic rocks. In most cases these are S-type granites whose melting was caused by heated-up sedimentary rocks sunk deep into the Earth's crust. While the Fichtel and Franconian Forest can be assigned to the Saxo-Thuringian Zone of Central European Variscan orogeny, the Spessart belongs to the Central German Crystalline Zone. The Münchberg mass is variously attributed to the Saxo-Thuringian or Moldanubian Zones.
A substantially larger part of the shallow subsurface in Franconia comprises Mesozoic, unmetamorphosed, unfolded rocks of the South German Scarplands. The regional geological element of the South German Scarplands is the Franconian Platform (Süddeutsche Großscholle). At the so-called Franconian Line, a significant fault line, the Saxo-Thuringian-Moldanubian basement was uplifted in places up to 2000 m above the Franconian Platform. The western two-thirds of Franconia is dominated by the Triassic with its sandstones, siltstones and claystones (so-called siliciclastics) of the bunter sandstone; the limestones and marls of the Muschelkalk and the mixed, but predominantly siliciclastic, sedimentary rocks of the Keuper. In the Rhön, the Triassic rocks are overlain and intruded by volcanic rock (basalts, basanites, phonolites and trachytes) of the Tertiary. The eastern third of Franconia is dominated by the Jurassic rocks of the Franconian Jura, with the dark shales of the Black Jura, the shales and ferruginous sandstones of the Brown Jura and, the weathering-resistant limestones and dolomitic rocks of the White Jura, which stand out from the landscape and form the actual ridge of the Franconian Jura itself. In the Jura, mostly siliciclastic sedimentary rocks formed in the Cretaceous have survived.
The Mesozoic sediments have been deposited in largescale basin areas. During the Triassic, the Franconian part of these depressions was often part of the mainland, in the Jurassic it was covered for most of the time by a marginal sea of the western Tethys Ocean. At the time when the limestones and dolomites of the White Jura were being deposited, this sea was divided into sponge reefs and intervening lagoons. The reef bodies and the fine-grained lagoon limestones and marls are the material from which the majority of the Franconian Jura is composed today. Following a drop in the sea level towards the end of the Upper Jurassic, larger areas also became part of the mainland at the beginning of the subsequent Cretaceous period. During the Upper Cretaceous, the sea advanced again up to the area of the Franconian Jura. At the end of the Cretaceous, the sea then retreated again from the region. In addition, large parts of South and Central Germany experienced a general uplift -or in areas where the basement had broken through a substantial uplift - the course of formation of the Alps during the Tertiary. Since then, Franconia has been mainly influenced by erosion and weathering (especially in the Jura in the form of karst), which has ultimately led to formation of today's landscapes.
The oldest macrofossils in Franconia, which are also the oldest in Bavaria, are archaeocyatha, sponge-like, goblet-shaped marine organisms, which were discovered in 2013 in a limestone block of Late Lower Cambrian age, about 520 million years old. The block comes from the vicinity Schwarzenbach am Wald from the so-called Heinersreuth Block Conglomerate (Heinersreuther Blockkonglomerat), a Lower Carboniferous wildflysch. However, the aforementioned archaeocyathids are not three-dimensional fossils, but two-dimensional thin sections. These thin sections had already been prepared and investigated in the 1970s but the archaeocyathids among them were apparently overlooked at that time.
Better known and more highly respected fossil finds in Franconia come from the unfolded sedimentary rocks of the Triassic and Jurassic. The bunter sandstone, however, only has a relatively small number of preserved whole fossils. Much more commonly, it contains trace fossils, especially the tetrapod footprints of Chirotherium. The type locality for these animal tracks is Hildburghausen in the Thuringian part of Franconia, where it occurs in the so-called Thuringian Chirotherium Sandstone (Thüringer Chirotheriensandstein, main Middle Bunter Sandstone). Chirotherium is also found in the Bavarian and Württemberg parts of Franconia. Sites include Aura near Bad Kissingen, Karbach, Gambach and Külsheim. There the deposits are somewhat younger (Upper Bunter Sandstone), and the corresponding stratigraphic interval is called the Franconian Chirotherium Beds (Fränkische Chirotherienschichten). Among the less significant body fossil records of vertebrates are the procolophonid Anomoiodon liliensterni from Reurieth in the Thuringian part of Franconia and Koiloskiosaurus coburgiensis from Mittelberg near Coburg, both from the Thuringian Chirotherium Sandstone, and the Temnospondyle Mastodonsaurus ingens (possibly identical with the mastodonsaurus, Heptasaurus cappelensis) from the Upper Bunter at Gambach.
As early as the first decade of the 19th century George, Count of Münster began systematic fossil gathering and digs and in the Upper Muschelkalk at Bayreuth. For example, the Oschenberg hill near Laineck became the type locality of two relatively well-known marine reptiles of the Triassic period, later found in other parts of Central Europe: the "flat tooth lizard", Placodus and the "false lizard", Nothosaurus.
In Franconia's middle Keuper (the Feuerletten) is one of the best known and most common species of dinosaurs of Central Europe: Plateosaurus engelhardti, an early representative of the sauropodomorpha. Its type locality is located at Heroldsberg south of Nuremberg. When the remains of Plateosaurus were first discovered there in 1834, it was the first discovery of a dinosaur on German soil, and this occurred even before the name "dinosauria" was coined. Another important Plateosaurus find in Franconia was made at Ellingen.
Far more famous than Plateosaurus, Placodus and Nothosaurus is the Archaeopteryx, probably the first bird geologically. It was discovered in the southern Franconian Jura, inter alia at the famous fossil site of Solnhofen in the Solnhofen Platform Limestone (Solnhofener Plattenkalk, (Solnhofen-Formation, early Tithonian, Upper Jurassic). In addition to Archaeopteryx, in the very fine-grained, laminated lagoon limestones are the pterosaur Pterodactylus and various bony fishes as well as numerous extremely detailed examples of invertebrates e.g. feather stars and dragonflies. Eichstätt is the other "big" and similarly famous fossil locality in the Solnhofen Formation, situated on the southern edge of the Jura in Upper Bavaria. Here, as well as Archaeopteryx, the theropod dinosaurs, Compsognathus and Juravenator, were found.
An inglorious episode in the history of paleontology took place in Franconia: fake fossils, known as Beringer's Lying Stones, were acquired in the 1720s by Würzburg doctor and naturalist, Johann Beringer, for a lot of money and then described in a monograph, along with genuine fossils from the Würzburg area. However, it is not entirely clear whether the Beringer forgeries were actually planted or whether he himself was responsible for the fraud.
Franconia has a humid cool temperate transitional climate, which is neither very continental nor very maritime. The average monthly temperatures vary depending on the area between about -1 to -2 °C in January and 17 to 19 °C in August, but may reach a peak of about 35 °C for a few days in the summer, especially in the large cities. The climate of Franconia is sunny and relatively warm. For part of the summer, for example, Lower Franconia is one of the sunniest areas in Germany. Daily temperatures in the Bavarian part of Franconia are an average of 0.1 °C higher than the average for Bavaria as a whole. Relatively less rain falls in Franconia, and likewise in the rest of North Bavaria rain than is usual for its geographic location; even summer storms are often less powerful than in other areas of South Germany. In southern Bavaria about 2,000 mm of precipitation falls annually and almost three times as much as in parts of Franconia (about 500–900 mm) in the rain shadow of the Spessart, Rhön and Odenwald.
Franconia, as part of Germany, has a high quality of life. In the Worldwide Quality of Living Survey by Mercer in 2010, the city of Nuremberg was one of the top 25 cities in the world in terms of quality of life and came sixth in Germany. In environmental ranking Nuremberg came thirteenth in the world and was the best German city In a survey by the German magazine, Focus, on quality of life in 2014, the districts of Eichstätt and Fürth were among the top positions in the table. In the Glücksatlas by Deutsche Post Franconia achieved some of the highest scores, but the region slipped in 2013 to 13th place out of 19.
Franconia is named after the Franks, a Germanic tribe who conquered most of Western Europe by the middle of the 8th century. Despite its name, Franconia is not the homeland of the Franks, but rather owes its name to being partially settled by Franks from the Rhineland during the 7th century following the defeat of the Alamanni and Thuringians who had dominated the region earlier.
At the beginning of the 10th century a Duchy of Franconia (German: Herzogtum Franken) was established within East Francia, which comprised modern Hesse, Palatinate, parts of Baden-Württemberg and most of today's Franconia. After the dissolution of the so-called Stem duchy of Franconia, the Holy Roman Emperors created the Franconian Circle (German Fränkischer Reichskreis) in 1500 to embrace the principalities that grew out of the eastern half of the former duchy. The territory of the Franconian Circle roughly corresponds with modern Franconia. The title of Duke of Franconia was claimed by the Würzburg bishops until 1803 and by the kings of Bavaria until 1918. Examples of Franconian cities founded by Frankish noblemen are Würzburg, first mentioned in the 7th century, Ansbach, first mentioned in 748, and Weissenburg, founded in the 7th century.
Fossil finds show that the region was already settled by primitive man, Homo erectus, in the middle Ice Age about 600,000 years ago. Probably the oldest human remains in the Bavarian part of Franconia were found in the cave ruins of Hunas at Pommelsbrunn in the county of Nuremberg Land. In the late Bronze Age, the region was probably only sparsely inhabited, as few noble metals occur here and the soils are only moderately fertile. In the subsequent Iron Age (from about 800 B.C.) the Celts become the first nation to be discernible in the region. In northern Franconia they built a chain of hill forts as a line of defence against the Germani advancing from the north. On the Staffelberg they built a powerful settlement, to which Ptolemy gave the name oppidum Menosgada, and on the Gleichberge is the largest surviving oppidum in Central Germany, the Steinsburg. With the increased expansion of Rome in the first century B.C. and the simultaneous advance of the Elbe Germanic tribes from the north, the Celtic culture began to fall into decline. The southern parts of present-day Franconia soon fell under Roman control; however, most of the region remained in Free Germania. Initially, Rome tried to extend its direct influence far to the northeast; in the longer term, however, the Germanic-Roman frontier formed further southwest.
Under the emperors, Domitian (81-96), Trajan (98-117) and Hadrian (117-138), the Rhaetian Limes was built as a border facing the Germanic tribes to the north. This defensive line ran through the south of Franconia and described an arc across the region whose northernmost point lay at present-day Gunzenhausen. To protect it, the Romans built several forts like Biriciana at Weißenburg, but by the mid-third century, the border could no longer be maintained and by 250 A.D. the Alemanni occupied the areas up to the Danube. Fortified settlements such as the Gelbe Bürg at Dittenheim controlled the new areas. More such Gau forts have been detected north of the former Limes as well. Which tribe their occupants belonged to is unknown in most cases. However, it is likely that it was mainly Alemanni and Juthungi, especially in the south.
By contrast, it was the Burgundians who settled on the Lower and Middle Main. Many of these hill forts appear to have been destroyed, however, no later than 500 A.D. The reasons are not entirely clear, but it could have been as a result of invasions by the Huns which thus triggered the Great Migration. In many cases, however, it was probably conquest by the Franks that spelt the end of these hilltop settlements.
With their victories over the heartlands of the Alamanni and Thuringians in the 6th century, the present region of Franconia also fell to the Franks. After the division of the Frankish Empire, East Francia (Francia orientialis) was formed from the territories of the dioceses of Mainz, Worms, Würzburg and Speyer. Later, the diocese of Bamberg was added. In the 7th century, the Slavs started to populate the northeastern parts of the region from the east, because the area of today's Upper Franconia was very sparsely populated (Bavaria Slavica). However, in the 10th and 11th centuries, they largely gave up their own language and cultural tradition. The majority of the population of Franconia was pagan well into the Early Middle Ages, The first people to spread the Christian faith strongly were wandering Irish Anglo-Saxon monks in the early 7th century. Saint Kilian, who together with his companions, Saint Colman and Saint Totnan are considered to be the apostles to the Franks, suffering martyrdom in Würzburg in the late 7th century, probably did not encounter any pagans in the ducal court. It was probably Saint Boniface who carried the Christian mission deep into the heart of the ordinary population of Franconia.
In the mid-9th century the tribal Duchy of Franconia emerged, one of the five tribal or stem duchies of East Francia. The territory of the stem duchy was far bigger than modern Franconia and covered the whole of present-day Hesse, northern Baden-Württemberg, southern Thuringia, large parts of Rhineland-Palatinate and parts of the Franconian provinces in Bavaria. It extended as far west as Speyer, Mainz, and Worms (west of the Rhine) and even included Frankfurt ("ford of the Franks"). In the early 10th century, the Babenbergs and Conradines fought for power in Franconia. Ultimately this discord led to the Babenberg Feud which was fuelled and controlled by the crown. The outcome of this feud meant the loss of power for the Babenbergs, but indirectly resulted in the Conradines winning the crown of East Francia. Sometime around 906, Conrad succeeded in establishing his ducal hegemony over Franconia, but when the direct Carolingian male line failed in 911, Conrad was acclaimed King of the Germans, largely because of his weak position in his own duchy. Franconia, like Alamannia was fairly fragmented and the duke's position was often disputed between the chief families. Conrad had granted Franconia to his brother Eberhard on his succession, but when Eberhard rebelled against Otto I in 938, he was deposed from his duchy, which disintegrated in 939 on Eberhard's death into West or Rhenish Franconia (Francia Rhenensis), and East Franconia (Francia Orientalis) and was directly subordinated to the Reich. Only after that was the former Francia Orientalis considered to be under the sphere of the bishops of Würzburg as the true Franconia, its territory gradually shrinking to its present area.
Meanwhile, the inhabitants of parts of present-day Upper and Middle Franconia, who were not under the control of Würzburg, probably also considered themselves to be Franks at that time, and certainly their dialect distinguished them from the inhabitants of Bavaria and Swabia.
Unlike the other stem duchies, Franconia became the homeland and power base of East Frankish and German kings after the Ottonians died out in 1024. As a result, in the High Middle Ages, the region did not become a strong regional force such as those which formed in Saxony, Bavaria and Swabia. In 1007, the later canonized Henry II founded the Bishopric of Bamberg and endowed it with rich estates. Bamberg became a favoured Pfalz and an important centre of the Empire. Because parts of the Bishopric of Würzburg also fell to Bamberg, Würzburg was enfeoffed several royal estates by King Henry II by way of compensation.
From the 12th century Nuremberg Castle was the seat of the Burgraviate of Nuremberg. The burgraviate was ruled from about 1190 by the Zollerns, the Franconian line of the later House of Hohenzollern, which provided the German emperors of the 19th and 20th century. Under the Hohenstaufen kings, Conrad III and Frederick Barbarossa, Franconia became the centre of power in the Empire. During the time when there was no emperor, the Interregnum (1254–1273), some territorial princes became ever more powerful. After the Interregnum, however, the rulers succeeded in re-establishing a stronger royal lordship in Franconia. Franconia soon played an important role again for the monarchy at the time of Rudolf of Habsburg; the itineraries of his successors showing their preference for the Rhine-Main region. In 1376 the Swabian League of Cities was founded and was joined later by several Franconian imperial cities. During the 13th century the Teutonic Order was formed, taking over its first possession in Franconia in 1209, the Bailiwick of Franconia. The foundation of many schools and hospitals and the construction of numerous churches and castles in this area goes back to the work of this Roman Catholic military order. The residence place of the bailiwick was at Ellingen until 1789 when it was transferred to today's Bad Mergentheim. Other orders such as the Knights Templar could not gain a foothold in Franconia; the Order of St. John worked in the Bishopric of Würzburg and had short term commands.
As of the 13th century, the following states, among others, had formed in the territory of the former Duchy:
On 2 July 1500 during the reign of Emperor Maximilian I, as part of the Imperial Reform Movement, the Empire was divided into Imperial Circles. This led in 1512 to the formation of the Franconian Circle. Seen from a modern perspective, the Franconian Circle may be viewed as an important basis for the sense of a common Franconian identity that exists today. The Franconian Circle also shaped the geographical limits of the present-day Franconia. In the late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, the Imperial Circle was severely affected by Kleinstaaterei, the patchwork of tiny states in this region of Germany. As during the late Middle Ages, the bishops of Würzburg used the nominal title of Duke of Franconia during the time of the Imperial Circle. In 1559, the Franconian Circle was given jurisdiction over coinage (Münzaufsicht) and, in 1572, was the only Circle to issue its own police ordinance.
Members of the Franconian Circle included the imperial cities, the prince-bishoprics, the Bailiwick of Franconia of the Teutonic Order and several counties. The Imperial Knights with their tiny territories, of which there was a particularly large number in Franconia, were outside the Circle assembly and, until 1806, formed the Franconian Knights Circle (Fränkischer Ritterkreis) consisting of six Knights' Cantons. Because the extent of Franconia, already referred to above, is disputed, there were many areas that might be counted as part of Franconia today, that lay outside the Franconian Circle. For example, the area of Aschaffenburg belonged to Electoral Mainz and was a part of the Electoral Rhenish Circle, the area of Coburg belonged to the Upper Saxon Circle and the Heilbronn area to the Swabian Circle. In the 16th century, the College of Franconian Counts was founded to represent the interests of the counts in Franconia.
Franconia played an important role in the spread of the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther, Nuremberg being one of the places where the Luther Bible was printed. The majority of other Franconian imperial cities and imperial knights embraced the new confession. In the course of the counter-reformation several regions of Franconia returned to Catholicism, however, and there was also an increase in witch trials. In addition to Lutheranism, the radical reformatory baptist movement spread early on across the Franconian area. Important Baptist centres were Königsberg and Nuremberg.
In 1525, the burden of heavy taxation and socage combined with new, liberal ideas that chimed with the Reformation movement, unleashed the German Peasants' War. The Würzburg area was particularly hard hit with numerous castles and monasteries being burned down. In the end, however, the uprisings were suppressed and for centuries the lowest strata of society were excluded from all political activity.
From 1552, Margrave Albert Alcibiades attempted to break the supremacy of the mighty imperial city of Nuremberg and to secularise the ecclesial estates in the Second Margrave War, to create a duchy over which he would rule. Large areas of Franconia were eventually devastated in the fighting until King Ferdinand I together with several dukes and princes decided to overthrow Albert.
In 1608, the reformed princes merged into a so-called Union within the Empire. In Franconia, the margraves of Ansbach and Bayreuth as well as the imperial cities were part of this alliance. The Catholic side responded in 1609 with a counter-alliance, the League. The conflicts between the two camps ultimately resulted in the Thirty Years' War, which was the greatest strain on the cohesion of the Franconian Circle Initially, Franconia was not a theatre of war, although marauding armies repeatedly crossed its territory. However, in 1631, Swedish troops under Gustavus Adolphus advanced into Franconia and established a large encampment in summer 1632 around Nuremberg. However, the Swedes lost the Battle of the Alte Veste against Wallenstein's troops and eventually withdrew. Franconia was one of the poorest regions in the Empire and lost its imperial political significance. During the course of the war, about half the local population lost their lives. To compensate for these losses about 150,000 displaced Protestants settled in Protestant areas, including Austrian exiles.
Franconia never developed into a unified territorial state, because the patchwork quilt of small states (Kleinstaaterei) survived the Middle Ages and lasted until the 18th century. As a result, the Franconian Circle had the important task of preserving peace, preventing abuses and to repairing war damage and had a regulatory role in the region until the end of the Holy Roman Empire. Until the War of the Spanish Succession, the Circle had become an almost independent organization and joined the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV as an almost sovereign state. The Circle also developed early forms of a welfare state. It also played a major role in the control of disease during the 16th and 17th centuries. After Charles Alexander abdicated in 1792, the former margraviates of Ansbach and Bayreuth were annexed by Prussia. Karl August Freiherr von Hardenberg was appointed as governor of these areas by Prussia.
Most of modern-day Franconia became part of Bavaria in 1803 thanks to Bavaria's alliance with Napoleon. Culturally it is in many ways different from Bavaria proper ("Altbayern", Old Bavaria), however. The ancient name was resurrected in 1837 by Ludwig I of Bavaria. During the Nazi period, Bavaria was broken up into several different Gaue, including Franconia and Main-Franconia.
In 1803, what was to become the Kingdom of Bavaria was given large parts of Franconia through the enactment of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss under pressure from Napoleon for secularization and mediatisation. In 1806, the Act of Confederation led to stronger ties between Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and other areas with France, whereupon the Holy Roman Empire including the Franconian Circle fell apart. As a reward Bavaria was promised other estates, including the city of Nuremberg. In the so-called Rittersturm of 1803, Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden seized the territories of the Imperial Knights and Franconian nobility, whose estates were often no bigger than a few parishes, even though the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss had not authorised this. In 1806 and 1810, Prussia had to release the territories of Ansbach and Bayreuth, which it had annexed in 1792, to Bavaria, whereby Prussia lost its supremacy in the region.
In 1814, as a result of the Congress of Vienna, the territories of the Principality of Aschaffenburg and Grand Duchy of Würzburg went to the Kingdom of Bavaria. In order to merge the patchwork quilt of small states in Franconia and Swabia into a greater Bavaria, Maximilian Joseph Montgelas reformed the political structure. Out of this in January 1838 emerged the Franconian provinces with their present names of Middle, Upper and Lower Franconia. Considerable resentment arose in parts of the Franconian territories over their new membership of Bavaria. There were liberal demands for republican structures which erupted in the revolts of 1848 and 1849 and the Gaibach Festival in 1832. On the one hand the reconciliation policy of the Wittelsbachs and Montgelas' aforementioned policy of unification, and, on the other hand, the inclusion of Bavaria in the German Empire in 1871, which weakened her power Bavaria slightly, the conflict between Franconia and Bavaria eased considerably.
From 1836 to 1846, the Kingdom of Bavaria built the Ludwig Canal from Bamberg to Kelheim, which was only abandoned in 1950. However, the canal lost much of its importance shortly after the arrival of the railways. Between 1843 and 1854, the Ludwig South-North Railway was established within Franconia, which ran from Lindau on Lake Constance via Nuremberg, Bamberg and Kulmbach to Hof. The first locomotive to run on German soil steamed 1835 from Nuremberg to Fürth on 7 December 1835.
After the First World War the monarchy in Bavaria was abolished, but the state could not agree on a compromise between a Soviet system and parliamentarianism. This caused fighting between the opposing camps and the then prime minister was shot. As a result, the government fled to Bamberg in 1919, where the Bamberg Constitution was adopted while, in Munich, the Bavarian Soviet Republic reigned briefly. In 1919 the Free State of Coburg voted in a referendum against joining Thuringia and was instead united with Bavaria on 1 July 1920.
During the Nazi era Nuremberg played a prominent role in the self-expression of the National Socialists as the permanent seat of the Nazi Party. Gunzenhausen made its mark as one of the first towns in the Reich itself to exercise discrimination against the Jewish population. The first Hitler Monument in Germany was established there in April 1933. On 25 March 1934 the first anti-Jewish pogrom in Bavaria took place in Gunzenhausen. The attack brought the town negative press coverage worldwide. On 15 September, a Reichstag was specially convened in Nuremberg for the purpose of passing the Nuremberg Laws, under which the antisemitic ideology of the Nazis became a legal basis for such actions.
Like all parts of the German Reich, Franconia was badly affected by Allied air raids. Nuremberg, as a major industrial centre and transportation hub, was hit particularly hard. Between 1940 and 1945 the city was the target of dozens of air raids. Many other places were also affected by air raids. For example, the air raid on 4 December 1944 on Heilbronn and the bombing of Würzburg on 16 March 1945, in which both old towns were almost completely destroyed, was a disaster for both cities. By contrast, the old town of Bamberg was almost completely spared. In order to protect cultural artefacts, the historic art bunker was built below Nuremberg Castle. In the closing stages of the Second World War, at the end of March and April 1945, Franconian towns and cities were captured by formations of the US Army who advanced from the west after the failure of the Battle of the Bulge and Operation Nordwind. The Battle of Nuremberg lasted five days and resulted in at least 901 deaths. The Battle of Crailsheim lasted 16 days, the Battle of Würzburg seven and the Battle of Merkendorf three days.
Following the unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945, Bavarian Franconia became part of the American zone of occupation; whilst South Thuringia, with the exception of smaller enclaves like Ostheim, became part of the Soviet zone and the Franconian parts of today's Baden-Württemberg also went to the American zone The most important part of the Allied prosecution programme against leaders of the Nazi regime were the Nuremberg Trials against leaders of the German Empire during the Nazi era, held from 20 November 1945 to 14 April 1949. The Nuremberg Trials are considered a breakthrough for the principle that, for a core set of crimes, there is no immunity from prosecution. For the first time, the representatives of a sovereign state were held accountable for their actions. In autumn 1946, the Free State of Bavaria was reconstituted with the enactment of the Bavarian Constitution.
The state of Württemberg-Baden was founded on 19 September 1945. On 25 April 1952 this state merged with Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern (both from the former French occupation zone) to create the present state of Baden-Württemberg. On 1 December 1945 the state of Hesse was founded. Beginning in 1945, refugees and displaced persons from Eastern Europe were settled particularly in rural areas. After 1945, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg managed the transition from economies that were predominantly agriculture to become leading industrial states in the so-called Wirtschaftswunder. In Lower and Upper Franconia, there was still the problem, however, of the zone along the Inner German Border which was a long way from the markets for its agricultural produce, and was affected by migration and relatively high unemployment, which is why these areas received special support from federal and state governments.
By contrast, the state of Thuringia was restored by the Soviets in 1945. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republic, commonly known as East Germany, was founded. In 1952 in the course of the 1952 administrative reform in East Germany, the state of Thuringia was relieved of its function. The Soviet occupying forces exacted a high level of reparations (especially the dismantling of industrial facilities) which made the initial economic conditions in East Germany very difficult. Along with the failed economic policies of the GDR, this led to a general frustration that fuelled the uprising of 17 June. There were protests in the Franconian territories too, for example in Schmalkalden. The village of Mödlareuth became famous because, for 41 years, it was divided by the Inner German Border and was nicknamed 'Little Berlin. After Die Wende, the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 and reunification on 3 October 1990, made possible mainly by mass demonstrations in East Germany and local exodus of East Germans, the state of Thuringia was reformed with effect from 14 October 1990.
In the years from 1971 to 1980 an administrative reform was carried out in Bavaria with the aim of creating more efficient municipalities (Gemeinden) and counties (Landkreise). Against sometimes great protests by the population, the number of municipalities was reduced by a third and the number of counties by about a half. Among the changes was the transfer of the Middle Franconian county of Eichstätt to Upper Bavaria. On 18 May 2006, the Bavarian Landtag approved the introduction of Franconia Day (Tag der Franken) in the Franconian territories of the free state.
Since Die Wende, new markets have opened up for the Franconian region of Bavaria in the new (formerly East German) federal states and the Czech Republic, enabling the economy to recover. Today, Franconia is in the centre of the EU (at Oberwestern near Westerngrund; geographical centre of the EU 50°07′02″N 9°14′52″E / 50.117286°N 9.247768°E / 50.117286; 9.247768).
While Old Bavaria is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, Franconia is a mixed area. Lower Franconia and the western half of Upper Franconia (Bamberg, Lichtenfels, Kronach) is predominantly Catholic, while most of Middle and the eastern half of Upper Franconia (Bayreuth, Hof, Kulmbach) are predominantly Protestant (Protestant Church in Germany).
The city of Fürth in Middle Franconia historically (before the Nazi era) had a large Jewish population; Henry Kissinger was born there.
A large part of the population of Franconia, which has a population of five million, consider themselves Franconians (Franken, in German homonymous with the name of the historical Franks), a sub-ethnic group of the German people alongside Alemanni, Swabians, Bavarians, Thuringians and Saxons. Such an ethnic identity is generally not shared by other parts of the Franconian-speaking area (members of which may identify as Rhine Franconians (Rheinfranken) or Moselle Franconians (Moselfranken).
The Free State of Bavaria counts Franconians as one of the "four tribes of Bavaria" (vier Stämme Bayerns), alongside Bavarians, Swabians and Sudeten Germans.
With the exception of Schwäbisch Hall, all cities in Franconia and all towns with a population of over 40,000 are within the Free State of Bavaria. By far the largest city in Franconia is Nuremberg with more than 500,000 inhabitants. The other three major cities are Fürth, Würzburg and Erlangen. In Middle Franconia, in the metropolitan region of Nuremberg there is a densely populated urban area consisting of Nuremberg, Fürth, Erlangen and Schwabach with arround 1.4 million inhabitants. Nuremberg is the fourteenth largest city in Germany and the second largest in Bavaria.
The largest settlements in Baden-Württemberg's Franconian region are Schwäbisch Hall (41,898 pop.) and Crailsheim (35,760) Öhringen (25,388) and Bad Mergentheim (24,564) The largest places in the Thuringian part are Suhl (37,009), Meiningen (25,177) and Sonneberg (23,507).
The largest place in the Hessian part of Franconia is Gersfeld with just 5,516 inhabitants. The largest cities within Bavaria are Nuremberg (523,026), Fürth (131,433), Würzburg (127,810) and Erlangen (116,562).
In the Middle Ages Franconia, with its numerous towns, was separate and not part of other territories such as the Duchy of Bavaria. In the late medieval period it was dominated by mainly smaller towns with a few hundred to a thousand inhabitants, whose size barely distinguished them from the villages. Many towns grew up along large rivers or were founded by the prince-bishops and nobility. Even the Hohenstaufens operated in many towns, most of which later became Imperial Cities with a strong orientation towards Nuremberg. The smallest town in Franconia is Thuringia's Ummerstadt with 457 inhabitants.
German is the official language and also the lingua franca. Numerous other languages are spoken that come from other language regions or the native countries of immigrants.
East Franconian German, the dialect spoken in Franconia, is entirely different from the Austro-Bavarian dialect continuum which is mainly to be found in the Upper Palatinate, Upper and Lower Bavaria, the greater part of Austria and some parts of Northern Italy. This is one of the reasons why hardly any Franconian would call himself a Bavarian. Even though there is no Franconian state, red and white are regarded as the state colours (Landesfarben) of Franconia (compared to blue and white for Bavaria).
The proportion of Roman Catholics and Protestants among the population of Franconia is roughly the same, but varies from region to region. Large areas of Middle and Upper Franconia are mainly Protestant.
The denominational orientation today still reflects the territorial structure of Franconia at the time of the Franconian Circle. For example, regions, that used to be under the care of the bishoprics of Bamberg, Würzburg and Eichstätt, are mainly Catholic today. On the other hand, all former territories of the imperial cities and the margraviates of Ansbach and Bayreuth have remained mainly Lutheran. The region around the city of Erlangen, which belonged to the Margraviate of Bayreuth, was a refuge for the Huguenots who fled there after the St Bartholomew's Day massacre in France.
Following the success of the Reformation in Nuremberg under Andreas Osiander, it had been an exclusively Protestant imperial city and belonged to the Protestant league of imperial states, the Corpus Evangelicorum, within the Reichstag. Subsequent historical events such as the stream of refugees after the Second World War and the increasing mobility of the population has since blurred denominational geographical boundaries, however.
The influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe has also seen the establishment of an Orthodox community in Franconia. The Romanian Orthodox Metropolis of Germany, Central and Northern Europe has its headquarters in Nuremberg.
Before the Nazi era Franconia was a region with significant Jewish communities, most of whom were Ashkenazi Jews. The first Jewish communities appeared in Franconia in the 12th and 13th centuries and thus later than, for example, in Regensburg. In the Middle Ages, Franconia was a stronghold of Torah studies. But Franconia also began to exclude the Jewish populations particularly early on. For example, there were two Jewish massacres - the Rintfleisch massacres of 1298 and the Armleder Uprising of 1336-1338 - and in the 15th and 16th centuries many cities exiled their Jewish populations, which is why many Jews settled in rural communities. Franconia also rose to early prominence in the discrimination of Jews during the Nazi era. One of the first casualties of the organized Nazi persecution of Jews took place on 21 March in Künzelsau and on 25/26 March 1933 in Creglingen, where police and SA troops under the leadership of Standartenführer Fritz Klein led so-called "weapons search operations".
In 1818, about 65% of Bavarian Jews lived in the Bavarian part of Franconia, today there are Jewish communities only in Bamberg, Bayreuth, Erlangen, Fürth, Hof, Nuremberg and Würzburg and in Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg.
Adherents of Islam continue to grow, especially in the larger cities, due to the influx of gastarbeiters and other immigrants from Muslim countries. As a result, many "backyard mosques" (Hinterhofmoscheen) have sprung up, which are gradually being replaced by purpose-built mosques.
Franconia has almost 300 small breweries.
The northwestern parts, the areas around the river Main called Franconian wine region also produce a lot of wine. Food typical for the region includes Bratwurst (especially the famous small Nuremberger Bratwurst), Schäuferla (roast pork shoulder), Sauerbraten, dumplings, potato salad (typically made with broth), fried carp, Grupfder (seasoned cheese spread), Presssack (a type of Head cheese: pressed or jellied pork trimmings, like tongue, cheeks, etc.). Lebkuchen are a traditional type of gingerbread, and Küchla is a sort of sweet fried pastry.
The tourism industry stresses the romantic character of Franconia, including the picturesque countryside and many historic buildings. Franconian wine, the rich tradition of beer brewing and local culinary specialties, such as Lebküchnerei or gingerbread baking, are also a draw. The Romantic Road links several tourist points in western Franconia. The Castle Road runs through the Franconian region with its numerous castles and other medieval structures.
Cycling along the large rivers is very popular, for example along the Main Cycleway, the first German long distance cycleway to be awarded five stars by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad-Club (ADFC). The Tauber Valley Cycleway, a 101 kilometre-long cycle trail in Tauber Franconia, was the second German long distance cycleway to receive five stars.
49°48′58″N 10°51′54″E / 49.816°N 10.865°E / 49.816; 10.865
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Franconia (German: Franken, pronounced [ˈfʁaŋkŋ̍] ; Franconian: Franggn [ˈfrɑŋɡŋ̍]; Bavarian: Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: Fränkisch).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Franconia is made up of the three Regierungsbezirke of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia in Bavaria, the adjacent, Franconian-speaking, South Thuringia, south of the Thuringian Forest—which constitutes the language boundary between Franconian and Thuringian— and the eastern parts of Heilbronn-Franconia in Baden-Württemberg.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Those parts of the Vogtland lying in Saxony (largest city: Plauen) are sometimes regarded as Franconian as well, because the Vogtlandian dialects are mostly East Franconian. The inhabitants of Saxon Vogtland, however, mostly do not consider themselves as Franconian. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the Hessian-speaking parts of Lower Franconia west of the Spessart (largest city: Aschaffenburg) do consider themselves as Franconian, although not speaking the dialect. Heilbronn-Franconia's largest city of Heilbronn and its surrounding areas are South Franconian-speaking, and therefore only sometimes regarded as Franconian. In Hesse, the east of the Fulda District is Franconian-speaking, and parts of the Oden Forest District are sometimes regarded as Franconian for historical reasons, but a Franconian identity did not develop there.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Franconia's largest city and unofficial capital is Nuremberg, which is contiguous with Erlangen and Fürth, with which it forms the Franconian conurbation with around 1.3 million inhabitants. Other important Franconian cities are Würzburg, Bamberg, Bayreuth, Ansbach and Coburg in Bavaria, Suhl and Meiningen in Thuringia, and Schwäbisch Hall in Baden-Württemberg.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The German word Franken—Franconians—also refers to the ethnic group, which is mainly to be found in this region. They are to be distinguished from the Germanic people of the Franks, and historically formed their easternmost settlement area. The origins of Franconia lie in the settlement of the Franks from the 6th century in the area probably populated until then mainly by the Elbe Germanic people in the Main river area, known from the 9th century as East Francia (Francia Orientalis). In the Middle Ages the region formed much of the eastern part of the Duchy of Franconia and, from 1500, the Franconian Circle. The restructuring of the south German states by Napoleon, after the demise of the Holy Roman Empire, saw most of Franconia awarded to Bavaria.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The German name for Franconia, Franken, comes from the dative plural form of Franke, a member of the Germanic people known as the Franks. The name of the Franks in turn derives from a word meaning \"daring, bold\", cognate with old Norwegian frakkr, \"quick, bold\". Franks from the Middle and Lower Rhine gradually gained control of (and so gave their name to) what is now Franconia during the 6th to 8th centuries. English distinguishes between Franks (the early medieval Germanic people) and Franconians in reference to the high medieval stem duchy, following Middle Latin use of Francia for France vs. Franconia for the German duchy. In German the name Franken is equally used for both, while the French are called Franzosen, after Old French françois, from Latin franciscus, from Late Latin Francus, from Frank, the Germanic people.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Franconian lands lie principally in Bavaria, north and south of the sinuous River Main which, together with the left (southern) Regnitz tributary, including its Rednitz and Pegnitz headstreams, drains most of Franconia. Other large rivers include the upper Werra in Thuringia and the Tauber, as well as the upper Jagst and Kocher streams in the west, both right tributaries of the Neckar. In southern Middle Franconia, the Altmühl flows towards the Danube; the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal crosses the European Watershed. The man-made Franconian Lake District has become a popular destination for day-trippers and tourists.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The landscape is characterized by numerous Mittelgebirge ranges of the German Central Uplands. The Western natural border of Franconia is formed by the Spessart and Rhön Mountains, separating it from the former Rhenish Franconian lands around Aschaffenburg (officially part of Lower Franconia), whose inhabitants speak Hessian dialects. To the north rise the Rennsteig ridge of the Thuringian Forest, the Thuringian Highland and the Franconian Forest, the border with the Upper Saxon lands of Thuringia. The Franconian lands include the present-day South Thuringian districts of Schmalkalden-Meiningen, Hildburghausen and Sonneberg, the historical Gau of Grabfeld, held by the House of Henneberg from the 11th century and later part of the Wettin duchy of Saxe-Meiningen.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In the east, the Fichtel Mountains lead to Vogtland, Bohemian Egerland (Chebsko) in the Czech Republic, and the Bavarian Upper Palatinate. The hills of the Franconian Jura in the south mark the border with the Upper Bavarian region (Altbayern), historical Swabia, and the Danube basin. The northern parts of the Upper Bavarian Eichstätt District, territory of the historical Bishopric of Eichstätt, are also counted as part of Franconia.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In the west, Franconia proper comprises the Tauber Franconia region along the Tauber river, which as of 2014 is largely part of the Main-Tauber-Kreis in Baden-Württemberg. The state's larger Heilbronn-Franken region also includes the adjacent Hohenlohe and Schwäbisch Hall districts. In the city of Heilbronn, beyond the Haller Ebene plateau, South Franconian dialects are spoken. Furthermore, in those easternmost parts of the Neckar-Odenwald-Kreis which had formerly belonged to the Bishopric of Würzburg, the inhabitants have preserved their Franconian identity. Franconian areas in East Hesse along Spessart and Rhön comprise Gersfeld and Ehrenberg.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The two largest cities of Franconia are Nuremberg and Fürth. Though located on the southeastern periphery of the area, the Nuremberg metropolitan area is often identified as the economic and cultural centre of Franconia. Further cities in Bavarian Franconia include Würzburg, Erlangen, Bayreuth, Bamberg, Aschaffenburg, Schweinfurt, Hof, Coburg, Ansbach and Schwabach. The major (East) Franconian towns in Baden-Württemberg are Schwäbisch Hall on the Kocher — the imperial city declared itself \"Swabian\" in 1442 — and Crailsheim on the Jagst river. The main towns in Thuringia are Suhl and Meiningen.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Franconia may be distinguished from the regions that surround it by its peculiar historical factors and its cultural and especially linguistic characteristics, but it is not a political entity with a fixed or tightly defined area. As a result, it is debated whether some areas belong to Franconia or not. Pointers to a more precise definition of Franconia's boundaries include: the territories covered by the former Duchy of Franconia and former Franconian Circle, the range of the East Franconian dialect group, the common culture and history of the region and the use of the Franconian Rake on coats of arms, flags and seals. However, a sense of popular consciousness of being Franconian is only detectable from the 19th century onwards, which is why the circumstances of the emergence of a Frankish identity are disputed. Franconia has many cultural peculiarities which have been adopted from other regions and further developed.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The following regions are counted as part of Franconia today: the Bavarian provinces of Lower Franconia, Upper Franconia and Middle Franconia, the municipality of Pyrbaum in the county of Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, the northwestern part of the Upper Bavarian county of Eichstätt (covering the same area as the old county of Alt-Eichstätt), the East Franconian counties of South Thuringia, parts of Fulda and the Odenwaldkreis in Hesse, the Baden-Württemberg regions of Tauber Franconia and Hohenlohe as well as the region around the Badenian Buchen.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In individual cases the membership of some areas is disputed. These include the Bavarian language area of Alt-Eichstätt and the Hessian-speaking region around Aschaffenburg, which was never part of the Franconian Imperial Circle. The affiliation of the city of Heilbronn, whose inhabitants do not call themselves Franks, is also controversial. Moreover, the sense of belonging to Franconia in the Frankish-speaking areas of Upper Palatinate, South Thuringia and Hesse is sometimes less marked.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The region of Franconia is divided among the states of Hesse, Thuringia, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. The largest part of Franconia, both by population and area, belongs to the Free State of Bavaria and is divided into the three administrative regions (Regierungsbezirke) of Middle Franconia (capital: Ansbach), Upper Franconia (capital: Bayreuth) and Lower Franconia (capital: Würzburg). The name of these regions, as in the case of Upper and Lower Bavaria, refers to their situation with respect to the river Main. Thus Upper Franconia lies on the upper reaches of the river, Lower Franconia on its lower reaches and Middle Franconia lies in between, although the Main itself does not flow through Middle Franconia. Where the boundaries of these three provinces meet (the 'tripoint') is the Dreifrankenstein (\"Three Franconias Rock\"). Small parts of Franconia also belong to the Bavarian regions of Upper Palatinate and Upper Bavaria.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The Franconian territories of Baden-Württemberg are the regions of Tauber Franconia and Hohenlohe (which belong to the Heilbronn-Franconia Region with its office in Heilbronn and form part of the Stuttgart Region) and the area around the Badenian Buchen in the Rhein-Neckar Region.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The Franconian parts of Thuringia (Henneberg Franconia) lie within the Southwest Thuringia Planning Region.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Franconian regions in Hesse form the smaller parts of the districts of Fulda (Kassel region) and the Odenwaldkreis (Darmstadt region), or lie on the borders with Bavaria or Thuringia.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The two most important rivers of the region are the Main and its primary tributary, the Regnitz. The tributaries of these two rivers in Franconia are the Tauber, Pegnitz, Rednitz and Franconian Saale. Other major rivers in the region are the Jagst and Kocher in Hohenlohe-Franconia, which empty into the Neckar north of Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg, the Altmühl and the Wörnitz in Middle Franconia, both tributaries of the Danube, and the upper and middle reaches of the Werra, the right-hand headstream of the Weser. In the northeast of Upper Franconia rise two left-hand tributaries of the Elbe: the Saxon Saale and the Eger.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The Main-Danube Canal connects the Main and Danube across Franconia, running from Bamberg via Nuremberg to Kelheim. It thus complements the Rhine, Main and Danube, helping to ensure a continuous navigable waterway between the North Sea and the Black Sea. In Franconia, there are only a few, often very small, natural lakes. This is due to fact that most natural lakes in Germany are glacial or volcanic in origin, and Franconia escaped both influences in recent earth history. Among the largest waterbodies are reservoirs, which are mostly used as water reserves for the relatively dry landscapes of Franconia. These includes the waters of the Franconian Lake District, which was established in the 1970s and is also a tourist attraction. The heart of these lakes is the Großer Brombachsee, which has an area of 8.7 km and is thus the largest waterbody in Franconia by surface area.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Several Central Upland ranges dominate the Franconian countryside. In the southeast, Franconia is shielded from the rest of Bavaria by the Franconian Jura. In the east, the Fichtel Mountains form the border; in the north are Franconian Forest, the Thuringian Forest, the Rhön Mountains and the Spessart form a kind of natural barrier. To the west are the Franconian Heights and the Swabian-Franconian Forest. In the Franconian part of South Hesse is the Odenwald. Parts of the southern Thuringian Forest border on Franconia. The most important hill ranges in the interior of the region are the Steigerwald and the Franconian Jura with their sub-ranges of Hahnenkamm and Franconian Switzerland. The highest mountain in Franconia is the Schneeberg in the Fichtel Mountains which is 1,051 m above sea level (NHN). Other well-known mountains include the Ochsenkopf (1,024m), the Kreuzberg (927.8m) and the Hesselberg (689.4m). The outliers of the region include the Hesselberg and the Gleichberge. The lowest point in Franconia is the water level of the river Main in Kahl which lies at a height of 100 metres above sea level.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In addition to the hill and mountain ranges, there are also several very level areas, including the Middle Franconian Basin and the Hohenlohe Plain. In the south of Franconia are smaller parts of the flat Nördlinger Ries, one of the best preserved impact craters on earth.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Franconia's flora is dominated by deciduous and coniferous forests. Natural forests in Franconia occur mainly in the ranges of the Spessart, Franconian Forest, Odenwald and Steigerwald. The Nuremberg Reichswald is another great forest, located within the metropolitan region of Nuremberg. Other large areas of forest in the region are the Mönchswald, the Reichsforst in the Fichtel Mountains and the Selb Forest. In the river valleys along the Main and Tauber, the countryside was developed for viticulture. In Spessart there are great oak forests. Also widespread are calcareous grasslands, extensively used pastures on very oligotrophic, poor sites. In particular, the southern Franconian Jura, with the Altmühl Valley, is characterized by poor grassland of this type. Many of these places have been designated as a protected areas.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Franconia has several regions with sandy habitats that are unique for south Germany and are protected as the so-called Sand Belt of Franconia or Sandachse Franken. When the Altmühlsee reservoir was built, a bird island was created and designated as a nature reserve where a variety of birds nest. Another important reserve is the Black Moor in the Rhön, which is one of the most important bog areas in Central Europe. A well known reserve is the Luisenburg Rock Labyrinth at Wunsiedel, a felsenmeer of granite blocks up to several metres across. The establishment of the first Franconian national park in the Steigerwald caused controversy and its designation was rejected in July 2011 by the Bavarian government. The reason was the negative attitude of local population. Conservationists are now demanding protection for parts of the Steigerwald by nominating it for a World Heritage Site. There are several nature parks in Franconia, including the Altmühl Valley Nature Park, which, since 1969, has been one of the largest in Germany.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Other nature parks are the Swabian-Franconian Forest Nature Park in Baden-Württemberg, and the nature parks of Bavarian Rhön, Fichtel Mountains, Franconian Heights, Franconian Forest, Franconian Switzerland-Franconian Jura, Haßberge, Spessart and Steigerwald in Bavaria, as well as the Bergstraße-Odenwald Nature Park which straddles Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hesse. Nature parks cover almost half the area of Franconia.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In 1991 UNESCO recognised the Rhön as a biosphere reserve. Among the most picturesque geotopes in Bavaria, are the Franconian sites of Fossa Carolina, the Twelve Apostle Rocks (Zwölf-Apostel-Felsen), the Ehrenbürg, the cave ruins of Riesenburg and the lake of Frickenhäuser See. The European Bird Reserves in Franconia are found mainly in uplands like the Steigerwald, in large forests like Nuremberg's Imperial Forest or along rivers like the Altmühl. There are also numerous Special Areas of Conservation and protected landscapes. In Franconia there are very many tufas, raised stream beds near river sources within the karst landscape that are known as 'stone runnels' (Steinerne Rinnen). There are protected examples at Heidenheim and Wolfsbronn.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Like large parts of Germany, Franconia only has a few large species of wild animal. Forest dwellers include various species of marten, fallow deer, red deer, roe deer, wild boar and fox. In natural areas such as the Fichtel mountains there are populations of lynx and capercaillie, and beaver and otter have grown in numbers. There are occasional sightings of animals that had long been extinct in Central Europe, for example, the wolf.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Only in the extreme northeast of Franconia and in the Spessart are there Variscan outcrops of the crystalline basement, which were uplifted from below the surface when the Alps exerted a northwards-oriented pressure. These are rocks of pre-Permian vintage, which were folded during various stages of Variscan orogeny in the Late Palaeozoic - before about 380 to 300 million years ago - and, in places, were metamorphosed under high pressure and temperature or were crystallized by ascending magma in the Earth's crust. Rocks which were unchanged or only lightly metamorphosed, because they had been deformed at shallow crustal depths, include the Lower Carboniferous shale and greywacke of Franconian Forest. The Fichtel mountains, the Münchberg Plateau and the Spessart, by contrast, have more metamorphic rocks (phyllite, schist, amphibolite, gneiss). The Fichtel mountains are also characterized by large granite bodies, called post-kinematic plutons which, in the late phase of Variscan orogeny, intruded into the metamorphic rocks. In most cases these are S-type granites whose melting was caused by heated-up sedimentary rocks sunk deep into the Earth's crust. While the Fichtel and Franconian Forest can be assigned to the Saxo-Thuringian Zone of Central European Variscan orogeny, the Spessart belongs to the Central German Crystalline Zone. The Münchberg mass is variously attributed to the Saxo-Thuringian or Moldanubian Zones.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "A substantially larger part of the shallow subsurface in Franconia comprises Mesozoic, unmetamorphosed, unfolded rocks of the South German Scarplands. The regional geological element of the South German Scarplands is the Franconian Platform (Süddeutsche Großscholle). At the so-called Franconian Line, a significant fault line, the Saxo-Thuringian-Moldanubian basement was uplifted in places up to 2000 m above the Franconian Platform. The western two-thirds of Franconia is dominated by the Triassic with its sandstones, siltstones and claystones (so-called siliciclastics) of the bunter sandstone; the limestones and marls of the Muschelkalk and the mixed, but predominantly siliciclastic, sedimentary rocks of the Keuper. In the Rhön, the Triassic rocks are overlain and intruded by volcanic rock (basalts, basanites, phonolites and trachytes) of the Tertiary. The eastern third of Franconia is dominated by the Jurassic rocks of the Franconian Jura, with the dark shales of the Black Jura, the shales and ferruginous sandstones of the Brown Jura and, the weathering-resistant limestones and dolomitic rocks of the White Jura, which stand out from the landscape and form the actual ridge of the Franconian Jura itself. In the Jura, mostly siliciclastic sedimentary rocks formed in the Cretaceous have survived.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The Mesozoic sediments have been deposited in largescale basin areas. During the Triassic, the Franconian part of these depressions was often part of the mainland, in the Jurassic it was covered for most of the time by a marginal sea of the western Tethys Ocean. At the time when the limestones and dolomites of the White Jura were being deposited, this sea was divided into sponge reefs and intervening lagoons. The reef bodies and the fine-grained lagoon limestones and marls are the material from which the majority of the Franconian Jura is composed today. Following a drop in the sea level towards the end of the Upper Jurassic, larger areas also became part of the mainland at the beginning of the subsequent Cretaceous period. During the Upper Cretaceous, the sea advanced again up to the area of the Franconian Jura. At the end of the Cretaceous, the sea then retreated again from the region. In addition, large parts of South and Central Germany experienced a general uplift -or in areas where the basement had broken through a substantial uplift - the course of formation of the Alps during the Tertiary. Since then, Franconia has been mainly influenced by erosion and weathering (especially in the Jura in the form of karst), which has ultimately led to formation of today's landscapes.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The oldest macrofossils in Franconia, which are also the oldest in Bavaria, are archaeocyatha, sponge-like, goblet-shaped marine organisms, which were discovered in 2013 in a limestone block of Late Lower Cambrian age, about 520 million years old. The block comes from the vicinity Schwarzenbach am Wald from the so-called Heinersreuth Block Conglomerate (Heinersreuther Blockkonglomerat), a Lower Carboniferous wildflysch. However, the aforementioned archaeocyathids are not three-dimensional fossils, but two-dimensional thin sections. These thin sections had already been prepared and investigated in the 1970s but the archaeocyathids among them were apparently overlooked at that time.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Better known and more highly respected fossil finds in Franconia come from the unfolded sedimentary rocks of the Triassic and Jurassic. The bunter sandstone, however, only has a relatively small number of preserved whole fossils. Much more commonly, it contains trace fossils, especially the tetrapod footprints of Chirotherium. The type locality for these animal tracks is Hildburghausen in the Thuringian part of Franconia, where it occurs in the so-called Thuringian Chirotherium Sandstone (Thüringer Chirotheriensandstein, main Middle Bunter Sandstone). Chirotherium is also found in the Bavarian and Württemberg parts of Franconia. Sites include Aura near Bad Kissingen, Karbach, Gambach and Külsheim. There the deposits are somewhat younger (Upper Bunter Sandstone), and the corresponding stratigraphic interval is called the Franconian Chirotherium Beds (Fränkische Chirotherienschichten). Among the less significant body fossil records of vertebrates are the procolophonid Anomoiodon liliensterni from Reurieth in the Thuringian part of Franconia and Koiloskiosaurus coburgiensis from Mittelberg near Coburg, both from the Thuringian Chirotherium Sandstone, and the Temnospondyle Mastodonsaurus ingens (possibly identical with the mastodonsaurus, Heptasaurus cappelensis) from the Upper Bunter at Gambach.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "As early as the first decade of the 19th century George, Count of Münster began systematic fossil gathering and digs and in the Upper Muschelkalk at Bayreuth. For example, the Oschenberg hill near Laineck became the type locality of two relatively well-known marine reptiles of the Triassic period, later found in other parts of Central Europe: the \"flat tooth lizard\", Placodus and the \"false lizard\", Nothosaurus.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In Franconia's middle Keuper (the Feuerletten) is one of the best known and most common species of dinosaurs of Central Europe: Plateosaurus engelhardti, an early representative of the sauropodomorpha. Its type locality is located at Heroldsberg south of Nuremberg. When the remains of Plateosaurus were first discovered there in 1834, it was the first discovery of a dinosaur on German soil, and this occurred even before the name \"dinosauria\" was coined. Another important Plateosaurus find in Franconia was made at Ellingen.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Far more famous than Plateosaurus, Placodus and Nothosaurus is the Archaeopteryx, probably the first bird geologically. It was discovered in the southern Franconian Jura, inter alia at the famous fossil site of Solnhofen in the Solnhofen Platform Limestone (Solnhofener Plattenkalk, (Solnhofen-Formation, early Tithonian, Upper Jurassic). In addition to Archaeopteryx, in the very fine-grained, laminated lagoon limestones are the pterosaur Pterodactylus and various bony fishes as well as numerous extremely detailed examples of invertebrates e.g. feather stars and dragonflies. Eichstätt is the other \"big\" and similarly famous fossil locality in the Solnhofen Formation, situated on the southern edge of the Jura in Upper Bavaria. Here, as well as Archaeopteryx, the theropod dinosaurs, Compsognathus and Juravenator, were found.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "An inglorious episode in the history of paleontology took place in Franconia: fake fossils, known as Beringer's Lying Stones, were acquired in the 1720s by Würzburg doctor and naturalist, Johann Beringer, for a lot of money and then described in a monograph, along with genuine fossils from the Würzburg area. However, it is not entirely clear whether the Beringer forgeries were actually planted or whether he himself was responsible for the fraud.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Franconia has a humid cool temperate transitional climate, which is neither very continental nor very maritime. The average monthly temperatures vary depending on the area between about -1 to -2 °C in January and 17 to 19 °C in August, but may reach a peak of about 35 °C for a few days in the summer, especially in the large cities. The climate of Franconia is sunny and relatively warm. For part of the summer, for example, Lower Franconia is one of the sunniest areas in Germany. Daily temperatures in the Bavarian part of Franconia are an average of 0.1 °C higher than the average for Bavaria as a whole. Relatively less rain falls in Franconia, and likewise in the rest of North Bavaria rain than is usual for its geographic location; even summer storms are often less powerful than in other areas of South Germany. In southern Bavaria about 2,000 mm of precipitation falls annually and almost three times as much as in parts of Franconia (about 500–900 mm) in the rain shadow of the Spessart, Rhön and Odenwald.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Franconia, as part of Germany, has a high quality of life. In the Worldwide Quality of Living Survey by Mercer in 2010, the city of Nuremberg was one of the top 25 cities in the world in terms of quality of life and came sixth in Germany. In environmental ranking Nuremberg came thirteenth in the world and was the best German city In a survey by the German magazine, Focus, on quality of life in 2014, the districts of Eichstätt and Fürth were among the top positions in the table. In the Glücksatlas by Deutsche Post Franconia achieved some of the highest scores, but the region slipped in 2013 to 13th place out of 19.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Franconia is named after the Franks, a Germanic tribe who conquered most of Western Europe by the middle of the 8th century. Despite its name, Franconia is not the homeland of the Franks, but rather owes its name to being partially settled by Franks from the Rhineland during the 7th century following the defeat of the Alamanni and Thuringians who had dominated the region earlier.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "At the beginning of the 10th century a Duchy of Franconia (German: Herzogtum Franken) was established within East Francia, which comprised modern Hesse, Palatinate, parts of Baden-Württemberg and most of today's Franconia. After the dissolution of the so-called Stem duchy of Franconia, the Holy Roman Emperors created the Franconian Circle (German Fränkischer Reichskreis) in 1500 to embrace the principalities that grew out of the eastern half of the former duchy. The territory of the Franconian Circle roughly corresponds with modern Franconia. The title of Duke of Franconia was claimed by the Würzburg bishops until 1803 and by the kings of Bavaria until 1918. Examples of Franconian cities founded by Frankish noblemen are Würzburg, first mentioned in the 7th century, Ansbach, first mentioned in 748, and Weissenburg, founded in the 7th century.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Fossil finds show that the region was already settled by primitive man, Homo erectus, in the middle Ice Age about 600,000 years ago. Probably the oldest human remains in the Bavarian part of Franconia were found in the cave ruins of Hunas at Pommelsbrunn in the county of Nuremberg Land. In the late Bronze Age, the region was probably only sparsely inhabited, as few noble metals occur here and the soils are only moderately fertile. In the subsequent Iron Age (from about 800 B.C.) the Celts become the first nation to be discernible in the region. In northern Franconia they built a chain of hill forts as a line of defence against the Germani advancing from the north. On the Staffelberg they built a powerful settlement, to which Ptolemy gave the name oppidum Menosgada, and on the Gleichberge is the largest surviving oppidum in Central Germany, the Steinsburg. With the increased expansion of Rome in the first century B.C. and the simultaneous advance of the Elbe Germanic tribes from the north, the Celtic culture began to fall into decline. The southern parts of present-day Franconia soon fell under Roman control; however, most of the region remained in Free Germania. Initially, Rome tried to extend its direct influence far to the northeast; in the longer term, however, the Germanic-Roman frontier formed further southwest.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Under the emperors, Domitian (81-96), Trajan (98-117) and Hadrian (117-138), the Rhaetian Limes was built as a border facing the Germanic tribes to the north. This defensive line ran through the south of Franconia and described an arc across the region whose northernmost point lay at present-day Gunzenhausen. To protect it, the Romans built several forts like Biriciana at Weißenburg, but by the mid-third century, the border could no longer be maintained and by 250 A.D. the Alemanni occupied the areas up to the Danube. Fortified settlements such as the Gelbe Bürg at Dittenheim controlled the new areas. More such Gau forts have been detected north of the former Limes as well. Which tribe their occupants belonged to is unknown in most cases. However, it is likely that it was mainly Alemanni and Juthungi, especially in the south.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "By contrast, it was the Burgundians who settled on the Lower and Middle Main. Many of these hill forts appear to have been destroyed, however, no later than 500 A.D. The reasons are not entirely clear, but it could have been as a result of invasions by the Huns which thus triggered the Great Migration. In many cases, however, it was probably conquest by the Franks that spelt the end of these hilltop settlements.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "With their victories over the heartlands of the Alamanni and Thuringians in the 6th century, the present region of Franconia also fell to the Franks. After the division of the Frankish Empire, East Francia (Francia orientialis) was formed from the territories of the dioceses of Mainz, Worms, Würzburg and Speyer. Later, the diocese of Bamberg was added. In the 7th century, the Slavs started to populate the northeastern parts of the region from the east, because the area of today's Upper Franconia was very sparsely populated (Bavaria Slavica). However, in the 10th and 11th centuries, they largely gave up their own language and cultural tradition. The majority of the population of Franconia was pagan well into the Early Middle Ages, The first people to spread the Christian faith strongly were wandering Irish Anglo-Saxon monks in the early 7th century. Saint Kilian, who together with his companions, Saint Colman and Saint Totnan are considered to be the apostles to the Franks, suffering martyrdom in Würzburg in the late 7th century, probably did not encounter any pagans in the ducal court. It was probably Saint Boniface who carried the Christian mission deep into the heart of the ordinary population of Franconia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In the mid-9th century the tribal Duchy of Franconia emerged, one of the five tribal or stem duchies of East Francia. The territory of the stem duchy was far bigger than modern Franconia and covered the whole of present-day Hesse, northern Baden-Württemberg, southern Thuringia, large parts of Rhineland-Palatinate and parts of the Franconian provinces in Bavaria. It extended as far west as Speyer, Mainz, and Worms (west of the Rhine) and even included Frankfurt (\"ford of the Franks\"). In the early 10th century, the Babenbergs and Conradines fought for power in Franconia. Ultimately this discord led to the Babenberg Feud which was fuelled and controlled by the crown. The outcome of this feud meant the loss of power for the Babenbergs, but indirectly resulted in the Conradines winning the crown of East Francia. Sometime around 906, Conrad succeeded in establishing his ducal hegemony over Franconia, but when the direct Carolingian male line failed in 911, Conrad was acclaimed King of the Germans, largely because of his weak position in his own duchy. Franconia, like Alamannia was fairly fragmented and the duke's position was often disputed between the chief families. Conrad had granted Franconia to his brother Eberhard on his succession, but when Eberhard rebelled against Otto I in 938, he was deposed from his duchy, which disintegrated in 939 on Eberhard's death into West or Rhenish Franconia (Francia Rhenensis), and East Franconia (Francia Orientalis) and was directly subordinated to the Reich. Only after that was the former Francia Orientalis considered to be under the sphere of the bishops of Würzburg as the true Franconia, its territory gradually shrinking to its present area.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Meanwhile, the inhabitants of parts of present-day Upper and Middle Franconia, who were not under the control of Würzburg, probably also considered themselves to be Franks at that time, and certainly their dialect distinguished them from the inhabitants of Bavaria and Swabia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Unlike the other stem duchies, Franconia became the homeland and power base of East Frankish and German kings after the Ottonians died out in 1024. As a result, in the High Middle Ages, the region did not become a strong regional force such as those which formed in Saxony, Bavaria and Swabia. In 1007, the later canonized Henry II founded the Bishopric of Bamberg and endowed it with rich estates. Bamberg became a favoured Pfalz and an important centre of the Empire. Because parts of the Bishopric of Würzburg also fell to Bamberg, Würzburg was enfeoffed several royal estates by King Henry II by way of compensation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "From the 12th century Nuremberg Castle was the seat of the Burgraviate of Nuremberg. The burgraviate was ruled from about 1190 by the Zollerns, the Franconian line of the later House of Hohenzollern, which provided the German emperors of the 19th and 20th century. Under the Hohenstaufen kings, Conrad III and Frederick Barbarossa, Franconia became the centre of power in the Empire. During the time when there was no emperor, the Interregnum (1254–1273), some territorial princes became ever more powerful. After the Interregnum, however, the rulers succeeded in re-establishing a stronger royal lordship in Franconia. Franconia soon played an important role again for the monarchy at the time of Rudolf of Habsburg; the itineraries of his successors showing their preference for the Rhine-Main region. In 1376 the Swabian League of Cities was founded and was joined later by several Franconian imperial cities. During the 13th century the Teutonic Order was formed, taking over its first possession in Franconia in 1209, the Bailiwick of Franconia. The foundation of many schools and hospitals and the construction of numerous churches and castles in this area goes back to the work of this Roman Catholic military order. The residence place of the bailiwick was at Ellingen until 1789 when it was transferred to today's Bad Mergentheim. Other orders such as the Knights Templar could not gain a foothold in Franconia; the Order of St. John worked in the Bishopric of Würzburg and had short term commands.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "As of the 13th century, the following states, among others, had formed in the territory of the former Duchy:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "On 2 July 1500 during the reign of Emperor Maximilian I, as part of the Imperial Reform Movement, the Empire was divided into Imperial Circles. This led in 1512 to the formation of the Franconian Circle. Seen from a modern perspective, the Franconian Circle may be viewed as an important basis for the sense of a common Franconian identity that exists today. The Franconian Circle also shaped the geographical limits of the present-day Franconia. In the late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, the Imperial Circle was severely affected by Kleinstaaterei, the patchwork of tiny states in this region of Germany. As during the late Middle Ages, the bishops of Würzburg used the nominal title of Duke of Franconia during the time of the Imperial Circle. In 1559, the Franconian Circle was given jurisdiction over coinage (Münzaufsicht) and, in 1572, was the only Circle to issue its own police ordinance.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Members of the Franconian Circle included the imperial cities, the prince-bishoprics, the Bailiwick of Franconia of the Teutonic Order and several counties. The Imperial Knights with their tiny territories, of which there was a particularly large number in Franconia, were outside the Circle assembly and, until 1806, formed the Franconian Knights Circle (Fränkischer Ritterkreis) consisting of six Knights' Cantons. Because the extent of Franconia, already referred to above, is disputed, there were many areas that might be counted as part of Franconia today, that lay outside the Franconian Circle. For example, the area of Aschaffenburg belonged to Electoral Mainz and was a part of the Electoral Rhenish Circle, the area of Coburg belonged to the Upper Saxon Circle and the Heilbronn area to the Swabian Circle. In the 16th century, the College of Franconian Counts was founded to represent the interests of the counts in Franconia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Franconia played an important role in the spread of the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther, Nuremberg being one of the places where the Luther Bible was printed. The majority of other Franconian imperial cities and imperial knights embraced the new confession. In the course of the counter-reformation several regions of Franconia returned to Catholicism, however, and there was also an increase in witch trials. In addition to Lutheranism, the radical reformatory baptist movement spread early on across the Franconian area. Important Baptist centres were Königsberg and Nuremberg.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "In 1525, the burden of heavy taxation and socage combined with new, liberal ideas that chimed with the Reformation movement, unleashed the German Peasants' War. The Würzburg area was particularly hard hit with numerous castles and monasteries being burned down. In the end, however, the uprisings were suppressed and for centuries the lowest strata of society were excluded from all political activity.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "From 1552, Margrave Albert Alcibiades attempted to break the supremacy of the mighty imperial city of Nuremberg and to secularise the ecclesial estates in the Second Margrave War, to create a duchy over which he would rule. Large areas of Franconia were eventually devastated in the fighting until King Ferdinand I together with several dukes and princes decided to overthrow Albert.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In 1608, the reformed princes merged into a so-called Union within the Empire. In Franconia, the margraves of Ansbach and Bayreuth as well as the imperial cities were part of this alliance. The Catholic side responded in 1609 with a counter-alliance, the League. The conflicts between the two camps ultimately resulted in the Thirty Years' War, which was the greatest strain on the cohesion of the Franconian Circle Initially, Franconia was not a theatre of war, although marauding armies repeatedly crossed its territory. However, in 1631, Swedish troops under Gustavus Adolphus advanced into Franconia and established a large encampment in summer 1632 around Nuremberg. However, the Swedes lost the Battle of the Alte Veste against Wallenstein's troops and eventually withdrew. Franconia was one of the poorest regions in the Empire and lost its imperial political significance. During the course of the war, about half the local population lost their lives. To compensate for these losses about 150,000 displaced Protestants settled in Protestant areas, including Austrian exiles.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Franconia never developed into a unified territorial state, because the patchwork quilt of small states (Kleinstaaterei) survived the Middle Ages and lasted until the 18th century. As a result, the Franconian Circle had the important task of preserving peace, preventing abuses and to repairing war damage and had a regulatory role in the region until the end of the Holy Roman Empire. Until the War of the Spanish Succession, the Circle had become an almost independent organization and joined the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV as an almost sovereign state. The Circle also developed early forms of a welfare state. It also played a major role in the control of disease during the 16th and 17th centuries. After Charles Alexander abdicated in 1792, the former margraviates of Ansbach and Bayreuth were annexed by Prussia. Karl August Freiherr von Hardenberg was appointed as governor of these areas by Prussia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Most of modern-day Franconia became part of Bavaria in 1803 thanks to Bavaria's alliance with Napoleon. Culturally it is in many ways different from Bavaria proper (\"Altbayern\", Old Bavaria), however. The ancient name was resurrected in 1837 by Ludwig I of Bavaria. During the Nazi period, Bavaria was broken up into several different Gaue, including Franconia and Main-Franconia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In 1803, what was to become the Kingdom of Bavaria was given large parts of Franconia through the enactment of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss under pressure from Napoleon for secularization and mediatisation. In 1806, the Act of Confederation led to stronger ties between Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and other areas with France, whereupon the Holy Roman Empire including the Franconian Circle fell apart. As a reward Bavaria was promised other estates, including the city of Nuremberg. In the so-called Rittersturm of 1803, Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden seized the territories of the Imperial Knights and Franconian nobility, whose estates were often no bigger than a few parishes, even though the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss had not authorised this. In 1806 and 1810, Prussia had to release the territories of Ansbach and Bayreuth, which it had annexed in 1792, to Bavaria, whereby Prussia lost its supremacy in the region.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "In 1814, as a result of the Congress of Vienna, the territories of the Principality of Aschaffenburg and Grand Duchy of Würzburg went to the Kingdom of Bavaria. In order to merge the patchwork quilt of small states in Franconia and Swabia into a greater Bavaria, Maximilian Joseph Montgelas reformed the political structure. Out of this in January 1838 emerged the Franconian provinces with their present names of Middle, Upper and Lower Franconia. Considerable resentment arose in parts of the Franconian territories over their new membership of Bavaria. There were liberal demands for republican structures which erupted in the revolts of 1848 and 1849 and the Gaibach Festival in 1832. On the one hand the reconciliation policy of the Wittelsbachs and Montgelas' aforementioned policy of unification, and, on the other hand, the inclusion of Bavaria in the German Empire in 1871, which weakened her power Bavaria slightly, the conflict between Franconia and Bavaria eased considerably.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "From 1836 to 1846, the Kingdom of Bavaria built the Ludwig Canal from Bamberg to Kelheim, which was only abandoned in 1950. However, the canal lost much of its importance shortly after the arrival of the railways. Between 1843 and 1854, the Ludwig South-North Railway was established within Franconia, which ran from Lindau on Lake Constance via Nuremberg, Bamberg and Kulmbach to Hof. The first locomotive to run on German soil steamed 1835 from Nuremberg to Fürth on 7 December 1835.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "After the First World War the monarchy in Bavaria was abolished, but the state could not agree on a compromise between a Soviet system and parliamentarianism. This caused fighting between the opposing camps and the then prime minister was shot. As a result, the government fled to Bamberg in 1919, where the Bamberg Constitution was adopted while, in Munich, the Bavarian Soviet Republic reigned briefly. In 1919 the Free State of Coburg voted in a referendum against joining Thuringia and was instead united with Bavaria on 1 July 1920.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "During the Nazi era Nuremberg played a prominent role in the self-expression of the National Socialists as the permanent seat of the Nazi Party. Gunzenhausen made its mark as one of the first towns in the Reich itself to exercise discrimination against the Jewish population. The first Hitler Monument in Germany was established there in April 1933. On 25 March 1934 the first anti-Jewish pogrom in Bavaria took place in Gunzenhausen. The attack brought the town negative press coverage worldwide. On 15 September, a Reichstag was specially convened in Nuremberg for the purpose of passing the Nuremberg Laws, under which the antisemitic ideology of the Nazis became a legal basis for such actions.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Like all parts of the German Reich, Franconia was badly affected by Allied air raids. Nuremberg, as a major industrial centre and transportation hub, was hit particularly hard. Between 1940 and 1945 the city was the target of dozens of air raids. Many other places were also affected by air raids. For example, the air raid on 4 December 1944 on Heilbronn and the bombing of Würzburg on 16 March 1945, in which both old towns were almost completely destroyed, was a disaster for both cities. By contrast, the old town of Bamberg was almost completely spared. In order to protect cultural artefacts, the historic art bunker was built below Nuremberg Castle. In the closing stages of the Second World War, at the end of March and April 1945, Franconian towns and cities were captured by formations of the US Army who advanced from the west after the failure of the Battle of the Bulge and Operation Nordwind. The Battle of Nuremberg lasted five days and resulted in at least 901 deaths. The Battle of Crailsheim lasted 16 days, the Battle of Würzburg seven and the Battle of Merkendorf three days.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Following the unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945, Bavarian Franconia became part of the American zone of occupation; whilst South Thuringia, with the exception of smaller enclaves like Ostheim, became part of the Soviet zone and the Franconian parts of today's Baden-Württemberg also went to the American zone The most important part of the Allied prosecution programme against leaders of the Nazi regime were the Nuremberg Trials against leaders of the German Empire during the Nazi era, held from 20 November 1945 to 14 April 1949. The Nuremberg Trials are considered a breakthrough for the principle that, for a core set of crimes, there is no immunity from prosecution. For the first time, the representatives of a sovereign state were held accountable for their actions. In autumn 1946, the Free State of Bavaria was reconstituted with the enactment of the Bavarian Constitution.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "The state of Württemberg-Baden was founded on 19 September 1945. On 25 April 1952 this state merged with Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern (both from the former French occupation zone) to create the present state of Baden-Württemberg. On 1 December 1945 the state of Hesse was founded. Beginning in 1945, refugees and displaced persons from Eastern Europe were settled particularly in rural areas. After 1945, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg managed the transition from economies that were predominantly agriculture to become leading industrial states in the so-called Wirtschaftswunder. In Lower and Upper Franconia, there was still the problem, however, of the zone along the Inner German Border which was a long way from the markets for its agricultural produce, and was affected by migration and relatively high unemployment, which is why these areas received special support from federal and state governments.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "By contrast, the state of Thuringia was restored by the Soviets in 1945. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republic, commonly known as East Germany, was founded. In 1952 in the course of the 1952 administrative reform in East Germany, the state of Thuringia was relieved of its function. The Soviet occupying forces exacted a high level of reparations (especially the dismantling of industrial facilities) which made the initial economic conditions in East Germany very difficult. Along with the failed economic policies of the GDR, this led to a general frustration that fuelled the uprising of 17 June. There were protests in the Franconian territories too, for example in Schmalkalden. The village of Mödlareuth became famous because, for 41 years, it was divided by the Inner German Border and was nicknamed 'Little Berlin. After Die Wende, the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 and reunification on 3 October 1990, made possible mainly by mass demonstrations in East Germany and local exodus of East Germans, the state of Thuringia was reformed with effect from 14 October 1990.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "In the years from 1971 to 1980 an administrative reform was carried out in Bavaria with the aim of creating more efficient municipalities (Gemeinden) and counties (Landkreise). Against sometimes great protests by the population, the number of municipalities was reduced by a third and the number of counties by about a half. Among the changes was the transfer of the Middle Franconian county of Eichstätt to Upper Bavaria. On 18 May 2006, the Bavarian Landtag approved the introduction of Franconia Day (Tag der Franken) in the Franconian territories of the free state.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Since Die Wende, new markets have opened up for the Franconian region of Bavaria in the new (formerly East German) federal states and the Czech Republic, enabling the economy to recover. Today, Franconia is in the centre of the EU (at Oberwestern near Westerngrund; geographical centre of the EU 50°07′02″N 9°14′52″E / 50.117286°N 9.247768°E / 50.117286; 9.247768).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "While Old Bavaria is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, Franconia is a mixed area. Lower Franconia and the western half of Upper Franconia (Bamberg, Lichtenfels, Kronach) is predominantly Catholic, while most of Middle and the eastern half of Upper Franconia (Bayreuth, Hof, Kulmbach) are predominantly Protestant (Protestant Church in Germany).",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "The city of Fürth in Middle Franconia historically (before the Nazi era) had a large Jewish population; Henry Kissinger was born there.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "A large part of the population of Franconia, which has a population of five million, consider themselves Franconians (Franken, in German homonymous with the name of the historical Franks), a sub-ethnic group of the German people alongside Alemanni, Swabians, Bavarians, Thuringians and Saxons. Such an ethnic identity is generally not shared by other parts of the Franconian-speaking area (members of which may identify as Rhine Franconians (Rheinfranken) or Moselle Franconians (Moselfranken).",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "The Free State of Bavaria counts Franconians as one of the \"four tribes of Bavaria\" (vier Stämme Bayerns), alongside Bavarians, Swabians and Sudeten Germans.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "With the exception of Schwäbisch Hall, all cities in Franconia and all towns with a population of over 40,000 are within the Free State of Bavaria. By far the largest city in Franconia is Nuremberg with more than 500,000 inhabitants. The other three major cities are Fürth, Würzburg and Erlangen. In Middle Franconia, in the metropolitan region of Nuremberg there is a densely populated urban area consisting of Nuremberg, Fürth, Erlangen and Schwabach with arround 1.4 million inhabitants. Nuremberg is the fourteenth largest city in Germany and the second largest in Bavaria.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "The largest settlements in Baden-Württemberg's Franconian region are Schwäbisch Hall (41,898 pop.) and Crailsheim (35,760) Öhringen (25,388) and Bad Mergentheim (24,564) The largest places in the Thuringian part are Suhl (37,009), Meiningen (25,177) and Sonneberg (23,507).",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "The largest place in the Hessian part of Franconia is Gersfeld with just 5,516 inhabitants. The largest cities within Bavaria are Nuremberg (523,026), Fürth (131,433), Würzburg (127,810) and Erlangen (116,562).",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "In the Middle Ages Franconia, with its numerous towns, was separate and not part of other territories such as the Duchy of Bavaria. In the late medieval period it was dominated by mainly smaller towns with a few hundred to a thousand inhabitants, whose size barely distinguished them from the villages. Many towns grew up along large rivers or were founded by the prince-bishops and nobility. Even the Hohenstaufens operated in many towns, most of which later became Imperial Cities with a strong orientation towards Nuremberg. The smallest town in Franconia is Thuringia's Ummerstadt with 457 inhabitants.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "German is the official language and also the lingua franca. Numerous other languages are spoken that come from other language regions or the native countries of immigrants.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "East Franconian German, the dialect spoken in Franconia, is entirely different from the Austro-Bavarian dialect continuum which is mainly to be found in the Upper Palatinate, Upper and Lower Bavaria, the greater part of Austria and some parts of Northern Italy. This is one of the reasons why hardly any Franconian would call himself a Bavarian. Even though there is no Franconian state, red and white are regarded as the state colours (Landesfarben) of Franconia (compared to blue and white for Bavaria).",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "The proportion of Roman Catholics and Protestants among the population of Franconia is roughly the same, but varies from region to region. Large areas of Middle and Upper Franconia are mainly Protestant.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "The denominational orientation today still reflects the territorial structure of Franconia at the time of the Franconian Circle. For example, regions, that used to be under the care of the bishoprics of Bamberg, Würzburg and Eichstätt, are mainly Catholic today. On the other hand, all former territories of the imperial cities and the margraviates of Ansbach and Bayreuth have remained mainly Lutheran. The region around the city of Erlangen, which belonged to the Margraviate of Bayreuth, was a refuge for the Huguenots who fled there after the St Bartholomew's Day massacre in France.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Following the success of the Reformation in Nuremberg under Andreas Osiander, it had been an exclusively Protestant imperial city and belonged to the Protestant league of imperial states, the Corpus Evangelicorum, within the Reichstag. Subsequent historical events such as the stream of refugees after the Second World War and the increasing mobility of the population has since blurred denominational geographical boundaries, however.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "The influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe has also seen the establishment of an Orthodox community in Franconia. The Romanian Orthodox Metropolis of Germany, Central and Northern Europe has its headquarters in Nuremberg.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Before the Nazi era Franconia was a region with significant Jewish communities, most of whom were Ashkenazi Jews. The first Jewish communities appeared in Franconia in the 12th and 13th centuries and thus later than, for example, in Regensburg. In the Middle Ages, Franconia was a stronghold of Torah studies. But Franconia also began to exclude the Jewish populations particularly early on. For example, there were two Jewish massacres - the Rintfleisch massacres of 1298 and the Armleder Uprising of 1336-1338 - and in the 15th and 16th centuries many cities exiled their Jewish populations, which is why many Jews settled in rural communities. Franconia also rose to early prominence in the discrimination of Jews during the Nazi era. One of the first casualties of the organized Nazi persecution of Jews took place on 21 March in Künzelsau and on 25/26 March 1933 in Creglingen, where police and SA troops under the leadership of Standartenführer Fritz Klein led so-called \"weapons search operations\".",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "In 1818, about 65% of Bavarian Jews lived in the Bavarian part of Franconia, today there are Jewish communities only in Bamberg, Bayreuth, Erlangen, Fürth, Hof, Nuremberg and Würzburg and in Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "Adherents of Islam continue to grow, especially in the larger cities, due to the influx of gastarbeiters and other immigrants from Muslim countries. As a result, many \"backyard mosques\" (Hinterhofmoscheen) have sprung up, which are gradually being replaced by purpose-built mosques.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Franconia has almost 300 small breweries.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "The northwestern parts, the areas around the river Main called Franconian wine region also produce a lot of wine. Food typical for the region includes Bratwurst (especially the famous small Nuremberger Bratwurst), Schäuferla (roast pork shoulder), Sauerbraten, dumplings, potato salad (typically made with broth), fried carp, Grupfder (seasoned cheese spread), Presssack (a type of Head cheese: pressed or jellied pork trimmings, like tongue, cheeks, etc.). Lebkuchen are a traditional type of gingerbread, and Küchla is a sort of sweet fried pastry.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "The tourism industry stresses the romantic character of Franconia, including the picturesque countryside and many historic buildings. Franconian wine, the rich tradition of beer brewing and local culinary specialties, such as Lebküchnerei or gingerbread baking, are also a draw. The Romantic Road links several tourist points in western Franconia. The Castle Road runs through the Franconian region with its numerous castles and other medieval structures.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Cycling along the large rivers is very popular, for example along the Main Cycleway, the first German long distance cycleway to be awarded five stars by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad-Club (ADFC). The Tauber Valley Cycleway, a 101 kilometre-long cycle trail in Tauber Franconia, was the second German long distance cycleway to receive five stars.",
"title": "Contemporary Franconia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "49°48′58″N 10°51′54″E / 49.816°N 10.865°E / 49.816; 10.865",
"title": "External links"
}
] |
Franconia is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect. Franconia is made up of the three Regierungsbezirke of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia in Bavaria, the adjacent, Franconian-speaking, South Thuringia, south of the Thuringian Forest—which constitutes the language boundary between Franconian and Thuringian— and the eastern parts of Heilbronn-Franconia in Baden-Württemberg. Those parts of the Vogtland lying in Saxony are sometimes regarded as Franconian as well, because the Vogtlandian dialects are mostly East Franconian. The inhabitants of Saxon Vogtland, however, mostly do not consider themselves as Franconian. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the Hessian-speaking parts of Lower Franconia west of the Spessart do consider themselves as Franconian, although not speaking the dialect. Heilbronn-Franconia's largest city of Heilbronn and its surrounding areas are South Franconian-speaking, and therefore only sometimes regarded as Franconian. In Hesse, the east of the Fulda District is Franconian-speaking, and parts of the Oden Forest District are sometimes regarded as Franconian for historical reasons, but a Franconian identity did not develop there. Franconia's largest city and unofficial capital is Nuremberg, which is contiguous with Erlangen and Fürth, with which it forms the Franconian conurbation with around 1.3 million inhabitants. Other important Franconian cities are Würzburg, Bamberg, Bayreuth, Ansbach and Coburg in Bavaria, Suhl and Meiningen in Thuringia, and Schwäbisch Hall in Baden-Württemberg. The German word Franken—Franconians—also refers to the ethnic group, which is mainly to be found in this region. They are to be distinguished from the Germanic people of the Franks, and historically formed their easternmost settlement area. The origins of Franconia lie in the settlement of the Franks from the 6th century in the area probably populated until then mainly by the Elbe Germanic people in the Main river area, known from the 9th century as East Francia. In the Middle Ages the region formed much of the eastern part of the Duchy of Franconia and, from 1500, the Franconian Circle. The restructuring of the south German states by Napoleon, after the demise of the Holy Roman Empire, saw most of Franconia awarded to Bavaria.
|
2001-10-29T18:15:06Z
|
2023-12-31T17:48:06Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franconia
|
11,402 |
FileMan
|
FileMan is a set of utilities written by George Timson in the late 1970s and early 1980s, using MUMPS, which provide a meta-data function for MUMPS applications. The FileMan utilities allow the definition of data structures, menus and security, reports, and forms, allowing someone to set up applications without tremendous experience in the MUMPS programming language.
FileMan was designed to support the complex information storage and processing needs of hospitals. It was based on an active data dictionary that was able to invoke the full interpretive power of the MUMPS language from within a data reference. For example, a field called "Length of Stay" could invoke a MUMPS expression that would process the various dates, transfers, and discharges that would then be returned as if it were stored as a fixed data element.
MUMPS differs from many languages in its handling of the null string. A large percentage of the FileMan internal data structures are null strings, in which the information is located in the name of the "nothing" being referenced. This approach does not fit the traditional Relational Data Model.
Its first use was in the development of medical applications for the Veterans Administration, now called the Department of Veterans Affairs, a branch of the United States Government. Since it was a work created by the US federal government, a copyright cannot be placed on the source code, making the source code in the public domain. Because of this, it has been used for rapid development of applications across a number of organizations, including commercial products.
FileMan may be used standalone, or may be used with the VA Kernel, which provides an operating system neutral environment for applications.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "FileMan is a set of utilities written by George Timson in the late 1970s and early 1980s, using MUMPS, which provide a meta-data function for MUMPS applications. The FileMan utilities allow the definition of data structures, menus and security, reports, and forms, allowing someone to set up applications without tremendous experience in the MUMPS programming language.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "FileMan was designed to support the complex information storage and processing needs of hospitals. It was based on an active data dictionary that was able to invoke the full interpretive power of the MUMPS language from within a data reference. For example, a field called \"Length of Stay\" could invoke a MUMPS expression that would process the various dates, transfers, and discharges that would then be returned as if it were stored as a fixed data element.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "MUMPS differs from many languages in its handling of the null string. A large percentage of the FileMan internal data structures are null strings, in which the information is located in the name of the \"nothing\" being referenced. This approach does not fit the traditional Relational Data Model.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Its first use was in the development of medical applications for the Veterans Administration, now called the Department of Veterans Affairs, a branch of the United States Government. Since it was a work created by the US federal government, a copyright cannot be placed on the source code, making the source code in the public domain. Because of this, it has been used for rapid development of applications across a number of organizations, including commercial products.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "FileMan may be used standalone, or may be used with the VA Kernel, which provides an operating system neutral environment for applications.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "",
"title": "External links"
}
] |
FileMan is a set of utilities written by George Timson in the late 1970s and early 1980s, using MUMPS, which provide a meta-data function for MUMPS applications. The FileMan utilities allow the definition of data structures, menus and security, reports, and forms, allowing someone to set up applications without tremendous experience in the MUMPS programming language. FileMan was designed to support the complex information storage and processing needs of hospitals. It was based on an active data dictionary that was able to invoke the full interpretive power of the MUMPS language from within a data reference. For example, a field called "Length of Stay" could invoke a MUMPS expression that would process the various dates, transfers, and discharges that would then be returned as if it were stored as a fixed data element. MUMPS differs from many languages in its handling of the null string. A large percentage of the FileMan internal data structures are null strings, in which the information is located in the name of the "nothing" being referenced. This approach does not fit the traditional Relational Data Model. Its first use was in the development of medical applications for the Veterans Administration, now called the Department of Veterans Affairs, a branch of the United States Government.
Since it was a work created by the US federal government, a copyright cannot be placed on the source code, making the source code in the public domain. Because of this, it has been used for rapid development of applications across a number of organizations, including commercial products. FileMan may be used standalone, or may be used with the VA Kernel, which provides an operating system neutral environment for applications.
|
2022-04-18T05:20:33Z
|
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"Template:Short description",
"Template:For",
"Template:Programming-software-stub"
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileMan
|
|
11,404 |
United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
|
The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), also called the FISA Court, is a U.S. federal court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the United States by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
FISA was created by the U.S. Congress based on the recommendations of the Senate's Church Committee, which was convened in 1975 to investigate illicit activities and civil rights abuses by the federal intelligence community. Pursuant to the law, the FISC reviews requests to conduct physical and electronic surveillance within the U.S. concerning "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign powers" and "agents of foreign powers" suspected of espionage or terrorism; such requests are made most often by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
From its opening in 1978 until 2009, the court was housed on the sixth floor of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building; since 2009, it has been relocated to the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, D.C.
Each application for one of these surveillance warrants (called a FISA warrant) is made before an individual judge of the court. The court may allow third parties to submit briefs as amici curiae. When the U.S. Attorney General determines that an emergency exists, the Attorney General may authorize the emergency employment of electronic surveillance before obtaining the necessary authorization from the FISC, if the Attorney General or their designee notifies a judge of the court at the time of authorization and applies for a warrant as soon as practicable but not more than seven days after authorization of such surveillance, as required by 50 U.S.C. § 1805.
If an application is denied by one judge of the court, the federal government is not allowed to make the same application to a different judge of the court but may appeal to the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. Such appeals are rare: the first appeal from the FISC to the Court of Review was made in 2002 (In re Sealed Case No. 02-001), 24 years after the founding of the court.
FISA warrant requests are rarely denied. During the 25 years from 1979 to 2004, 18,742 warrants were granted, while only four were rejected. Fewer than 200 requests had to be modified before being accepted, almost all of them in 2003 and 2004. The four rejected requests were all from 2003, and all four were partially granted after being submitted for reconsideration by the government. Of the requests that had to be modified, few were before the year 2000. During the next eight years, from 2004 to 2012, there were over 15,100 additional warrants granted, and another seven being rejected. Over the entire 33-year period, the FISA court granted 33,942 warrants, with only 12 denials – a rejection rate of 0.03 percent of the total requests. This does not include the number of warrants that were modified by the FISA court.
Notes:
On May 17, 2002, the court rebuffed Attorney General John Ashcroft, releasing an opinion that alleged that the FBI and Justice Department officials had "supplied erroneous information to the court" in more than 75 applications for search warrants and wiretaps, including one signed by FBI Director Louis J. Freeh. Whether this rejection was related to the court starting to require modification of significantly more requests in 2003 is unknown.
On December 16, 2005, The New York Times reported that the Bush administration had been conducting surveillance against U.S. citizens without specific approval from the FISA court for each case since 2002. On December 20, 2005, Judge James Robertson resigned his position with the court, apparently in protest of the secret surveillance, and later, in the wake of the Snowden leaks of 2013, criticized the court-sanctioned expansion of the scope of government surveillance and its being allowed to craft a secret body of law. The government's apparent circumvention of the court started prior to the increase in court-ordered modifications to warrant requests.
In 2011, the Obama administration secretly won permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency's use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans' communications in its massive databases. The searches take place under a surveillance program Congress authorized in 2008, under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendment Act (Section 1881a et seq in FISA). Under that law, the target must be a foreigner "reasonably believed" to be outside the United States, and the court must approve the targeting procedures in an order good for one year. But a warrant for each target would thus no longer be required. That means that communications with Americans could be picked up without a court first determining that there is probable cause that the people they were talking to were terrorists, spies or "foreign powers". The FISC also extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years with an extension possible for foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purposes. Both measures were done without public debate or any specific authority from Congress.
Because of the sensitive nature of its business, the court is a "secret court" – its hearings are closed to the public. While records of the proceedings are kept, they also are unavailable to the public, although copies of some records with classified information redacted have been made public. Due to the classified nature of its proceedings, usually only attorneys licensed to practice in front of the US government are permitted to appear before the court. Because of the nature of the matters heard before it, court hearings may need to take place at any time of day or night, weekdays or weekends; thus, at least one judge must be "on call" at all times to hear evidence and decide whether or not to issue a warrant.
A heavily redacted version of a 2008 appeal by Yahoo! of an order issued with respect to NSA's PRISM program had been published for the edification of other potential appellants. The identity of the appellant was declassified in June 2013.
There has been growing criticism of the court since the September 11, 2001 attacks. This is partly because the court sits ex parte – in other words, in the absence of anyone but the judge and the government present at the hearings. This, combined with the minimal number of requests that are rejected by the court has led experts to characterize it as a rubber stamp (former National Security Agency analyst Russ Tice called it a "kangaroo court with a rubber stamp"). The accusation of being a "rubber stamp" was rejected by FISA Court president Reggie B. Walton who wrote in a letter to Senator Patrick J. Leahy: "The annual statistics provided to Congress by the Attorney General ... – frequently cited to in press reports as a suggestion that the Court's approval rate of application is over 99% – reflect only the number of final applications submitted to and acted on by the Court. These statistics do not reflect the fact that many applications are altered to prior or final submission or even withheld from final submission entirely, often after an indication that a judge would not approve them." He added: "There is a rigorous review process of applications submitted by the executive branch, spearheaded initially by five judicial branch lawyers who are national security experts and then by the judges, to ensure that the court's authorizations comport with what the applicable statutes authorize." In a following letter Walton stated that the government had revamped 24.4% of its requests in the face of court questions and demands in time from July 1, 2013 to September 30, 2013. This figure became available after Walton decided in the summer of 2013 that the FISC would begin keeping its own tally of how Justice Department warrant applications for electronic surveillance fared – and would track for the first time when the government withdrew or resubmitted those applications with changes. Some requests are modified by the court but ultimately granted, while the percentage of denied requests is statistically negligible (11 denied requests out of around 34,000 granted in 35 years – equivalent to 0.03%). The accusation that the FISC is a "rubber stamp" court was also rejected by Robert S. Litt (General Counsel of Office of the Director of National Intelligence): "When [the Government] prepares an application for [a section 215 order, it] first submit[s] to the [FISC] what's called a "read copy", which the court staff will review and comment on. [A]nd they will almost invariably come back with questions, concerns, problems that they see. And there is an iterative process back and forth between the Government and the [FISC] to take care of those concerns so that at the end of the day, we're confident that we're presenting something that the [FISC] will approve. That is hardly a rubber stamp. It's rather extensive and serious judicial oversight of this process."
A 2003 Senate Judiciary Committee Interim Report on FBI Oversight in the 107th Congress by the Senate Judiciary Committee: FISA Implementation Failures cited the "unnecessary secrecy" of the court among its "most important conclusions":
The secrecy of individual FISA cases is certainly necessary, but this secrecy has been extended to the most basic legal and procedural aspects of the FISA, which should not be secret. This unnecessary secrecy contributed to the deficiencies that have hamstrung the implementation of the FISA. Much more information, including all unclassified opinions and operating rules of the FISA Court and Court of Review, should be made public and/or provided to the Congress.
In a July 2013 interview, Senator and privacy advocate Ron Wyden described the FISC warrant process as "the most one-sided legal process in the United States". "I don't know of any other legal system or court that really doesn't highlight anything except one point of view", he said. Later in the interview he said Congress should seek to "diversify some of the thinking on the court".
Elizabeth Goitein, a co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, has criticized the court as being too compromised to be an impartial tribunal that oversees the work of the NSA and other U.S. intelligence activities. Since the court meets in secret, hears only the arguments of the government prior to deciding a case, and its rulings cannot be appealed or even reviewed by the public, she has argued that: "Like any other group that meets in secret behind closed doors with only one constituency appearing before them, they're subject to capture and bias."
A related bias of the court results from what critics such as Julian Sanchez, a scholar at the Cato Institute, have described as the near certainty of the polarization or groupthink of the judges of the court. Since all of the judges are appointed by the same person (the Chief Justice of the United States), hear no opposing testimony and feel no pressure from colleagues or the public to moderate their rulings, Sanchez claims that "group polarization is almost a certainty", adding that "there's the real possibility that these judges become more extreme over time, even when they had only a mild bias to begin with".
The court's judges are appointed solely by the Chief Justice of the United States without confirmation or oversight by the U.S. Congress. This gives the chief justice the ability to appoint like-minded judges and create a court without diversity. "The judges are hand-picked by someone who, through his votes on the Supreme Court, we have come to learn has a particular view on civil liberties and law enforcement", Theodore Ruger, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, said with respect to Chief Justice John Roberts. "The way the FISA is set up, it gives him unchecked authority to put judges on the court who feel the same way he does." And Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas School of Law, added, "Since FISA was enacted in 1978, we've had three chief justices, and they have all been conservative Republicans, so I think one can worry that there is insufficient diversity." Since May 2014, however, four of the five judges appointed by Chief Justice Roberts to the FISA Court were appointed to their prior federal court positions by Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
There are some reform proposals. Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut proposed that each of the chief judges of the 12 major appeals courts select a district judge for the surveillance court; the chief justice would still pick the review panel that hears rare appeals of the court's decisions, but six other Supreme Court justices would have to sign off. Another proposal authored by Representative Adam Schiff of California would give the president the power to nominate judges for the court, subject to Senate approval, while Representative Steve Cohen proposed that Congressional leaders pick eight of the court's members.
Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, has argued that, without having to seek the approval of the court (which he has said merely reviews certifications to ensure that they – and not the surveillance itself – comply with the various statutory requirements), the U.S. Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence can engage in sweeping programmatic surveillance for one year at a time. There are procedures used by the NSA to target non-U.S. persons and procedures used by the NSA to minimize data collection from U.S. persons. These court-approved policies allow the NSA to do the following:
Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's deputy legal director, said in light of revelations that the government secured telephone records from Verizon and Internet data from some of the largest providers that safeguards that are supposed to be protecting individual privacy are not working. Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that when courts make mistakes, the losing party has the right to appeal and the erroneous decision is reversed. "That process cannot happen when a secret court considers a case with only one party before it."
According to The Guardian, "The broad scope of the court orders, and the nature of the procedures set out in the documents, appear to clash with assurances from President Obama and senior intelligence officials that the NSA could not access Americans' call or email information without warrants". Glenn Greenwald, who published details of the PRISM surveillance program, explained:
that this entire process is a fig leaf, "oversight" in name only. It offers no real safeguards. That's because no court monitors what the NSA is actually doing when it claims to comply with the court-approved procedures. Once the Fisa court puts its approval stamp on the NSA's procedures, there is no external judicial check on which targets end up being selected by the NSA analysts for eavesdropping. The only time individualized warrants are required is when the NSA is specifically targeting a US citizen or the communications are purely domestic. When it is time for the NSA to obtain Fisa court approval, the agency does not tell the court whose calls and emails it intends to intercept. It instead merely provides the general guidelines which it claims are used by its analysts to determine which individuals they can target, and the Fisa court judge then issues a simple order approving those guidelines. The court endorses a one-paragraph form order stating that the NSA's process "'contains all the required elements' and that the revised NSA, FBI and CIA minimization procedures submitted with the amendment 'are consistent with the requirements of [50 U.S.C. § 1881a(e)] and with the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States'". As but one typical example, The Guardian has obtained an August 19, 2010, Fisa court approval from Judge John D. Bates which does nothing more than recite the statutory language in approving the NSA's guidelines. Once the NSA has this court approval, it can then target anyone chosen by their analysts, and can even order telecoms and internet companies to turn over to them the emails, chats and calls of those they target. The Fisa court plays no role whatsoever in reviewing whether the procedures it approved are actually complied with when the NSA starts eavesdropping on calls and reading people's emails. The guidelines submitted by the NSA to the Fisa court demonstrate how much discretion the agency has in choosing who will be targeted. ... The only oversight for monitoring whether there is abuse comes from the executive branch itself: from the DOJ and Director of National Intelligence, which conduct "periodic reviews ... to evaluate the implementation of the procedure". At a hearing before the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday afternoon, deputy attorney general James Cole testified that every 30 days, the Fisa court is merely given an "aggregate number" of database searches on US domestic phone records. ... The decisions about who has their emails and telephone calls intercepted by the NSA is made by the NSA itself, not by the Fisa court, except where the NSA itself concludes the person is a US citizen and/or the communication is exclusively domestic. But even in such cases, the NSA often ends up intercepting those communications of Americans without individualized warrants, and all of this is left to the discretion of the NSA analysts with no real judicial oversight.
Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole and NSA Deputy Director John C. Inglis cited the court's oversight in defending the constitutionality of the NSA's surveillance activities before during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in July 2013. Representative Jerrold Nadler, challenged Cole's defense of the program's constitutionality, and he said the secrecy in which the court functioned negated the validity of its review. "The fact that a secret court unaccountable to public knowledge of what it's doing ... may join you in misusing or abusing the statutes is of no comfort whatsoever", Nadler said. Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University, said the secrecy that comes along with national security makes it difficult to evaluate how the administration carries out the wide authority Congress has given it. "FISA court judges hear all of this and they think it's legal," Kerr said. "What we really don't know, though, are what the FISA court's opinions say."
In July 2013, The New York Times published disclosures from anonymous government whistleblowers of secret law written by the court holding that vast collections of data on all Americans (even those not connected in any way to foreign enemies) amassed by the NSA do not violate the warrant requirements of Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It reported that anyone suspected of being involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage or cyber-attacks, according to the court, may be considered a legitimate target for warrantless surveillance. Acting like a parallel U.S. Supreme Court, the court greatly broadened the "special-needs" exception to do so.
The newspaper reported that in "more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation's surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans". It also wrote, with respect to the court:
In one of the court's most important decisions, the judges have expanded the use in terrorism cases of a legal principle known as the 'special needs' doctrine and carved out an exception to the Fourth Amendment's requirement of a warrant for searches and seizures ... The special needs doctrine was originally established in 1989 by the Supreme Court in a ruling allowing the drug testing of railway workers, finding that a minimal intrusion on privacy was justified by the government's need to combat an overriding public danger. Applying that concept more broadly, the FISA judges have ruled that the N.S.A.'s collection and examination of Americans' communications data to track possible terrorists does not run afoul of the Fourth Amendment, the officials said. That legal interpretation is significant, several outside legal experts said, because it uses a relatively narrow area of the law – used to justify airport screenings, for instance, or drunken-driving checkpoints – and applies it much more broadly, in secret, to the wholesale collection of communications in pursuit of terrorism suspects.
The "special-needs" doctrine is an exemption to the Fourth Amendment's Warrants Clause which commands that "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be and seized". The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized an exemption to the Warrants Clause "outside the foreign intelligence context, in so-called 'special-needs' cases. In those cases, the Court excused compliance with the Warrant Clause when the purpose behind the governmental action went beyond routine law enforcement and insisting upon a warrant would materially interfere with the accomplishment of that purpose. See, Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 653 (1995) (upholding drug testing of highschool athletes and explaining that the exception to the warrant requirement applied "when special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the warrant and probable-cause requirement[s] impracticable (quoting Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987))); Skinner v. Ry. Labor Execs. Ass'n, 489 U.S. 602, 620 (1989) (upholding regulations instituting drug and alcohol testing of railroad workers for safety reasons); cf. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 23-24 (1968) (upholding pat-frisk for weapons to protect officer safety during investigatory stop)". The U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review concluded on August 22, 2008, in the case In re Directives [redacted text] Pursuant to Section 105B of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that the "special-needs" doctrine applied by analogy to justify a foreign intelligence exception to the warrant requirement for surveillance undertaken for national security purposes and directed at a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S.
James Robertson – a former judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who, in 2004, ruled against the Bush administration in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case, and also served on the FISC for three years between 2002 and 2005 – said he was "frankly stunned" by the newspaper's report that court rulings had created a new body of law broadening the ability of the NSA to use its surveillance programs to target not only terrorists but suspects in cases involving espionage, cyberattacks and weapons of mass destruction. Geoffrey R. Stone, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, said he was troubled by the idea that the court is creating a significant body of law without hearing from anyone outside the government, forgoing the adversarial system that is a staple of the American justice system. He said, "That whole notion is missing in this process".
The court concluded that mass collection of telephone metadata (including the time of phone calls and numbers dialed) does not violate the Fourth Amendment as long as the government establishes a valid reason under national security regulations before taking the next step of actually examining the contents of an American's communications. This concept is rooted partly in the special needs doctrine. "The basic idea is that it's O.K. to create this huge pond of data", an unnamed U.S. official said, "but you have to establish a reason to stick your pole in the water and start fishing". Under the new procedures passed by the U.S. Congress in the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, even the collection of metadata must be considered "relevant" to a terrorism investigation or other intelligence activities. The court has indicated that while individual pieces of data may not appear "relevant" to a terrorism investigation, the total picture that the bits of data create may in fact be relevant, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the decisions.
A secret ruling made by the court that redefined the single word "relevant" enabled the NSA to gather phone data on millions of Americans. In classified orders starting in the mid-2000s, the court accepted that "relevant" could be broadened to permit an entire database of records on millions of people, in contrast to a more conservative interpretation widely applied in criminal cases, in which only some of those records would likely be allowed. Under the Patriot Act, the Federal Bureau of Investigation can require businesses to hand over "tangible things", including "records", as long as the FBI shows it is reasonable to believe the things are "relevant to an authorized investigation" into international terrorism or foreign intelligence activities. The history of the word "relevant" is key to understanding that passage. The Supreme Court in 1991 said things are "relevant" if there is a "reasonable possibility" that they will produce information related to the subject of the investigation. In criminal cases, courts previously have found that very large sets of information did not meet the relevance standard because significant portions – innocent people's information – would not be pertinent. But the court has developed separate precedents, centered on the idea that investigations to prevent national-security threats are different from ordinary criminal cases. The court's rulings on such matters are classified and almost impossible to challenge because of the secret nature of the proceedings. According to the court, the special nature of national-security and terrorism-prevention cases means "relevant" can have a broader meaning for those investigations, say people familiar with the rulings.
People familiar with the system that uses phone records in investigations have said that the court's novel legal theories allow the system to include bulk phone records, as long as there are privacy safeguards to limit searches. NSA analysts may query the database only "when there is a reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organization", according to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. The NSA database includes data about people's phone calls – numbers dialed, how long a call lasted – but not the actual conversations. According to Supreme Court rulings, a phone call's content is covered by the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which restricts unreasonable searches, but the other types of data are not.
"Relevant" has long been a broad standard, but the way the court is interpreting it, to mean, in effect, "everything", is new, said Mark Eckenwiler, a lawyer who until December 2012 was the Justice Department's primary authority on federal criminal surveillance law. "I think it's a stretch" of previous federal legal interpretations, said Eckenwiler. If a federal attorney "served a grand-jury subpoena for such a broad class of records in a criminal investigation, he or she would be laughed out of court". Given the traditional legal definition of relevant, Timothy Edgar, a former top privacy lawyer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Council in the Bush and Obama administrations, noted it is "a fair point" to say that someone reading the law might believe it refers to "individualized requests" or "requests in small batches, rather than in bulk database form". From that standpoint, Edgar said, the reinterpretation of relevant amounts to "secret law".
In June 2013, a copy of a top-secret warrant, issued by the court on April 25, 2013, was leaked to London's The Guardian newspaper by NSA contractor Edward Snowden. That warrant orders Verizon Business Network Services to provide a daily feed to the NSA containing "telephony metadata" – comprehensive call detail records, including location data – about all calls in its system, including those that occur "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls". The Obama administration published on July 31, 2013 a FISA Court ruling supporting an earlier order requiring a Verizon subsidiary to turn over all of its customers' phone logs for a three-month period, with rules that must be followed when accessing the data.
The document leaked to The Guardian acted as a "smoking gun" and sparked a public outcry of criticism and complaints that the court exceeded its authority and violated the Fourth Amendment by issuing general warrants. The Washington Post then reported that it knew of other orders, and that the court had been issuing such orders, to all telecommunication companies, every three months since May 24, 2006.
Since the telephone metadata program was revealed, the intelligence community, some members of Congress, and the Obama administration have defended its legality and use. Most of these defenses involve the 1979 Supreme Court decision Smith v. Maryland which established that people do not have a "reasonable expectation" of privacy for electronic metadata held by third parties like a cellphone provider. That data is not considered "content", theoretically giving law enforcement more flexibility in collecting it.
On July 19, 2013, the court renewed the permission for the NSA to collect Verizon customer records en masse. The U.S. government was relying on a part of the third-party doctrine. This notion said that when a person has voluntarily disclosed information to a third party – in this case, the telephony metadata – the customer no longer has a reasonable expectation of privacy over the numbers dialed nor their duration. Therefore, this doctrine argued, such metadata can be accessed by law enforcement with essentially no problem. The content of communications are, however, subject to the Fourth Amendment. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held in October 2011, citing multiple Supreme Court precedents, that the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures applies to the contents of all communications, whatever the means, because "a person's private communications are akin to personal papers".
Former FISC judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who provided the legal foundation for the NSA amassing a database of all Americans' phone records, told associates in the summer of 2013 that she wanted her legal argument out. Rulings for the plaintiff in cases brought by the ACLU on September 10 and 12, 2013, prompted James Clapper to concede that the government had overreached in its covert surveillance under part 215 of FISA and that the Act would likely be amended to reflect Congressional concern.
The American Civil Liberties Union, a customer of Verizon, asked on November 22, 2013 a federal district court in Lower Manhattan, New York to end the NSA phone call data collection program. The ACLU argued that the program violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of privacy and information as well as exceeding the scope of its authorizing legislation, Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The U.S. government countered that the program is constitutional and that Congress was fully informed when it authorized and reauthorized Section 215. Moreover, a government lawyer said, the ACLU has no standing to bring the case because it cannot prove that its members have been harmed by the NSA's use of the data.
In November 2016, Louise Mensch reported on the news website Heat Street that, after an initial June 2016 FBI request was denied, the FISA court had granted a more narrowly focused October request from the FBI "to examine the activities of 'U.S. persons' in Donald Trump's campaign with ties to Russia". On 12 January 2017, BBC journalist Paul Wood reported that, in response to an April 2016 tip from a foreign intelligence agency to the CIA about "money from the Kremlin going into the US presidential campaign", a joint taskforce had been established including representatives of the FBI, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Justice, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency. In June 2016, lawyers from the Department of Justice applied to the FISA court for "permission to intercept the electronic records from two Russian banks". According to Wood, this application was rejected, as was a more narrowly focused request in July, and the order was finally granted by a different FISA judge on 15 October, three weeks before the presidential election. On January 19, The New York Times reported that one of its sources had claimed "intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House".
On 13 March, the Senate Intelligence Committee demanded that the Trump administration provide evidence to support the President Trump's claim that former President Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower. On 16 March, the Committee reported that they had seen no evidence to support Trump's accusation that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 presidential campaign.
On Fox News on 14 March, commentator Andrew Napolitano said, "Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. ... He used GCHQ. What is that? It's the initials for the British intelligence spying agency. Simply by saying to them, 'The president needs transcripts of conversations involving candidate Trump's conversations' he's able to get it and there's no American fingerprints on this." Two days later, on 16 March, White House press spokesperson, Sean Spicer, read this claim to the press. A GCHQ spokesman responded: "Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored." On 17 March, the U.S. issued a formal apology to the United Kingdom for the accusation.
On April 11, The Washington Post reported that the FBI had been granted a FISA warrant in the summer of 2016 to monitor then-Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page. According to the report, "The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page's communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials." The report also states that the warrant has been renewed multiple times since its first issue. These warrants were criticized in the controversial Nunes memo for allegedly being issued on the basis of evidence gathered by politically motivated sources.
When the court was founded, it was composed of seven federal district judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States, each serving a seven-year term, with one judge being appointed each year. In 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act expanded the court from seven to eleven judges, and required that at least three of the Court's judges live within twenty miles (32 km) of the District of Columbia. No judge may be appointed to this court more than once, and no judge may be appointed to both the Court of Review and the FISA court.
Chief Justice John Roberts has appointed all of the current judges.
(as of 18 August 2023)
Note that the start dates of service for some judges conflict among sources.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), also called the FISA Court, is a U.S. federal court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the United States by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "FISA was created by the U.S. Congress based on the recommendations of the Senate's Church Committee, which was convened in 1975 to investigate illicit activities and civil rights abuses by the federal intelligence community. Pursuant to the law, the FISC reviews requests to conduct physical and electronic surveillance within the U.S. concerning \"foreign intelligence information\" between \"foreign powers\" and \"agents of foreign powers\" suspected of espionage or terrorism; such requests are made most often by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "From its opening in 1978 until 2009, the court was housed on the sixth floor of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building; since 2009, it has been relocated to the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, D.C.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Each application for one of these surveillance warrants (called a FISA warrant) is made before an individual judge of the court. The court may allow third parties to submit briefs as amici curiae. When the U.S. Attorney General determines that an emergency exists, the Attorney General may authorize the emergency employment of electronic surveillance before obtaining the necessary authorization from the FISC, if the Attorney General or their designee notifies a judge of the court at the time of authorization and applies for a warrant as soon as practicable but not more than seven days after authorization of such surveillance, as required by 50 U.S.C. § 1805.",
"title": "Warrants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "If an application is denied by one judge of the court, the federal government is not allowed to make the same application to a different judge of the court but may appeal to the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. Such appeals are rare: the first appeal from the FISC to the Court of Review was made in 2002 (In re Sealed Case No. 02-001), 24 years after the founding of the court.",
"title": "Warrants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "FISA warrant requests are rarely denied. During the 25 years from 1979 to 2004, 18,742 warrants were granted, while only four were rejected. Fewer than 200 requests had to be modified before being accepted, almost all of them in 2003 and 2004. The four rejected requests were all from 2003, and all four were partially granted after being submitted for reconsideration by the government. Of the requests that had to be modified, few were before the year 2000. During the next eight years, from 2004 to 2012, there were over 15,100 additional warrants granted, and another seven being rejected. Over the entire 33-year period, the FISA court granted 33,942 warrants, with only 12 denials – a rejection rate of 0.03 percent of the total requests. This does not include the number of warrants that were modified by the FISA court.",
"title": "Warrants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Notes:",
"title": "Warrants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "On May 17, 2002, the court rebuffed Attorney General John Ashcroft, releasing an opinion that alleged that the FBI and Justice Department officials had \"supplied erroneous information to the court\" in more than 75 applications for search warrants and wiretaps, including one signed by FBI Director Louis J. Freeh. Whether this rejection was related to the court starting to require modification of significantly more requests in 2003 is unknown.",
"title": "Warrants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "On December 16, 2005, The New York Times reported that the Bush administration had been conducting surveillance against U.S. citizens without specific approval from the FISA court for each case since 2002. On December 20, 2005, Judge James Robertson resigned his position with the court, apparently in protest of the secret surveillance, and later, in the wake of the Snowden leaks of 2013, criticized the court-sanctioned expansion of the scope of government surveillance and its being allowed to craft a secret body of law. The government's apparent circumvention of the court started prior to the increase in court-ordered modifications to warrant requests.",
"title": "Warrants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 2011, the Obama administration secretly won permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency's use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans' communications in its massive databases. The searches take place under a surveillance program Congress authorized in 2008, under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendment Act (Section 1881a et seq in FISA). Under that law, the target must be a foreigner \"reasonably believed\" to be outside the United States, and the court must approve the targeting procedures in an order good for one year. But a warrant for each target would thus no longer be required. That means that communications with Americans could be picked up without a court first determining that there is probable cause that the people they were talking to were terrorists, spies or \"foreign powers\". The FISC also extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years with an extension possible for foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purposes. Both measures were done without public debate or any specific authority from Congress.",
"title": "Warrants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Because of the sensitive nature of its business, the court is a \"secret court\" – its hearings are closed to the public. While records of the proceedings are kept, they also are unavailable to the public, although copies of some records with classified information redacted have been made public. Due to the classified nature of its proceedings, usually only attorneys licensed to practice in front of the US government are permitted to appear before the court. Because of the nature of the matters heard before it, court hearings may need to take place at any time of day or night, weekdays or weekends; thus, at least one judge must be \"on call\" at all times to hear evidence and decide whether or not to issue a warrant.",
"title": "Secrecy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "A heavily redacted version of a 2008 appeal by Yahoo! of an order issued with respect to NSA's PRISM program had been published for the edification of other potential appellants. The identity of the appellant was declassified in June 2013.",
"title": "Secrecy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "There has been growing criticism of the court since the September 11, 2001 attacks. This is partly because the court sits ex parte – in other words, in the absence of anyone but the judge and the government present at the hearings. This, combined with the minimal number of requests that are rejected by the court has led experts to characterize it as a rubber stamp (former National Security Agency analyst Russ Tice called it a \"kangaroo court with a rubber stamp\"). The accusation of being a \"rubber stamp\" was rejected by FISA Court president Reggie B. Walton who wrote in a letter to Senator Patrick J. Leahy: \"The annual statistics provided to Congress by the Attorney General ... – frequently cited to in press reports as a suggestion that the Court's approval rate of application is over 99% – reflect only the number of final applications submitted to and acted on by the Court. These statistics do not reflect the fact that many applications are altered to prior or final submission or even withheld from final submission entirely, often after an indication that a judge would not approve them.\" He added: \"There is a rigorous review process of applications submitted by the executive branch, spearheaded initially by five judicial branch lawyers who are national security experts and then by the judges, to ensure that the court's authorizations comport with what the applicable statutes authorize.\" In a following letter Walton stated that the government had revamped 24.4% of its requests in the face of court questions and demands in time from July 1, 2013 to September 30, 2013. This figure became available after Walton decided in the summer of 2013 that the FISC would begin keeping its own tally of how Justice Department warrant applications for electronic surveillance fared – and would track for the first time when the government withdrew or resubmitted those applications with changes. Some requests are modified by the court but ultimately granted, while the percentage of denied requests is statistically negligible (11 denied requests out of around 34,000 granted in 35 years – equivalent to 0.03%). The accusation that the FISC is a \"rubber stamp\" court was also rejected by Robert S. Litt (General Counsel of Office of the Director of National Intelligence): \"When [the Government] prepares an application for [a section 215 order, it] first submit[s] to the [FISC] what's called a \"read copy\", which the court staff will review and comment on. [A]nd they will almost invariably come back with questions, concerns, problems that they see. And there is an iterative process back and forth between the Government and the [FISC] to take care of those concerns so that at the end of the day, we're confident that we're presenting something that the [FISC] will approve. That is hardly a rubber stamp. It's rather extensive and serious judicial oversight of this process.\"",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "A 2003 Senate Judiciary Committee Interim Report on FBI Oversight in the 107th Congress by the Senate Judiciary Committee: FISA Implementation Failures cited the \"unnecessary secrecy\" of the court among its \"most important conclusions\":",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The secrecy of individual FISA cases is certainly necessary, but this secrecy has been extended to the most basic legal and procedural aspects of the FISA, which should not be secret. This unnecessary secrecy contributed to the deficiencies that have hamstrung the implementation of the FISA. Much more information, including all unclassified opinions and operating rules of the FISA Court and Court of Review, should be made public and/or provided to the Congress.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In a July 2013 interview, Senator and privacy advocate Ron Wyden described the FISC warrant process as \"the most one-sided legal process in the United States\". \"I don't know of any other legal system or court that really doesn't highlight anything except one point of view\", he said. Later in the interview he said Congress should seek to \"diversify some of the thinking on the court\".",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Elizabeth Goitein, a co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, has criticized the court as being too compromised to be an impartial tribunal that oversees the work of the NSA and other U.S. intelligence activities. Since the court meets in secret, hears only the arguments of the government prior to deciding a case, and its rulings cannot be appealed or even reviewed by the public, she has argued that: \"Like any other group that meets in secret behind closed doors with only one constituency appearing before them, they're subject to capture and bias.\"",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "A related bias of the court results from what critics such as Julian Sanchez, a scholar at the Cato Institute, have described as the near certainty of the polarization or groupthink of the judges of the court. Since all of the judges are appointed by the same person (the Chief Justice of the United States), hear no opposing testimony and feel no pressure from colleagues or the public to moderate their rulings, Sanchez claims that \"group polarization is almost a certainty\", adding that \"there's the real possibility that these judges become more extreme over time, even when they had only a mild bias to begin with\".",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The court's judges are appointed solely by the Chief Justice of the United States without confirmation or oversight by the U.S. Congress. This gives the chief justice the ability to appoint like-minded judges and create a court without diversity. \"The judges are hand-picked by someone who, through his votes on the Supreme Court, we have come to learn has a particular view on civil liberties and law enforcement\", Theodore Ruger, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, said with respect to Chief Justice John Roberts. \"The way the FISA is set up, it gives him unchecked authority to put judges on the court who feel the same way he does.\" And Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas School of Law, added, \"Since FISA was enacted in 1978, we've had three chief justices, and they have all been conservative Republicans, so I think one can worry that there is insufficient diversity.\" Since May 2014, however, four of the five judges appointed by Chief Justice Roberts to the FISA Court were appointed to their prior federal court positions by Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "There are some reform proposals. Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut proposed that each of the chief judges of the 12 major appeals courts select a district judge for the surveillance court; the chief justice would still pick the review panel that hears rare appeals of the court's decisions, but six other Supreme Court justices would have to sign off. Another proposal authored by Representative Adam Schiff of California would give the president the power to nominate judges for the court, subject to Senate approval, while Representative Steve Cohen proposed that Congressional leaders pick eight of the court's members.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, has argued that, without having to seek the approval of the court (which he has said merely reviews certifications to ensure that they – and not the surveillance itself – comply with the various statutory requirements), the U.S. Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence can engage in sweeping programmatic surveillance for one year at a time. There are procedures used by the NSA to target non-U.S. persons and procedures used by the NSA to minimize data collection from U.S. persons. These court-approved policies allow the NSA to do the following:",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's deputy legal director, said in light of revelations that the government secured telephone records from Verizon and Internet data from some of the largest providers that safeguards that are supposed to be protecting individual privacy are not working. Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that when courts make mistakes, the losing party has the right to appeal and the erroneous decision is reversed. \"That process cannot happen when a secret court considers a case with only one party before it.\"",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "According to The Guardian, \"The broad scope of the court orders, and the nature of the procedures set out in the documents, appear to clash with assurances from President Obama and senior intelligence officials that the NSA could not access Americans' call or email information without warrants\". Glenn Greenwald, who published details of the PRISM surveillance program, explained:",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "that this entire process is a fig leaf, \"oversight\" in name only. It offers no real safeguards. That's because no court monitors what the NSA is actually doing when it claims to comply with the court-approved procedures. Once the Fisa court puts its approval stamp on the NSA's procedures, there is no external judicial check on which targets end up being selected by the NSA analysts for eavesdropping. The only time individualized warrants are required is when the NSA is specifically targeting a US citizen or the communications are purely domestic. When it is time for the NSA to obtain Fisa court approval, the agency does not tell the court whose calls and emails it intends to intercept. It instead merely provides the general guidelines which it claims are used by its analysts to determine which individuals they can target, and the Fisa court judge then issues a simple order approving those guidelines. The court endorses a one-paragraph form order stating that the NSA's process \"'contains all the required elements' and that the revised NSA, FBI and CIA minimization procedures submitted with the amendment 'are consistent with the requirements of [50 U.S.C. § 1881a(e)] and with the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States'\". As but one typical example, The Guardian has obtained an August 19, 2010, Fisa court approval from Judge John D. Bates which does nothing more than recite the statutory language in approving the NSA's guidelines. Once the NSA has this court approval, it can then target anyone chosen by their analysts, and can even order telecoms and internet companies to turn over to them the emails, chats and calls of those they target. The Fisa court plays no role whatsoever in reviewing whether the procedures it approved are actually complied with when the NSA starts eavesdropping on calls and reading people's emails. The guidelines submitted by the NSA to the Fisa court demonstrate how much discretion the agency has in choosing who will be targeted. ... The only oversight for monitoring whether there is abuse comes from the executive branch itself: from the DOJ and Director of National Intelligence, which conduct \"periodic reviews ... to evaluate the implementation of the procedure\". At a hearing before the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday afternoon, deputy attorney general James Cole testified that every 30 days, the Fisa court is merely given an \"aggregate number\" of database searches on US domestic phone records. ... The decisions about who has their emails and telephone calls intercepted by the NSA is made by the NSA itself, not by the Fisa court, except where the NSA itself concludes the person is a US citizen and/or the communication is exclusively domestic. But even in such cases, the NSA often ends up intercepting those communications of Americans without individualized warrants, and all of this is left to the discretion of the NSA analysts with no real judicial oversight.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole and NSA Deputy Director John C. Inglis cited the court's oversight in defending the constitutionality of the NSA's surveillance activities before during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in July 2013. Representative Jerrold Nadler, challenged Cole's defense of the program's constitutionality, and he said the secrecy in which the court functioned negated the validity of its review. \"The fact that a secret court unaccountable to public knowledge of what it's doing ... may join you in misusing or abusing the statutes is of no comfort whatsoever\", Nadler said. Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University, said the secrecy that comes along with national security makes it difficult to evaluate how the administration carries out the wide authority Congress has given it. \"FISA court judges hear all of this and they think it's legal,\" Kerr said. \"What we really don't know, though, are what the FISA court's opinions say.\"",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In July 2013, The New York Times published disclosures from anonymous government whistleblowers of secret law written by the court holding that vast collections of data on all Americans (even those not connected in any way to foreign enemies) amassed by the NSA do not violate the warrant requirements of Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It reported that anyone suspected of being involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage or cyber-attacks, according to the court, may be considered a legitimate target for warrantless surveillance. Acting like a parallel U.S. Supreme Court, the court greatly broadened the \"special-needs\" exception to do so.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The newspaper reported that in \"more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation's surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans\". It also wrote, with respect to the court:",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In one of the court's most important decisions, the judges have expanded the use in terrorism cases of a legal principle known as the 'special needs' doctrine and carved out an exception to the Fourth Amendment's requirement of a warrant for searches and seizures ... The special needs doctrine was originally established in 1989 by the Supreme Court in a ruling allowing the drug testing of railway workers, finding that a minimal intrusion on privacy was justified by the government's need to combat an overriding public danger. Applying that concept more broadly, the FISA judges have ruled that the N.S.A.'s collection and examination of Americans' communications data to track possible terrorists does not run afoul of the Fourth Amendment, the officials said. That legal interpretation is significant, several outside legal experts said, because it uses a relatively narrow area of the law – used to justify airport screenings, for instance, or drunken-driving checkpoints – and applies it much more broadly, in secret, to the wholesale collection of communications in pursuit of terrorism suspects.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The \"special-needs\" doctrine is an exemption to the Fourth Amendment's Warrants Clause which commands that \"no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be and seized\". The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized an exemption to the Warrants Clause \"outside the foreign intelligence context, in so-called 'special-needs' cases. In those cases, the Court excused compliance with the Warrant Clause when the purpose behind the governmental action went beyond routine law enforcement and insisting upon a warrant would materially interfere with the accomplishment of that purpose. See, Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 653 (1995) (upholding drug testing of highschool athletes and explaining that the exception to the warrant requirement applied \"when special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the warrant and probable-cause requirement[s] impracticable (quoting Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987))); Skinner v. Ry. Labor Execs. Ass'n, 489 U.S. 602, 620 (1989) (upholding regulations instituting drug and alcohol testing of railroad workers for safety reasons); cf. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 23-24 (1968) (upholding pat-frisk for weapons to protect officer safety during investigatory stop)\". The U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review concluded on August 22, 2008, in the case In re Directives [redacted text] Pursuant to Section 105B of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that the \"special-needs\" doctrine applied by analogy to justify a foreign intelligence exception to the warrant requirement for surveillance undertaken for national security purposes and directed at a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "James Robertson – a former judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who, in 2004, ruled against the Bush administration in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case, and also served on the FISC for three years between 2002 and 2005 – said he was \"frankly stunned\" by the newspaper's report that court rulings had created a new body of law broadening the ability of the NSA to use its surveillance programs to target not only terrorists but suspects in cases involving espionage, cyberattacks and weapons of mass destruction. Geoffrey R. Stone, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, said he was troubled by the idea that the court is creating a significant body of law without hearing from anyone outside the government, forgoing the adversarial system that is a staple of the American justice system. He said, \"That whole notion is missing in this process\".",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The court concluded that mass collection of telephone metadata (including the time of phone calls and numbers dialed) does not violate the Fourth Amendment as long as the government establishes a valid reason under national security regulations before taking the next step of actually examining the contents of an American's communications. This concept is rooted partly in the special needs doctrine. \"The basic idea is that it's O.K. to create this huge pond of data\", an unnamed U.S. official said, \"but you have to establish a reason to stick your pole in the water and start fishing\". Under the new procedures passed by the U.S. Congress in the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, even the collection of metadata must be considered \"relevant\" to a terrorism investigation or other intelligence activities. The court has indicated that while individual pieces of data may not appear \"relevant\" to a terrorism investigation, the total picture that the bits of data create may in fact be relevant, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the decisions.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "A secret ruling made by the court that redefined the single word \"relevant\" enabled the NSA to gather phone data on millions of Americans. In classified orders starting in the mid-2000s, the court accepted that \"relevant\" could be broadened to permit an entire database of records on millions of people, in contrast to a more conservative interpretation widely applied in criminal cases, in which only some of those records would likely be allowed. Under the Patriot Act, the Federal Bureau of Investigation can require businesses to hand over \"tangible things\", including \"records\", as long as the FBI shows it is reasonable to believe the things are \"relevant to an authorized investigation\" into international terrorism or foreign intelligence activities. The history of the word \"relevant\" is key to understanding that passage. The Supreme Court in 1991 said things are \"relevant\" if there is a \"reasonable possibility\" that they will produce information related to the subject of the investigation. In criminal cases, courts previously have found that very large sets of information did not meet the relevance standard because significant portions – innocent people's information – would not be pertinent. But the court has developed separate precedents, centered on the idea that investigations to prevent national-security threats are different from ordinary criminal cases. The court's rulings on such matters are classified and almost impossible to challenge because of the secret nature of the proceedings. According to the court, the special nature of national-security and terrorism-prevention cases means \"relevant\" can have a broader meaning for those investigations, say people familiar with the rulings.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "People familiar with the system that uses phone records in investigations have said that the court's novel legal theories allow the system to include bulk phone records, as long as there are privacy safeguards to limit searches. NSA analysts may query the database only \"when there is a reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organization\", according to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. The NSA database includes data about people's phone calls – numbers dialed, how long a call lasted – but not the actual conversations. According to Supreme Court rulings, a phone call's content is covered by the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which restricts unreasonable searches, but the other types of data are not.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "\"Relevant\" has long been a broad standard, but the way the court is interpreting it, to mean, in effect, \"everything\", is new, said Mark Eckenwiler, a lawyer who until December 2012 was the Justice Department's primary authority on federal criminal surveillance law. \"I think it's a stretch\" of previous federal legal interpretations, said Eckenwiler. If a federal attorney \"served a grand-jury subpoena for such a broad class of records in a criminal investigation, he or she would be laughed out of court\". Given the traditional legal definition of relevant, Timothy Edgar, a former top privacy lawyer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Council in the Bush and Obama administrations, noted it is \"a fair point\" to say that someone reading the law might believe it refers to \"individualized requests\" or \"requests in small batches, rather than in bulk database form\". From that standpoint, Edgar said, the reinterpretation of relevant amounts to \"secret law\".",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In June 2013, a copy of a top-secret warrant, issued by the court on April 25, 2013, was leaked to London's The Guardian newspaper by NSA contractor Edward Snowden. That warrant orders Verizon Business Network Services to provide a daily feed to the NSA containing \"telephony metadata\" – comprehensive call detail records, including location data – about all calls in its system, including those that occur \"wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls\". The Obama administration published on July 31, 2013 a FISA Court ruling supporting an earlier order requiring a Verizon subsidiary to turn over all of its customers' phone logs for a three-month period, with rules that must be followed when accessing the data.",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The document leaked to The Guardian acted as a \"smoking gun\" and sparked a public outcry of criticism and complaints that the court exceeded its authority and violated the Fourth Amendment by issuing general warrants. The Washington Post then reported that it knew of other orders, and that the court had been issuing such orders, to all telecommunication companies, every three months since May 24, 2006.",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Since the telephone metadata program was revealed, the intelligence community, some members of Congress, and the Obama administration have defended its legality and use. Most of these defenses involve the 1979 Supreme Court decision Smith v. Maryland which established that people do not have a \"reasonable expectation\" of privacy for electronic metadata held by third parties like a cellphone provider. That data is not considered \"content\", theoretically giving law enforcement more flexibility in collecting it.",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "On July 19, 2013, the court renewed the permission for the NSA to collect Verizon customer records en masse. The U.S. government was relying on a part of the third-party doctrine. This notion said that when a person has voluntarily disclosed information to a third party – in this case, the telephony metadata – the customer no longer has a reasonable expectation of privacy over the numbers dialed nor their duration. Therefore, this doctrine argued, such metadata can be accessed by law enforcement with essentially no problem. The content of communications are, however, subject to the Fourth Amendment. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held in October 2011, citing multiple Supreme Court precedents, that the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures applies to the contents of all communications, whatever the means, because \"a person's private communications are akin to personal papers\".",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Former FISC judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who provided the legal foundation for the NSA amassing a database of all Americans' phone records, told associates in the summer of 2013 that she wanted her legal argument out. Rulings for the plaintiff in cases brought by the ACLU on September 10 and 12, 2013, prompted James Clapper to concede that the government had overreached in its covert surveillance under part 215 of FISA and that the Act would likely be amended to reflect Congressional concern.",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The American Civil Liberties Union, a customer of Verizon, asked on November 22, 2013 a federal district court in Lower Manhattan, New York to end the NSA phone call data collection program. The ACLU argued that the program violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of privacy and information as well as exceeding the scope of its authorizing legislation, Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The U.S. government countered that the program is constitutional and that Congress was fully informed when it authorized and reauthorized Section 215. Moreover, a government lawyer said, the ACLU has no standing to bring the case because it cannot prove that its members have been harmed by the NSA's use of the data.",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In November 2016, Louise Mensch reported on the news website Heat Street that, after an initial June 2016 FBI request was denied, the FISA court had granted a more narrowly focused October request from the FBI \"to examine the activities of 'U.S. persons' in Donald Trump's campaign with ties to Russia\". On 12 January 2017, BBC journalist Paul Wood reported that, in response to an April 2016 tip from a foreign intelligence agency to the CIA about \"money from the Kremlin going into the US presidential campaign\", a joint taskforce had been established including representatives of the FBI, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Justice, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency. In June 2016, lawyers from the Department of Justice applied to the FISA court for \"permission to intercept the electronic records from two Russian banks\". According to Wood, this application was rejected, as was a more narrowly focused request in July, and the order was finally granted by a different FISA judge on 15 October, three weeks before the presidential election. On January 19, The New York Times reported that one of its sources had claimed \"intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House\".",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "On 13 March, the Senate Intelligence Committee demanded that the Trump administration provide evidence to support the President Trump's claim that former President Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower. On 16 March, the Committee reported that they had seen no evidence to support Trump's accusation that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 presidential campaign.",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "On Fox News on 14 March, commentator Andrew Napolitano said, \"Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. ... He used GCHQ. What is that? It's the initials for the British intelligence spying agency. Simply by saying to them, 'The president needs transcripts of conversations involving candidate Trump's conversations' he's able to get it and there's no American fingerprints on this.\" Two days later, on 16 March, White House press spokesperson, Sean Spicer, read this claim to the press. A GCHQ spokesman responded: \"Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.\" On 17 March, the U.S. issued a formal apology to the United Kingdom for the accusation.",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "On April 11, The Washington Post reported that the FBI had been granted a FISA warrant in the summer of 2016 to monitor then-Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page. According to the report, \"The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page's communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.\" The report also states that the warrant has been renewed multiple times since its first issue. These warrants were criticized in the controversial Nunes memo for allegedly being issued on the basis of evidence gathered by politically motivated sources.",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "When the court was founded, it was composed of seven federal district judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States, each serving a seven-year term, with one judge being appointed each year. In 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act expanded the court from seven to eleven judges, and required that at least three of the Court's judges live within twenty miles (32 km) of the District of Columbia. No judge may be appointed to this court more than once, and no judge may be appointed to both the Court of Review and the FISA court.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Chief Justice John Roberts has appointed all of the current judges.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "(as of 18 August 2023)",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Note that the start dates of service for some judges conflict among sources.",
"title": "Composition"
}
] |
The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), also called the FISA Court, is a U.S. federal court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the United States by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. FISA was created by the U.S. Congress based on the recommendations of the Senate's Church Committee, which was convened in 1975 to investigate illicit activities and civil rights abuses by the federal intelligence community. Pursuant to the law, the FISC reviews requests to conduct physical and electronic surveillance within the U.S. concerning "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign powers" and "agents of foreign powers" suspected of espionage or terrorism; such requests are made most often by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). From its opening in 1978 until 2009, the court was housed on the sixth floor of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building; since 2009, it has been relocated to the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, D.C.
|
2001-10-25T08:05:41Z
|
2023-09-17T21:02:59Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court
|
11,407 |
FC Den Bosch
|
FC Den Bosch (Dutch pronunciation: [ɛfˈseː dɛmˈbɔs]) is a football club from 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands.
They were founded 18 August 1965, as FC Den Bosch/BVV. They are the successor of BVV (1906) and Wilhelmina (1890). Their stadium is called 'De Vliert', an 8,500 all-seater. Ruud van Nistelrooy started his professional career at this club. In 2005 they finished bottom of the Eredivisie and were relegated and currently compete in the Eerste Divisie.
The club were founded on 18 August 1965 as the successor to BVV, who were formed in 1906 and Dutch champions in 1948. They were champions of the 1965–66 Tweede Divisie B., They merged with Wilhelmina (1890) on 10 May 1967 to form F.C. Den Bosch '67, before being crowned champions of 1970–71 Eerste Divisie to secure promotion to the Eredivise for the first time in their history. Their first season in the Eredivisie, the 1971–72 season saw Den Bosch struggle with relegation all season, but they would eventually finish 16th, three points above the relegation zone, following a late-season upturn in form. Despite this the club lasted just two seasons in the Eredivise as they finished bottom of the 1972–73 Eredivisie and were relegated back to the Eerste Divisie.
Den Bosch struggled following their return to the Eerste Divisie, failing to finish in the top half until the 1977–78 season. However, come the turn of the decade, Den Bosch were consistently challenging for promotion, with the club competing in the promotion play-off for the 1980–81 season, only to lose out to De Graafschap. However, they would win the promotion play-offs for the 1982–83 season, marking their return to the Eredivisie. The club's first season back in the Eredivisie saw them finish 10th in the Eredivisie, before the next two seasons saw 6th-place finishes for the club, with the latter seeing Den Bosch finish just 3 points off the UEFA Cup qualification places. This success did not last though as they were relegated back to the Eerste Divisie in the 1989–90 season, shortly after the club was renamed B.V.V. Den Bosch in 1988.
The club saw promotions to the Eredivisie in the 1991–92, 1998–99, 2000–01 and the 2003–04 seasons (the latter three as champions), only to be relegated back to the Eerste Divisie each time. The club also changed its name back to FC Den Bosch in 1992. In the ten years following their relegation back to the Eerste Divisie, they competed in the promotion play-offs on six occasions bit failed to get promoted on any of them.
In the summer of 2018, after years of financial problems and bad performances in Eerste Divisie a Georgian businessman Kakhi Jordania, decided to invest in the club with intent to purchase. His ownership group was allowed to start making changes in the management, while they were awaiting the approval of KNVB. The club had a best season in years. The team finished as winter champions in Eerste Divisie, but could not continue their good form after the winter break. Den Bosch still managed to qualify for the promotion playoffs, where they lost to Go Ahead Eagles. After a year of due diligence, KNVB decided not to grant the new ownership group the right to purchase the club.
In November 2019, Den Bosch supporters racially abused SBV Excelsior player Ahmad Mendes Moreira in a match against the club, with Moreira having allegedly been called a 'negro and cotton-picker' prior to the match being halted after 30 minutes. Following the match, Moreira was labelled as a "pathetic little man" by Den Bosch's manager and the club originally stated that Moreira mistook 'crow sounds' for racist abuse, before later apologising for that statement. A few days after the match Den Bosch's manager apologised to Moreira. The "pathetic little man" label was about the way Moreira celebrated his goal and had nothing to do with racism. Moreira accepted these words. Following the incident and criticism from Netherlands internationals Memphis Depay and Georginio Wijnaldum, it was announced that players in the Dutch top two divisions would not play during the first minute of the following weekend's games in protest against racism in Dutch football as a result of the incident. In response to the incident, Den Bosch banned a number of supporters from attending games in January 2020. It was the first time a professional match in the Netherlands had to be halted as a result of racism.
In September 2021, Pacific Media Group, Partners Path Capital, Chien Lee, Randy Frankel and Krishen Sud acquired 53% of FC Den Bosch.
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Below is a table with FC Den Bosch's domestic results since the introduction of professional football in 1956.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "FC Den Bosch (Dutch pronunciation: [ɛfˈseː dɛmˈbɔs]) is a football club from 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "They were founded 18 August 1965, as FC Den Bosch/BVV. They are the successor of BVV (1906) and Wilhelmina (1890). Their stadium is called 'De Vliert', an 8,500 all-seater. Ruud van Nistelrooy started his professional career at this club. In 2005 they finished bottom of the Eredivisie and were relegated and currently compete in the Eerste Divisie.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The club were founded on 18 August 1965 as the successor to BVV, who were formed in 1906 and Dutch champions in 1948. They were champions of the 1965–66 Tweede Divisie B., They merged with Wilhelmina (1890) on 10 May 1967 to form F.C. Den Bosch '67, before being crowned champions of 1970–71 Eerste Divisie to secure promotion to the Eredivise for the first time in their history. Their first season in the Eredivisie, the 1971–72 season saw Den Bosch struggle with relegation all season, but they would eventually finish 16th, three points above the relegation zone, following a late-season upturn in form. Despite this the club lasted just two seasons in the Eredivise as they finished bottom of the 1972–73 Eredivisie and were relegated back to the Eerste Divisie.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Den Bosch struggled following their return to the Eerste Divisie, failing to finish in the top half until the 1977–78 season. However, come the turn of the decade, Den Bosch were consistently challenging for promotion, with the club competing in the promotion play-off for the 1980–81 season, only to lose out to De Graafschap. However, they would win the promotion play-offs for the 1982–83 season, marking their return to the Eredivisie. The club's first season back in the Eredivisie saw them finish 10th in the Eredivisie, before the next two seasons saw 6th-place finishes for the club, with the latter seeing Den Bosch finish just 3 points off the UEFA Cup qualification places. This success did not last though as they were relegated back to the Eerste Divisie in the 1989–90 season, shortly after the club was renamed B.V.V. Den Bosch in 1988.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The club saw promotions to the Eredivisie in the 1991–92, 1998–99, 2000–01 and the 2003–04 seasons (the latter three as champions), only to be relegated back to the Eerste Divisie each time. The club also changed its name back to FC Den Bosch in 1992. In the ten years following their relegation back to the Eerste Divisie, they competed in the promotion play-offs on six occasions bit failed to get promoted on any of them.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In the summer of 2018, after years of financial problems and bad performances in Eerste Divisie a Georgian businessman Kakhi Jordania, decided to invest in the club with intent to purchase. His ownership group was allowed to start making changes in the management, while they were awaiting the approval of KNVB. The club had a best season in years. The team finished as winter champions in Eerste Divisie, but could not continue their good form after the winter break. Den Bosch still managed to qualify for the promotion playoffs, where they lost to Go Ahead Eagles. After a year of due diligence, KNVB decided not to grant the new ownership group the right to purchase the club.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In November 2019, Den Bosch supporters racially abused SBV Excelsior player Ahmad Mendes Moreira in a match against the club, with Moreira having allegedly been called a 'negro and cotton-picker' prior to the match being halted after 30 minutes. Following the match, Moreira was labelled as a \"pathetic little man\" by Den Bosch's manager and the club originally stated that Moreira mistook 'crow sounds' for racist abuse, before later apologising for that statement. A few days after the match Den Bosch's manager apologised to Moreira. The \"pathetic little man\" label was about the way Moreira celebrated his goal and had nothing to do with racism. Moreira accepted these words. Following the incident and criticism from Netherlands internationals Memphis Depay and Georginio Wijnaldum, it was announced that players in the Dutch top two divisions would not play during the first minute of the following weekend's games in protest against racism in Dutch football as a result of the incident. In response to the incident, Den Bosch banned a number of supporters from attending games in January 2020. It was the first time a professional match in the Netherlands had to be halted as a result of racism.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In September 2021, Pacific Media Group, Partners Path Capital, Chien Lee, Randy Frankel and Krishen Sud acquired 53% of FC Den Bosch.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.",
"title": "Players"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Below is a table with FC Den Bosch's domestic results since the introduction of professional football in 1956.",
"title": "Honours"
}
] |
FC Den Bosch is a football club from 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. They were founded 18 August 1965, as FC Den Bosch/BVV. They are the successor of BVV (1906) and Wilhelmina (1890). Their stadium is called 'De Vliert', an 8,500 all-seater. Ruud van Nistelrooy started his professional career at this club. In 2005 they finished bottom of the Eredivisie and were relegated and currently compete in the Eerste Divisie.
|
2001-10-25T16:54:34Z
|
2023-11-08T05:50:24Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Den_Bosch
|
11,408 |
Female genital mutilation
|
Female genital mutilation (FGM) (also known as female genital cutting, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and female circumcision) is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the vulva. The practice is found in some countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and within their respective diasporas. As of 2023, UNICEF estimates that "at least 200 million girls... in 31 countries"—including Indonesia, Iraq, Yemen, and 27 African countries including Egypt—had been subjected to one or more types of female genital mutilation.
Typically carried out by a traditional circumciser using a blade, FGM is conducted from days after birth to puberty and beyond. In half of the countries for which national statistics are available, most girls are cut before the age of five. Procedures differ according to the country or ethnic group. They include removal of the clitoral hood (type 1-a) and clitoral glans (1-b); removal of the inner labia (2-a); and removal of the inner and outer labia and closure of the vulva (type 3). In this last procedure, known as infibulation, a small hole is left for the passage of urine and menstrual fluid; the vagina is opened for intercourse and opened further for childbirth.
The practice is rooted in gender inequality, attempts to control women's sexuality, and ideas about purity, modesty, and beauty. It is usually initiated and carried out by women, who see it as a source of honour, and who fear that failing to have their daughters and granddaughters cut will expose the girls to social exclusion. Adverse health effects depend on the type of procedure; they can include recurrent infections, difficulty urinating and passing menstrual flow, chronic pain, the development of cysts, an inability to get pregnant, complications during childbirth, and fatal bleeding. There are no known health benefits.
There have been international efforts since the 1970s to persuade practitioners to abandon FGM, and it has been outlawed or restricted in most of the countries in which it occurs, although the laws are often poorly enforced. Since 2010, the United Nations has called upon healthcare providers to stop performing all forms of the procedure, including reinfibulation after childbirth and symbolic "nicking" of the clitoral hood. The opposition to the practice is not without its critics, particularly among anthropologists, who have raised questions about cultural relativism and the universality of human rights.
Until the 1980s, FGM was widely known in English as "female circumcision", implying an equivalence in severity with male circumcision. From 1929 the Kenya Missionary Council referred to it as the sexual mutilation of women, following the lead of Marion Scott Stevenson, a Church of Scotland missionary. References to the practice as mutilation increased throughout the 1970s. In 1975 Rose Oldfield Hayes, an American anthropologist, used the term female genital mutilation in the title of a paper in American Ethnologist, and four years later Fran Hosken called it mutilation in her influential The Hosken Report: Genital and Sexual Mutilation of Females. The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children began referring to it as female genital mutilation in 1990, and the World Health Organization (WHO) followed suit in 1991. Other English terms include female genital cutting (FGC) and female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), preferred by those who work with practitioners.
In countries where FGM is common, the practice's many variants are reflected in dozens of terms, often alluding to purification. In the Bambara language, spoken mostly in Mali, it is known as bolokoli ("washing your hands") and in the Igbo language in eastern Nigeria as isa aru or iwu aru ("having your bath"). A common Arabic term for purification has the root t-h-r, used for male and female circumcision (tahur and tahara). It is also known in Arabic as khafḍ or khifaḍ. Communities may refer to FGM as "pharaonic" for infibulation and "sunna" circumcision for everything else; sunna means "path or way" in Arabic and refers to the tradition of Muhammad, although none of the procedures are required within Islam. The term infibulation derives from fibula, Latin for clasp; the Ancient Romans reportedly fastened clasps through the foreskins or labia of slaves to prevent sexual intercourse. The surgical infibulation of women came to be known as pharaonic circumcision in Sudan and as Sudanese circumcision in Egypt. In Somalia, it is known simply as qodob ("to sew up").
The procedures are generally performed by a traditional circumciser (cutter or exciseuse) in the girls' homes, with or without anaesthesia. The cutter is usually an older woman, but in communities where the male barber has assumed the role of health worker, he will also perform FGM. When traditional cutters are involved, non-sterile devices are likely to be used, including knives, razors, scissors, glass, sharpened rocks, and fingernails. According to a nurse in Uganda, quoted in 2007 in The Lancet, a cutter would use one knife on up to 30 girls at a time. In several countries, health professionals are involved; in Egypt, 77 percent of FGM procedures, and in Indonesia over 50 percent, were performed by medical professionals as of 2008 and 2016.
The WHO, UNICEF, and UNFPA issued a joint statement in 1997 defining FGM as "all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural or other non-therapeutic reasons". The procedures vary according to ethnicity and individual practitioners; during a 1998 survey in Niger, women responded with over 50 terms when asked what was done to them. Translation problems are compounded by the women's confusion over which type of FGM they experienced, or even whether they experienced it. Studies have suggested that survey responses are unreliable. A 2003 study in Ghana found that in 1995 four percent said they had not undergone FGM, but in 2000 said they had, while 11 percent switched in the other direction. In Tanzania in 2005, 66 percent reported FGM, but a medical exam found that 73 percent had undergone it. In Sudan in 2006, a significant percentage of infibulated women and girls reported a less severe type.
Standard questionnaires from United Nations bodies ask women whether they or their daughters have undergone the following: (1) cut, no flesh removed (symbolic nicking); (2) cut, some flesh removed; (3) sewn closed; or (4) type not determined/unsure/doesn't know. The most common procedures fall within the "cut, some flesh removed" category and involve complete or partial removal of the clitoral glans. The World Health Organization (a UN agency) created a more detailed typology in 1997: Types I–II vary in how much tissue is removed; Type III is equivalent to the UNICEF category "sewn closed"; and Type IV describes miscellaneous procedures, including symbolic nicking.
Type I is "partial or total removal of the clitoral glans (the external and visible part of the clitoris, which is a sensitive part of the female genitals), and/or the prepuce/clitoral hood (the fold of skin surrounding the clitoral glans)". Type Ia involves removal of the clitoral hood only. This is rarely performed alone. The more common procedure is Type Ib (clitoridectomy), the complete or partial removal of the clitoral glans (the visible tip of the clitoris) and clitoral hood. The circumciser pulls the clitoral glans with her thumb and index finger and cuts it off.
Type II (excision) is the complete or partial removal of the inner labia, with or without removal of the clitoral glans and outer labia. Type IIa is removal of the inner labia; Type IIb, removal of the clitoral glans and inner labia; and Type IIc, removal of the clitoral glans, inner and outer labia. Excision in French can refer to any form of FGM.
— Swiss Medical Weekly
Type III (infibulation or pharaonic circumcision), the "sewn closed" category, is the removal of the external genitalia and fusion of the wound. The inner and/or outer labia are cut away, with or without removal of the clitoral glans. Type III is found largely in northeast Africa, particularly Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan (although not in South Sudan). According to one 2008 estimate, over eight million women in Africa are living with Type III FGM. According to UNFPA in 2010, 20 percent of women with FGM have been infibulated. In Somalia, according to Edna Adan Ismail, the child squats on a stool or mat while adults pull her legs open; a local anaesthetic is applied if available:
The element of speed and surprise is vital and the circumciser immediately grabs the clitoris by pinching it between her nails aiming to amputate it with a slash. The organ is then shown to the senior female relatives of the child who will decide whether the amount that has been removed is satisfactory or whether more is to be cut off.
After the clitoris has been satisfactorily amputated ... the circumciser can proceed with the total removal of the labia minora and the paring of the inner walls of the labia majora. Since the entire skin on the inner walls of the labia majora has to be removed all the way down to the perineum, this becomes a messy business. By now, the child is screaming, struggling, and bleeding profusely, which makes it difficult for the circumciser to hold with bare fingers and nails the slippery skin and parts that are to be cut or sutured together. ...
Having ensured that sufficient tissue has been removed to allow the desired fusion of the skin, the circumciser pulls together the opposite sides of the labia majora, ensuring that the raw edges where the skin has been removed are well approximated. The wound is now ready to be stitched or for thorns to be applied. If a needle and thread are being used, close tight sutures will be placed to ensure that a flap of skin covers the vulva and extends from the mons veneris to the perineum, and which, after the wound heals, will form a bridge of scar tissue that will totally occlude the vaginal introitus.
The amputated parts might be placed in a pouch for the girl to wear. A single hole of 2–3 mm is left for the passage of urine and menstrual fluid. The vulva is closed with surgical thread, or agave or acacia thorns, and might be covered with a poultice of raw egg, herbs, and sugar. To help the tissue bond, the girl's legs are tied together, often from hip to ankle; the bindings are usually loosened after a week and removed after two to six weeks. If the remaining hole is too large in the view of the girl's family, the procedure is repeated.
The vagina is opened for sexual intercourse, for the first time either by a midwife with a knife or by the woman's husband with his penis. In some areas, including Somaliland, female relatives of the bride and groom might watch the opening of the vagina to check that the girl is a virgin. The woman is opened further for childbirth (defibulation or deinfibulation), and closed again afterwards (reinfibulation). Reinfibulation can involve cutting the vagina again to restore the pinhole size of the first infibulation. This might be performed before marriage, and after childbirth, divorce and widowhood. Hanny Lightfoot-Klein interviewed hundreds of women and men in Sudan in the 1980s about sexual intercourse with Type III:
The penetration of the bride's infibulation takes anywhere from 3 or 4 days to several months. Some men are unable to penetrate their wives at all (in my study over 15%), and the task is often accomplished by a midwife under conditions of great secrecy, since this reflects negatively on the man's potency. Some who are unable to penetrate their wives manage to get them pregnant in spite of the infibulation, and the woman's vaginal passage is then cut open to allow birth to take place. ... Those men who do manage to penetrate their wives do so often, or perhaps always, with the help of the "little knife". This creates a tear which they gradually rip more and more until the opening is sufficient to admit the penis.
Type IV is "[a]ll other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes", including pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterization. It includes nicking of the clitoris (symbolic circumcision), burning or scarring the genitals, and introducing substances into the vagina to tighten it. Labia stretching is also categorized as Type IV. Common in southern and eastern Africa, the practice is supposed to enhance sexual pleasure for the man and add to the sense of a woman as a closed space. From the age of eight, girls are encouraged to stretch their inner labia using sticks and massage. Girls in Uganda are told they may have difficulty giving birth without stretched labia.
A definition of FGM from the WHO in 1995 included gishiri cutting and angurya cutting, found in Nigeria and Niger. These were removed from the WHO's 2008 definition because of insufficient information about prevalence and consequences. Angurya cutting is excision of the hymen, usually performed seven days after birth. Gishiri cutting involves cutting the vagina's front or back wall with a blade or penknife, performed in response to infertility, obstructed labour, and other conditions. In a study by Nigerian physician Mairo Usman Mandara, over 30 percent of women with gishiri cuts were found to have vesicovaginal fistulae (holes that allow urine to seep into the vagina).
FGM harms women's physical and emotional health throughout their lives. It has no known health benefits. The short-term and late complications depend on the type of FGM, whether the practitioner has had medical training, and whether they used antibiotics and sterilized or single-use surgical instruments. In the case of Type III, other factors include how small a hole was left for the passage of urine and menstrual blood, whether surgical thread was used instead of agave or acacia thorns, and whether the procedure was performed more than once (for example, to close an opening regarded as too wide or re-open one too small).
Common short-term complications include swelling, excessive bleeding, pain, urine retention, and healing problems/wound infection. A 2014 systematic review of 56 studies suggested that over one in ten girls and women undergoing any form of FGM, including symbolic nicking of the clitoris (Type IV), experience immediate complications, although the risks increased with Type III. The review also suggested that there was under-reporting. Other short-term complications include fatal bleeding, anaemia, urinary infection, septicaemia, tetanus, gangrene, necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating disease), and endometritis. It is not known how many girls and women die as a result of the practice, because complications may not be recognized or reported. The practitioners' use of shared instruments is thought to aid the transmission of hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV, although no epidemiological studies have shown this.
Late complications vary depending on the type of FGM. They include the formation of scars and keloids that lead to strictures and obstruction, epidermoid cysts that may become infected, and neuroma formation (growth of nerve tissue) involving nerves that supplied the clitoris. An infibulated girl may be left with an opening as small as 2–3 mm, which can cause prolonged, drop-by-drop urination, pain while urinating, and a feeling of needing to urinate all the time. Urine may collect underneath the scar, leaving the area under the skin constantly wet, which can lead to infection and the formation of small stones. The opening is larger in women who are sexually active or have given birth by vaginal delivery, but the urethra opening may still be obstructed by scar tissue. Vesicovaginal or rectovaginal fistulae can develop (holes that allow urine or faeces to seep into the vagina). This and other damage to the urethra and bladder can lead to infections and incontinence, pain during sexual intercourse and infertility.
Painful periods are common because of the obstruction to the menstrual flow, and blood can stagnate in the vagina and uterus. Complete obstruction of the vagina can result in hematocolpos and hematometra (where the vagina and uterus fill with menstrual blood). The swelling of the abdomen and lack of menstruation can resemble pregnancy. Asma El Dareer, a Sudanese physician, reported in 1979 that a girl in Sudan with this condition was killed by her family.
FGM may place women at higher risk of problems during pregnancy and childbirth, which are more common with the more extensive FGM procedures. Infibulated women may try to make childbirth easier by eating less during pregnancy to reduce the baby's size. In women with vesicovaginal or rectovaginal fistulae, it is difficult to obtain clear urine samples as part of prenatal care, making the diagnosis of conditions such as pre-eclampsia harder. Cervical evaluation during labour may be impeded and labour prolonged or obstructed. Third-degree laceration (tears), anal-sphincter damage and emergency caesarean section are more common in infibulated women.
Neonatal mortality is increased. The WHO estimated in 2006 that an additional 10–20 babies die per 1,000 deliveries as a result of FGM. The estimate was based on a study conducted on 28,393 women attending delivery wards at 28 obstetric centres in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan. In those settings all types of FGM were found to pose an increased risk of death to the baby: 15 percent higher for Type I, 32 percent for Type II, and 55 percent for Type III. The reasons for this were unclear, but may be connected to genital and urinary tract infections and the presence of scar tissue. According to the study, FGM was associated with an increased risk to the mother of damage to the perineum and excessive blood loss, as well as a need to resuscitate the baby, and stillbirth, perhaps because of a long second stage of labour.
According to a 2015 systematic review there is little high-quality information available on the psychological effects of FGM. Several small studies have concluded that women with FGM develop anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Feelings of shame and betrayal can develop when women leave the culture that practices FGM and learn that their condition is not the norm, but within the practicing culture, they may view their FGM with pride because for them it signifies beauty, respect for tradition, chastity and hygiene. Studies on sexual function have also been small. A 2013 meta-analysis of 15 studies involving 12,671 women from seven countries concluded that women with FGM were twice as likely to report no sexual desire and 52 percent more likely to report dyspareunia (painful sexual intercourse). One-third reported reduced sexual feelings.
Aid agencies define the prevalence of FGM as the percentage of the 15–49 age group that has experienced it. These figures are based on nationally representative household surveys known as Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), developed by Macro International and funded mainly by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID); and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) conducted with financial and technical help from UNICEF. These surveys have been carried out in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere roughly every five years since 1984 and 1995 respectively. The first to ask about FGM was the 1989–1990 DHS in northern Sudan. The first publication to estimate FGM prevalence based on DHS data (in seven countries) was written by Dara Carr of Macro International in 1997.
Questions the women are asked during the surveys include: "Was the genital area just nicked/cut without removing any flesh? Was any flesh (or something) removed from the genital area? Was your genital area sewn?" Most women report "cut, some flesh removed" (Types I and II).
Type I is the most common form in Egypt, and in the southern parts of Nigeria. Type III (infibulation) is concentrated in northeastern Africa, particularly Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan. In surveys in 2002–2006, 30 percent of cut girls in Djibouti, 38 percent in Eritrea, and 63 percent in Somalia had experienced Type III. There is also a high prevalence of infibulation among girls in Niger and Senegal, and in 2013 it was estimated that in Nigeria three percent of the 0–14 age group had been infibulated. The type of procedure is often linked to ethnicity. In Eritrea, for example, a survey in 2002 found that all Hedareb girls had been infibulated, compared with two percent of the Tigrinya, most of whom fell into the "cut, no flesh removed" category.
FGM is mostly found in what Gerry Mackie called an "intriguingly contiguous" zone in Africa—east to west from Somalia to Senegal, and north to south from Egypt to Tanzania. Nationally representative figures are available for 27 countries in Africa, as well as Indonesia, Iraqi Kurdistan and Yemen. Over 200 million women and girls are thought to be living with FGM in those 30 countries.
The highest concentrations among the 15–49 age group are in Somalia (98 percent), Guinea (97 percent), Djibouti (93 percent), Egypt (91 percent), and Sierra Leone (90 percent). As of 2013, 27.2 million women had undergone FGM in Egypt, 23.8 million in Ethiopia, and 19.9 million in Nigeria. There is a high concentration in Indonesia, where according to UNICEF Type I (clitoridectomy) and Type IV (symbolic nicking) are practised; the Indonesian Ministry of Health and Indonesian Ulema Council both say the clitoris should not be cut. The prevalence rate for the 0–11 group in Indonesia is 49 percent (13.4 million). Smaller studies or anecdotal reports suggest that various types of FGM are also practised in various circumstances in Colombia, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, and India, but there are no representative data on the prevalence in these countries. As of 2023, UNICEF reported that "The highest levels of support for FGM can be found in Mali, Sierra Leone, Guinea, the Gambia, Somalia, and Egypt, where more than half of the female population thinks the practice should continue".
Prevalence figures for the 15–19 age group and younger show a downward trend. For example, Burkina Faso fell from 89 percent (1980) to 58 percent (2010); Egypt from 97 percent (1985) to 70 percent (2015); and Kenya from 41 percent (1984) to 11 percent (2014). Beginning in 2010, household surveys asked women about the FGM status of all their living daughters. The highest concentrations among girls aged 0–14 were in Gambia (56 percent), Mauritania (54 percent), Indonesia (49 percent for 0–11) and Guinea (46 percent). The figures suggest that a girl was one third less likely in 2014 to undergo FGM than she was 30 years ago. According to a 2018 study published in BMJ Global Health, the prevalence within the 0–14 year old group fell in East Africa from 71.4 percent in 1995 to 8 percent in 2016; in North Africa from 57.7 percent in 1990 to 14.1 percent in 2015; and in West Africa from 73.6 percent in 1996 to 25.4 percent in 2017. If the current rate of decline continues, the number of girls cut will nevertheless continue to rise because of population growth, according to UNICEF in 2014; they estimate that the figure will increase from 3.6 million a year in 2013 to 4.1 million in 2050.
Surveys have found FGM to be more common in rural areas, less common in most countries among girls from the wealthiest homes, and (except in Sudan and Somalia) less common in girls whose mothers had access to primary or secondary/higher education. In Somalia and Sudan the situation was reversed: in Somalia, the mothers' access to secondary/higher education was accompanied by a rise in prevalence of FGM in their daughters, and in Sudan, access to any education was accompanied by a rise.
FGM is not invariably a rite of passage between childhood and adulthood but is often performed on much younger children. Girls are most commonly cut shortly after birth to age 15. In half the countries for which national figures were available in 2000–2010, most girls had been cut by age five. Over 80 percent (of those cut) are cut before the age of five in Nigeria, Mali, Eritrea, Ghana and Mauritania. The 1997 Demographic and Health Survey in Yemen found that 76 percent of girls had been cut within two weeks of birth. The percentage is reversed in Somalia, Egypt, Chad, and the Central African Republic, where over 80 percent (of those cut) are cut between five and 14. Just as the type of FGM is often linked to ethnicity, so is the mean age. In Kenya, for example, the Kisi cut around age 10 and the Kamba at 16.
A country's national prevalence often reflects a high sub-national prevalence among certain ethnicities, rather than a widespread practice. In Iraq, for example, FGM is found mostly among the Kurds in Erbil (58 percent prevalence within age group 15–49, as of 2011), Sulaymaniyah (54 percent) and Kirkuk (20 percent), giving the country a national prevalence of eight percent. The practice is sometimes an ethnic marker, but it may differ along national lines. For example, in the northeastern regions of Ethiopia and Kenya, which share a border with Somalia, the Somali people practise FGM at around the same rate as they do in Somalia. But in Guinea all Fulani women responding to a survey in 2012 said they had experienced FGM, against 12 percent of the Fulani in Chad, while in Nigeria the Fulani are the only large ethnic group in the country not to practise it. In Sierra Leone, the predominantly Christian Creole people are the only ethnicity not known to practice FGM or participate in Bondo society rituals.
Kenyan FGM ceremony
— Stephanie Welsh, Newhouse News Service
Dahabo Musa, a Somali woman, described infibulation in a 1988 poem as the "three feminine sorrows": the procedure itself, the wedding night when the woman is cut open, then childbirth when she is cut again. Despite the evident suffering, it is women who organize all forms of FGM. Anthropologist Rose Oldfield Hayes wrote in 1975 that educated Sudanese men who did not want their daughters to be infibulated (preferring clitoridectomy) would find the girls had been sewn up after the grandmothers arranged a visit to relatives. Gerry Mackie has compared the practice to footbinding. Like FGM, footbinding was carried out on young girls, nearly universal where practised, tied to ideas about honour, chastity, and appropriate marriage, and "supported and transmitted" by women.
FGM practitioners see the procedures as marking not only ethnic boundaries but also gender differences. According to this view, male circumcision defeminizes men while FGM demasculinizes women. Fuambai Ahmadu, an anthropologist and member of the Kono people of Sierra Leone, who in 1992 underwent clitoridectomy as an adult during a Sande society initiation, argued in 2000 that it is a male-centred assumption that the clitoris is important to female sexuality. African female symbolism revolves instead around the concept of the womb. Infibulation draws on that idea of enclosure and fertility. "[G]enital cutting completes the social definition of a child's sex by eliminating external traces of androgyny," Janice Boddy wrote in 2007. "The female body is then covered, closed, and its productive blood bound within; the male body is unveiled, opened, and exposed."
In communities where infibulation is common, there is a preference for women's genitals to be smooth, dry and without odour, and both women and men may find the natural vulva repulsive. Some men seem to enjoy the effort of penetrating an infibulation. The local preference for dry sex causes women to introduce substances into the vagina to reduce lubrication, including leaves, tree bark, toothpaste and Vicks menthol rub. The WHO includes this practice within Type IV FGM, because the added friction during intercourse can cause lacerations and increase the risk of infection. Because of the smooth appearance of an infibulated vulva, there is also a belief that infibulation increases hygiene.
Common reasons for FGM cited by women in surveys are social acceptance, religion, hygiene, preservation of virginity, marriageability and enhancement of male sexual pleasure. In a study in northern Sudan, published in 1983, only 17.4 percent of women opposed FGM (558 out of 3,210), and most preferred excision and infibulation over clitoridectomy. Attitudes are changing slowly. In Sudan in 2010, 42 percent of women who had heard of FGM said the practice should continue. In several surveys since 2006, over 50 percent of women in Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Gambia, and Egypt supported FGM's continuance, while elsewhere in Africa, Iraq, and Yemen most said it should end, although in several countries only by a narrow margin.
Against the argument that women willingly choose FGM for their daughters, UNICEF calls the practice a "self-enforcing social convention" to which families feel they must conform to avoid uncut daughters facing social exclusion. Ellen Gruenbaum reported that, in Sudan in the 1970s, cut girls from an Arab ethnic group would mock uncut Zabarma girls with Ya, ghalfa! ("Hey, unclean!"). The Zabarma girls would respond Ya, mutmura! (A mutmara was a storage pit for grain that was continually opened and closed, like an infibulated woman.) But despite throwing the insult back, the Zabarma girls would ask their mothers, "What's the matter? Don't we have razor blades like the Arabs?"
Because of poor access to information, and because circumcisers downplay the causal connection, women may not associate the health consequences with the procedure. Lala Baldé, president of a women's association in Medina Cherif, a village in Senegal, told Mackie in 1998 that when girls fell ill or died, it was attributed to evil spirits. When informed of the causal relationship between FGM and ill health, Mackie wrote, the women broke down and wept. He argued that surveys taken before and after this sharing of information would show very different levels of support for FGM. The American non-profit group Tostan, founded by Molly Melching in 1991, introduced community-empowerment programs in several countries that focus on local democracy, literacy, and education about healthcare, giving women the tools to make their own decisions. In 1997, using the Tostan program, Malicounda Bambara in Senegal became the first village to abandon FGM. By August 2019, 8,800 communities in eight countries had pledged to abandon FGM and child marriage.
Surveys have shown a widespread belief, particularly in Mali, Mauritania, Guinea, and Egypt, that FGM is a religious requirement. Gruenbaum has argued that practitioners may not distinguish between religion, tradition, and chastity, making it difficult to interpret the data. FGM's origins in northeastern Africa are pre-Islamic, but the practice became associated with Islam because of that religion's focus on female chastity and seclusion. According to a 2013 UNICEF report, in 18 African countries at least 10 percent of Muslim females had experienced FGM, and in 13 of those countries, the figure rose to 50–99 percent. There is no mention of the practice in the Quran. It is praised in a few daʻīf (weak) hadith (sayings attributed to Muhammad) as noble but not required, although it is regarded as obligatory by the Shafi'i version of Sunni Islam. In 2007 the Al-Azhar Supreme Council of Islamic Research in Cairo ruled that FGM had "no basis in core Islamic law or any of its partial provisions".
There is no mention of FGM in the Bible. Christian missionaries in Africa were among the first to object to FGM, but Christian communities in Africa do practise it. In 2013 UNICEF identified 19 African countries in which at least 10 percent of Christian women and girls aged 15 to 49 had undergone FGM; in Niger, 55 percent of Christian women and girls had experienced it, compared with two percent of their Muslim counterparts. The only Jewish group known to have practised it is the Beta Israel of Ethiopia. Judaism requires male circumcision but does not allow FGM. FGM is also practised by animist groups, particularly in Guinea and Mali.
But if a man wants to know how to live, he should recite it [a magical spell] every day, after his flesh has been rubbed with the b3d [unknown substance] of an uncircumcised girl ['m't] and the flakes of skin [šnft] of an uncircumcised bald man.
—From an Egyptian sarcophagus, c. 1991–1786 BCE
The practice's origins are unknown. Gerry Mackie has suggested that, because FGM's east–west, north–south distribution in Africa meets in Sudan, infibulation may have begun there with the Meroite civilization (c. 800 BCE – c. 350 CE), before the rise of Islam, to increase confidence in paternity. According to historian Mary Knight, Spell 1117 (c. 1991–1786 BCE) of the Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts may refer in hieroglyphs to an uncircumcised girl ('m't):
The spell was found on the sarcophagus of Sit-hedjhotep, now in the Egyptian Museum, and dates to Egypt's Middle Kingdom. (Paul F. O'Rourke argues that 'm't probably refers instead to a menstruating woman.) The proposed circumcision of an Egyptian girl, Tathemis, is also mentioned on a Greek papyrus, from 163 BCE, in the British Museum: "Sometime after this, Nephoris [Tathemis's mother] defrauded me, being anxious that it was time for Tathemis to be circumcised, as is the custom among the Egyptians."
The examination of mummies has shown no evidence of FGM. Citing the Australian pathologist Grafton Elliot Smith, who examined hundreds of mummies in the early 20th century, Knight writes that the genital area may resemble Type III because during mummification the skin of the outer labia was pulled toward the anus to cover the pudendal cleft, possibly to prevent a sexual violation. It was similarly not possible to determine whether Types I or II had been performed, because soft tissues had deteriorated or been removed by the embalmers.
The Greek geographer Strabo (c. 64 BCE – c. 23 CE) wrote about FGM after visiting Egypt around 25 BCE: "This is one of the customs most zealously pursued by them [the Egyptians]: to raise every child that is born and to circumcise [peritemnein] the males and excise [ektemnein] the females ..." Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE – 50 CE) also made reference to it: "the Egyptians by the custom of their country circumcise the marriageable youth and maid in the fourteenth (year) of their age when the male begins to get seed, and the female to have a menstrual flow." It is mentioned briefly in a work attributed to the Greek physician Galen (129 – c. 200 CE): "When [the clitoris] sticks out to a great extent in their young women, Egyptians consider it appropriate to cut it out." Another Greek physician, Aëtius of Amida (mid-5th to mid-6th century CE), offered more detail in book 16 of his Sixteen Books on Medicine, citing the physician Philomenes. The procedure was performed in case the clitoris, or nymphê, grew too large or triggered sexual desire when rubbing against clothing. "On this account, it seemed proper to the Egyptians to remove it before it became greatly enlarged," Aëtius wrote, "especially at that time when the girls were about to be married":
The surgery is performed in this way: Have the girl sit on a chair while a muscled young man standing behind her places his arms below the girl's thighs. Have him separate and steady her legs and whole body. Standing in front and taking hold of the clitoris with a broad-mouthed forceps in his left hand, the surgeon stretches it outward, while with the right hand, he cuts it off at the point next to the pincers of the forceps. It is proper to let a length remain from that cut off, about the size of the membrane that's between the nostrils, so as to take away the excess material only; as I have said, the part to be removed is at that point just above the pincers of the forceps. Because the clitoris is a skinlike structure and stretches out excessively, do not cut off too much, as a urinary fistula may result from cutting such large growths too deeply.
The genital area was then cleaned with a sponge, frankincense powder and wine or cold water, and wrapped in linen bandages dipped in vinegar, until the seventh day when calamine, rose petals, date pits, or a "genital powder made from baked clay" might be applied.
Whatever the practice's origins, infibulation became linked to slavery. Research has indicated that linkes between the Red Sea slave trade and female genital mutilation. An investigation combining contemporary from data on slave shipments from 1400 to 1900 with data from 28 African countries has found that women belonging to ethnic groups historically victimized by the Red Sea slave trade were “significantly” more likely to suffer genital mutilation in the 21st-century, as well as “more in favour of continuing the practice”. Women trafficked in the Red Sea slave trade were sold as concubines (sex slaves) in the Islamic Middle East up until as late as in the mid 20th-century, and the practice of infibulation was used to temporarily signal the virginity of girls, increasing their value on the slave market: “According to descriptions by early travellers, infibulated female slaves had a higher price on the market because infibulation was thought to ensure chastity and loyalty to the owner and prevented undesired pregnancies”. Mackie cites the Portuguese missionary João dos Santos, who in 1609 wrote of a group near Mogadishu who had a "custome to sew up their Females, especially their slaves being young to make them unable for conception, which makes these slaves sell dearer, both for their chastitie, and for better confidence which their Masters put in them". Thus, Mackie argues, a "practice associated with shameful female slavery came to stand for honor".
Gynaecologists in 19th-century Europe and the United States removed the clitoris to treat insanity and masturbation. A British doctor, Robert Thomas, suggested clitoridectomy as a cure for nymphomania in 1813. In 1825 The Lancet described a clitoridectomy performed in 1822 in Berlin by Karl Ferdinand von Graefe on a 15-year-old girl who was masturbating excessively.
Isaac Baker Brown, an English gynaecologist, president of the Medical Society of London and co-founder in 1845 of St. Mary's Hospital, believed that masturbation, or "unnatural irritation" of the clitoris, caused hysteria, spinal irritation, fits, idiocy, mania, and death. He, therefore "set to work to remove the clitoris whenever he had the opportunity of doing so", according to his obituary. Brown performed several clitoridectomies between 1859 and 1866. In the United States, J. Marion Sims followed Brown's work and in 1862 slit the neck of a woman's uterus and amputated her clitoris, "for the relief of the nervous or hysterical condition as recommended by Baker Brown". When Brown published his views in On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria in Females (1866), doctors in London accused him of quackery and expelled him from the Obstetrical Society.
Later in the 19th century, A. J. Bloch, a surgeon in New Orleans, removed the clitoris of a two-year-old girl who was reportedly masturbating. According to a 1985 paper in the Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey, clitoridectomy was performed in the United States into the 1960s to treat hysteria, erotomania and lesbianism. From the mid-1950s, James C. Burt, a gynaecologist in Dayton, Ohio, performed non-standard repairs of episiotomies after childbirth, adding more stitches to make the vaginal opening smaller. From 1966 until 1989, he performed "love surgery" by cutting women's pubococcygeus muscle, repositioning the vagina and urethra, and removing the clitoral hood, thereby making their genital area more appropriate, in his view, for intercourse in the missionary position. "Women are structurally inadequate for intercourse," he wrote; he said he would turn them into "horny little mice". In the 1960s and 1970s he performed these procedures without consent while repairing episiotomies and performing hysterectomies and other surgery; he said he had performed a variation of them on 4,000 women by 1975. Following complaints, he was required in 1989 to stop practicing medicine in the United States.
Little knives in their sheaths That they may fight with the church, The time has come. Elders (of the church) When Kenyatta comes You will be given women's clothes And you will have to cook him his food.
— From the Muthirigu (1929), Kikuyu dance-songs against church opposition to FGM
Protestant missionaries in British East Africa (present-day Kenya) began campaigning against FGM in the early 20th century, when Dr. John Arthur joined the Church of Scotland Mission (CSM) in Kikuyu. An important ethnic marker, the practice was known by the Kikuyu, the country's main ethnic group, as irua for both girls and boys. It involved excision (Type II) for girls and removal of the foreskin for boys. Unexcised Kikuyu women (irugu) were outcasts.
Jomo Kenyatta, general secretary of the Kikuyu Central Association and later Kenya's first prime minister, wrote in 1938 that, for the Kikuyu, the institution of FGM was the "conditio sine qua non of the whole teaching of tribal law, religion and morality". No proper Kikuyu man or woman would marry or have sexual relations with someone who was not circumcised, he wrote. A woman's responsibilities toward the tribe began with her initiation. Her age and place within tribal history were traced to that day, and the group of girls with whom she was cut was named according to current events, an oral tradition that allowed the Kikuyu to track people and events going back hundreds of years.
Beginning with the CSM in 1925, several missionary churches declared that FGM was prohibited for African Christians; the CSM announced that Africans practising it would be excommunicated, which resulted in hundreds leaving or being expelled. In 1929 the Kenya Missionary Council began referring to FGM as the "sexual mutilation of women", and a person's stance toward the practice became a test of loyalty, either to the Christian churches or to the Kikuyu Central Association. The stand-off turned FGM into a focal point of the Kenyan independence movement; the 1929–1931 period is known in the country's historiography as the female circumcision controversy. When Hulda Stumpf, an American missionary who opposed FGM in the girls' school she helped to run, was murdered in 1930, Edward Grigg, the governor of Kenya, told the British Colonial Office that the killer had tried to circumcise her.
There was some opposition from Kenyan women themselves. At the mission in Tumutumu, Karatina, where Marion Scott Stevenson worked, a group calling themselves Ngo ya Tuiritu ("Shield of Young Girls"), the membership of which included Raheli Warigia (mother of Gakaara wa Wanjaũ), wrote to the Local Native Council of South Nyeri on 25 December 1931: "[W]e of the Ngo ya Tuiritu heard that there are men who talk of female circumcision, and we get astonished because they (men) do not give birth and feel the pain and even some die and even others become infertile, and the main cause is circumcision. Because of that, the issue of circumcision should not be forced. People are caught like sheep; one should be allowed to cut her own way of either agreeing to be circumcised or not without being dictated on one's own body."
Elsewhere, support for the practice from women was strong. In 1956 in Meru, eastern Kenya, when the council of male elders (the Njuri Nchecke) announced a ban on FGM in 1956, thousands of girls cut each other's genitals with razor blades over the next three years as a symbol of defiance. The movement came to be known as Ngaitana ("I will circumcise myself"), because to avoid naming their friends the girls said they had cut themselves. Historian Lynn Thomas described the episode as significant in the history of FGM because it made clear that its victims were also its perpetrators. FGM was eventually outlawed in Kenya in 2001, although the practice continued, reportedly driven by older women.
One of the earliest campaigns against FGM began in Egypt in the 1920s, when the Egyptian Doctors' Society called for a ban. There was a parallel campaign in Sudan, run by religious leaders and British women. Infibulation was banned there in 1946, but the law was unpopular and barely enforced. The Egyptian government banned infibulation in state-run hospitals in 1959, but allowed partial clitoridectomy if parents requested it. (Egypt banned FGM entirely in 2007.)
In 1959, the UN asked the WHO to investigate FGM, but the latter responded that it was not a medical matter. Feminists took up the issue throughout the 1970s. The Egyptian physician and feminist Nawal El Saadawi criticized FGM in her book Women and Sex (1972); the book was banned in Egypt and El Saadawi lost her job as director-general of public health. She followed up with a chapter, "The Circumcision of Girls", in her book The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World (1980), which described her own clitoridectomy when she was six years old:
I did not know what they had cut off from my body, and I did not try to find out. I just wept, and called out to my mother for help. But the worst shock of all was when I looked around and found her standing by my side. Yes, it was her, I could not be mistaken, in flesh and blood, right in the midst of these strangers, talking to them and smiling at them, as though they had not participated in slaughtering her daughter just a few moments ago.
In 1975, Rose Oldfield Hayes, an American social scientist, became the first female academic to publish a detailed account of FGM, aided by her ability to discuss it directly with women in Sudan. Her article in American Ethnologist called it "female genital mutilation", rather than female circumcision, and brought it to wider academic attention. Edna Adan Ismail, who worked at the time for the Somalia Ministry of Health, discussed the health consequences of FGM in 1977 with the Somali Women's Democratic Organization. Two years later Fran Hosken, an Austrian-American feminist, published The Hosken Report: Genital and Sexual Mutilation of Females (1979), the first to offer global figures. She estimated that 110,529,000 women in 20 African countries had experienced FGM. The figures were speculative but consistent with later surveys. Describing FGM as a "training ground for male violence", Hosken accused female practitioners of "participating in the destruction of their own kind". The language caused a rift between Western and African feminists; African women boycotted a session featuring Hosken during the UN's Mid-Decade Conference on Women in Copenhagen in July 1980.
In 1979, the WHO held a seminar, "Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children", in Khartoum, Sudan, and in 1981, also in Khartoum, 150 academics and activists signed a pledge to fight FGM after a workshop held by the Babiker Badri Scientific Association for Women's Studies (BBSAWS), "Female Circumcision Mutilates and Endangers Women – Combat it!" Another BBSAWS workshop in 1984 invited the international community to write a joint statement for the United Nations. It recommended that the "goal of all African women" should be the eradication of FGM and that, to sever the link between FGM and religion, clitoridectomy should no longer be referred to as sunna.
The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children, founded in 1984 in Dakar, Senegal, called for an end to the practice, as did the UN's World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993. The conference listed FGM as a form of violence against women, marking it as a human-rights violation, rather than a medical issue. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s governments in Africa and the Middle East passed legislation banning or restricting FGM. In 2003 the African Union ratified the Maputo Protocol on the rights of women, which supported the elimination of FGM. By 2015 laws restricting FGM had been passed in at least 23 of the 27 African countries in which it is concentrated, although several fell short of a ban.
As of 2023, UNICEF reported that "in most countries in Africa and the Middle East with representative data on attitudes (23 out of 30), the majority of girls and women think the practice should end", and that "even among communities that practice FGM, there is substantial opposition to its continuation".
In December 1993, the United Nations General Assembly included FGM in resolution 48/104, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and from 2003 sponsored International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, held every 6 February. UNICEF began in 2003 to promote an evidence-based social norms approach, using ideas from game theory about how communities reach decisions about FGM, and building on the work of Gerry Mackie on the demise of footbinding in China. In 2005 the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence published its first report on FGM. UNFPA and UNICEF launched a joint program in Africa in 2007 to reduce FGM by 40 percent within the 0–15 age group and eliminate it from at least one country by 2012, goals that were not met and which they later described as unrealistic. In 2008 several UN bodies recognized FGM as a human-rights violation, and in 2010 the UN called upon healthcare providers to stop carrying out the procedures, including reinfibulation after childbirth and symbolic nicking. In 2012 the General Assembly passed resolution 67/146, "Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilations".
Immigration spread the practice to Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and North America, all of which outlawed it entirely or restricted it to consenting adults. Sweden outlawed FGM in 1982 with the Act Prohibiting the Genital Mutilation of Women, the first Western country to do so. Several former colonial powers, including Belgium, Britain, France, and the Netherlands, introduced new laws or made clear that it was covered by existing legislation. As of 2013, legislation banning FGM had been passed in 33 countries outside Africa and the Middle East.
In the United States, an estimated 513,000 women and girls had experienced FGM or were at risk as of 2012. A Nigerian woman successfully contested deportation in March 1994, asking for "cultural asylum" on the grounds that her young daughters (who were American citizens) might be cut if she took them to Nigeria, and in 1996 Fauziya Kasinga from Togo became the first to be officially granted asylum to escape FGM. In 1996 the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act made it illegal to perform FGM on minors for non-medical reasons, and in 2013 the Transport for Female Genital Mutilation Act prohibited transporting a minor out of the country for the purpose of FGM. The first FGM conviction in the US was in 2006, when Khalid Adem, who had emigrated from Ethiopia, was sentenced to ten years for aggravated battery and cruelty to children after severing his two-year-old daughter's clitoris with a pair of scissors. A federal judge ruled in 2018 that the 1996 Act was unconstitutional, arguing that FGM is a "local criminal activity" that should be regulated by states. Twenty-four states had legislation banning FGM as of 2016, and in 2021 the STOP FGM Act of 2020 was signed into federal law. The American Academy of Pediatrics opposes all forms of the practice, including pricking the clitoral skin.
Canada recognized FGM as a form of persecution in July 1994, when it granted refugee status to Khadra Hassan Farah, who had fled Somalia to avoid her daughter being cut. In 1997 section 268 of its Criminal Code was amended to ban FGM, except where "the person is at least eighteen years of age and there is no resulting bodily harm". As of February 2019, there had been no prosecutions. Officials have expressed concern that thousands of Canadian girls are at risk of being taken overseas to undergo the procedure, so-called "vacation cutting".
According to the European Parliament, 500,000 women in Europe had undergone FGM as of March 2009. In France up to 30,000 women were thought to have experienced it as of 1995. According to Colette Gallard, a family-planning counsellor, when FGM was first encountered in France, the reaction was that Westerners ought not to intervene. It took the deaths of two girls in 1982, one of them three months old, for that attitude to change. In 1991 a French court ruled that the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees offered protection to FGM victims; the decision followed an asylum application from Aminata Diop, who fled an FGM procedure in Mali. The practice is outlawed by several provisions of France's penal code that address bodily harm causing permanent mutilation or torture. The first civil suit was in 1982, and the first criminal prosecution in 1993. In 1999 a woman was given an eight-year sentence for having performed FGM on 48 girls. By 2014 over 100 parents and two practitioners had been prosecuted in over 40 criminal cases.
Around 137,000 women and girls living in England and Wales were born in countries where FGM is practised, as of 2011. Performing FGM on children or adults was outlawed under the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985. This was replaced by the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 and Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Act 2005, which added a prohibition on arranging FGM outside the country for British citizens or permanent residents. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) asked the government in July 2013 to "ensure the full implementation of its legislation on FGM". The first charges were brought in 2014 against a physician and another man; the physician had stitched an infibulated woman after opening her for childbirth. Both men were acquitted in 2015.
Anthropologists have accused FGM eradicationists of cultural colonialism, and have been criticized in turn for their moral relativism and failure to defend the idea of universal human rights. According to critics of the eradicationist position, the biological reductionism of the opposition to FGM, and the failure to appreciate FGM's cultural context, serves to "other" practitioners and undermine their agency—in particular when parents are referred to as "mutilators".
Africans who object to the tone of FGM opposition risk appearing to defend the practice. The feminist theorist Obioma Nnaemeka, herself strongly opposed to FGM, argued in 2005 that renaming the practice female genital mutilation had introduced "a subtext of barbaric African and Muslim cultures and the West's relevance (even indispensability) in purging [it]". According to Ugandan law professor Sylvia Tamale, the early Western opposition to FGM stemmed from a Judeo-Christian judgment that African sexual and family practices, including not only FGM but also dry sex, polygyny, bride price and levirate marriage, required correction. African feminists "take strong exception to the imperialist, racist and dehumanising infantilization of African women", she wrote in 2011. Commentators highlight the voyeurism in the treatment of women's bodies as exhibits. Examples include images of women's vulvas after FGM or girls undergoing the procedure. The 1996 Pulitzer-prize-winning photographs of a 16-year-old Kenyan girl experiencing FGM were published by 12 American newspapers, without her consent either to be photographed or to have the images published.
The debate has highlighted a tension between anthropology and feminism, with the former's focus on tolerance and the latter's on equal rights for women. According to the anthropologist Christine Walley, a common position in anti-FGM literature has been to present African women as victims of false consciousness participating in their own oppression, a position promoted by feminists in the 1970s and 1980s, including Fran Hosken, Mary Daly and Hanny Lightfoot-Klein. It prompted the French Association of Anthropologists to issue a statement in 1981, at the height of the early debates, that "a certain feminism resuscitates (today) the moralistic arrogance of yesterday's colonialism".
Nnaemeka argues that the crucial question, broader than FGM, is why the female body is subjected to so much "abuse and indignity", including in the West. Several authors have drawn a parallel between FGM and cosmetic procedures. Ronán Conroy of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland wrote in 2006 that cosmetic genital procedures were "driving the advance" of FGM by encouraging women to see natural variations as defects. Anthropologist Fadwa El Guindi compared FGM to breast enhancement, in which the maternal function of the breast becomes secondary to men's sexual pleasure. Benoîte Groult, the French feminist, made a similar point in 1975, citing FGM and cosmetic surgery as sexist and patriarchal. Against this, the medical anthropologist Carla Obermeyer argued in 1999 that FGM may be conducive to a subject's social well-being in the same way that rhinoplasty and male circumcision are. Despite the 2007 ban in Egypt, Egyptian women wanting FGM for their daughters seek amalyet tajmeel (cosmetic surgery) to remove what they see as excess genital tissue.
Cosmetic procedures such as labiaplasty and clitoral hood reduction do fall within the WHO's definition of FGM, which aims to avoid loopholes, but the WHO notes that these elective practices are generally not regarded as FGM. Some legislation banning FGM, such as in Canada and the United States, covers minors only, but several countries, including Sweden and the United Kingdom, have banned it regardless of consent. Sweden, for example, has banned operations "on the outer female sexual organs with a view to mutilating them or bringing about some other permanent change in them, regardless of whether or not consent has been given for the operation". Gynaecologist Birgitta Essén and anthropologist Sara Johnsdotter argue that the law seems to distinguish between Western and African genitals, and deems only African women (such as those seeking reinfibulation after childbirth) unfit to make their own decisions.
The philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that a key concern with FGM is that it is mostly conducted on children using physical force. The distinction between social pressure and physical force is morally and legally salient, comparable to the distinction between seduction and rape. She argues further that the literacy of women in practising countries is generally poorer than in developed nations, which reduces their ability to make informed choices.
FGM has been compared to other procedures that modify the human genitalia. Conservatives in the United States during the late 2010s and early 2020s have argued that FGM is similar to gender-affirming surgery for transgender individuals, which has led to bills being drafted in Republican states equating the two. Criticism of these ideas include the fact that the gender-affirming surgeries are approved by American medical authorities, are rare for minors, and are done after reviews by multiple medical professionals. Formerly, FGM was widely referred to as "female circumcision" in the academic literature, but this "was rejected by international medical practitioners because it suggests a fallacious analogy to male circumcision." It has been argued that the genital alteration of intersex infants and children is analogous to FGM, who are born with anomalies that physicians choose to “fix”.
Books and book chapters
Journal articles
United Nations reports
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[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Female genital mutilation (FGM) (also known as female genital cutting, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and female circumcision) is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the vulva. The practice is found in some countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and within their respective diasporas. As of 2023, UNICEF estimates that \"at least 200 million girls... in 31 countries\"—including Indonesia, Iraq, Yemen, and 27 African countries including Egypt—had been subjected to one or more types of female genital mutilation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Typically carried out by a traditional circumciser using a blade, FGM is conducted from days after birth to puberty and beyond. In half of the countries for which national statistics are available, most girls are cut before the age of five. Procedures differ according to the country or ethnic group. They include removal of the clitoral hood (type 1-a) and clitoral glans (1-b); removal of the inner labia (2-a); and removal of the inner and outer labia and closure of the vulva (type 3). In this last procedure, known as infibulation, a small hole is left for the passage of urine and menstrual fluid; the vagina is opened for intercourse and opened further for childbirth.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The practice is rooted in gender inequality, attempts to control women's sexuality, and ideas about purity, modesty, and beauty. It is usually initiated and carried out by women, who see it as a source of honour, and who fear that failing to have their daughters and granddaughters cut will expose the girls to social exclusion. Adverse health effects depend on the type of procedure; they can include recurrent infections, difficulty urinating and passing menstrual flow, chronic pain, the development of cysts, an inability to get pregnant, complications during childbirth, and fatal bleeding. There are no known health benefits.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "There have been international efforts since the 1970s to persuade practitioners to abandon FGM, and it has been outlawed or restricted in most of the countries in which it occurs, although the laws are often poorly enforced. Since 2010, the United Nations has called upon healthcare providers to stop performing all forms of the procedure, including reinfibulation after childbirth and symbolic \"nicking\" of the clitoral hood. The opposition to the practice is not without its critics, particularly among anthropologists, who have raised questions about cultural relativism and the universality of human rights.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Until the 1980s, FGM was widely known in English as \"female circumcision\", implying an equivalence in severity with male circumcision. From 1929 the Kenya Missionary Council referred to it as the sexual mutilation of women, following the lead of Marion Scott Stevenson, a Church of Scotland missionary. References to the practice as mutilation increased throughout the 1970s. In 1975 Rose Oldfield Hayes, an American anthropologist, used the term female genital mutilation in the title of a paper in American Ethnologist, and four years later Fran Hosken called it mutilation in her influential The Hosken Report: Genital and Sexual Mutilation of Females. The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children began referring to it as female genital mutilation in 1990, and the World Health Organization (WHO) followed suit in 1991. Other English terms include female genital cutting (FGC) and female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), preferred by those who work with practitioners.",
"title": "Terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In countries where FGM is common, the practice's many variants are reflected in dozens of terms, often alluding to purification. In the Bambara language, spoken mostly in Mali, it is known as bolokoli (\"washing your hands\") and in the Igbo language in eastern Nigeria as isa aru or iwu aru (\"having your bath\"). A common Arabic term for purification has the root t-h-r, used for male and female circumcision (tahur and tahara). It is also known in Arabic as khafḍ or khifaḍ. Communities may refer to FGM as \"pharaonic\" for infibulation and \"sunna\" circumcision for everything else; sunna means \"path or way\" in Arabic and refers to the tradition of Muhammad, although none of the procedures are required within Islam. The term infibulation derives from fibula, Latin for clasp; the Ancient Romans reportedly fastened clasps through the foreskins or labia of slaves to prevent sexual intercourse. The surgical infibulation of women came to be known as pharaonic circumcision in Sudan and as Sudanese circumcision in Egypt. In Somalia, it is known simply as qodob (\"to sew up\").",
"title": "Terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The procedures are generally performed by a traditional circumciser (cutter or exciseuse) in the girls' homes, with or without anaesthesia. The cutter is usually an older woman, but in communities where the male barber has assumed the role of health worker, he will also perform FGM. When traditional cutters are involved, non-sterile devices are likely to be used, including knives, razors, scissors, glass, sharpened rocks, and fingernails. According to a nurse in Uganda, quoted in 2007 in The Lancet, a cutter would use one knife on up to 30 girls at a time. In several countries, health professionals are involved; in Egypt, 77 percent of FGM procedures, and in Indonesia over 50 percent, were performed by medical professionals as of 2008 and 2016.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The WHO, UNICEF, and UNFPA issued a joint statement in 1997 defining FGM as \"all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural or other non-therapeutic reasons\". The procedures vary according to ethnicity and individual practitioners; during a 1998 survey in Niger, women responded with over 50 terms when asked what was done to them. Translation problems are compounded by the women's confusion over which type of FGM they experienced, or even whether they experienced it. Studies have suggested that survey responses are unreliable. A 2003 study in Ghana found that in 1995 four percent said they had not undergone FGM, but in 2000 said they had, while 11 percent switched in the other direction. In Tanzania in 2005, 66 percent reported FGM, but a medical exam found that 73 percent had undergone it. In Sudan in 2006, a significant percentage of infibulated women and girls reported a less severe type.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Standard questionnaires from United Nations bodies ask women whether they or their daughters have undergone the following: (1) cut, no flesh removed (symbolic nicking); (2) cut, some flesh removed; (3) sewn closed; or (4) type not determined/unsure/doesn't know. The most common procedures fall within the \"cut, some flesh removed\" category and involve complete or partial removal of the clitoral glans. The World Health Organization (a UN agency) created a more detailed typology in 1997: Types I–II vary in how much tissue is removed; Type III is equivalent to the UNICEF category \"sewn closed\"; and Type IV describes miscellaneous procedures, including symbolic nicking.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Type I is \"partial or total removal of the clitoral glans (the external and visible part of the clitoris, which is a sensitive part of the female genitals), and/or the prepuce/clitoral hood (the fold of skin surrounding the clitoral glans)\". Type Ia involves removal of the clitoral hood only. This is rarely performed alone. The more common procedure is Type Ib (clitoridectomy), the complete or partial removal of the clitoral glans (the visible tip of the clitoris) and clitoral hood. The circumciser pulls the clitoral glans with her thumb and index finger and cuts it off.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Type II (excision) is the complete or partial removal of the inner labia, with or without removal of the clitoral glans and outer labia. Type IIa is removal of the inner labia; Type IIb, removal of the clitoral glans and inner labia; and Type IIc, removal of the clitoral glans, inner and outer labia. Excision in French can refer to any form of FGM.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "— Swiss Medical Weekly",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Type III (infibulation or pharaonic circumcision), the \"sewn closed\" category, is the removal of the external genitalia and fusion of the wound. The inner and/or outer labia are cut away, with or without removal of the clitoral glans. Type III is found largely in northeast Africa, particularly Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan (although not in South Sudan). According to one 2008 estimate, over eight million women in Africa are living with Type III FGM. According to UNFPA in 2010, 20 percent of women with FGM have been infibulated. In Somalia, according to Edna Adan Ismail, the child squats on a stool or mat while adults pull her legs open; a local anaesthetic is applied if available:",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The element of speed and surprise is vital and the circumciser immediately grabs the clitoris by pinching it between her nails aiming to amputate it with a slash. The organ is then shown to the senior female relatives of the child who will decide whether the amount that has been removed is satisfactory or whether more is to be cut off.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "After the clitoris has been satisfactorily amputated ... the circumciser can proceed with the total removal of the labia minora and the paring of the inner walls of the labia majora. Since the entire skin on the inner walls of the labia majora has to be removed all the way down to the perineum, this becomes a messy business. By now, the child is screaming, struggling, and bleeding profusely, which makes it difficult for the circumciser to hold with bare fingers and nails the slippery skin and parts that are to be cut or sutured together. ...",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Having ensured that sufficient tissue has been removed to allow the desired fusion of the skin, the circumciser pulls together the opposite sides of the labia majora, ensuring that the raw edges where the skin has been removed are well approximated. The wound is now ready to be stitched or for thorns to be applied. If a needle and thread are being used, close tight sutures will be placed to ensure that a flap of skin covers the vulva and extends from the mons veneris to the perineum, and which, after the wound heals, will form a bridge of scar tissue that will totally occlude the vaginal introitus.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The amputated parts might be placed in a pouch for the girl to wear. A single hole of 2–3 mm is left for the passage of urine and menstrual fluid. The vulva is closed with surgical thread, or agave or acacia thorns, and might be covered with a poultice of raw egg, herbs, and sugar. To help the tissue bond, the girl's legs are tied together, often from hip to ankle; the bindings are usually loosened after a week and removed after two to six weeks. If the remaining hole is too large in the view of the girl's family, the procedure is repeated.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The vagina is opened for sexual intercourse, for the first time either by a midwife with a knife or by the woman's husband with his penis. In some areas, including Somaliland, female relatives of the bride and groom might watch the opening of the vagina to check that the girl is a virgin. The woman is opened further for childbirth (defibulation or deinfibulation), and closed again afterwards (reinfibulation). Reinfibulation can involve cutting the vagina again to restore the pinhole size of the first infibulation. This might be performed before marriage, and after childbirth, divorce and widowhood. Hanny Lightfoot-Klein interviewed hundreds of women and men in Sudan in the 1980s about sexual intercourse with Type III:",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The penetration of the bride's infibulation takes anywhere from 3 or 4 days to several months. Some men are unable to penetrate their wives at all (in my study over 15%), and the task is often accomplished by a midwife under conditions of great secrecy, since this reflects negatively on the man's potency. Some who are unable to penetrate their wives manage to get them pregnant in spite of the infibulation, and the woman's vaginal passage is then cut open to allow birth to take place. ... Those men who do manage to penetrate their wives do so often, or perhaps always, with the help of the \"little knife\". This creates a tear which they gradually rip more and more until the opening is sufficient to admit the penis.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Type IV is \"[a]ll other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes\", including pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterization. It includes nicking of the clitoris (symbolic circumcision), burning or scarring the genitals, and introducing substances into the vagina to tighten it. Labia stretching is also categorized as Type IV. Common in southern and eastern Africa, the practice is supposed to enhance sexual pleasure for the man and add to the sense of a woman as a closed space. From the age of eight, girls are encouraged to stretch their inner labia using sticks and massage. Girls in Uganda are told they may have difficulty giving birth without stretched labia.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "A definition of FGM from the WHO in 1995 included gishiri cutting and angurya cutting, found in Nigeria and Niger. These were removed from the WHO's 2008 definition because of insufficient information about prevalence and consequences. Angurya cutting is excision of the hymen, usually performed seven days after birth. Gishiri cutting involves cutting the vagina's front or back wall with a blade or penknife, performed in response to infertility, obstructed labour, and other conditions. In a study by Nigerian physician Mairo Usman Mandara, over 30 percent of women with gishiri cuts were found to have vesicovaginal fistulae (holes that allow urine to seep into the vagina).",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "FGM harms women's physical and emotional health throughout their lives. It has no known health benefits. The short-term and late complications depend on the type of FGM, whether the practitioner has had medical training, and whether they used antibiotics and sterilized or single-use surgical instruments. In the case of Type III, other factors include how small a hole was left for the passage of urine and menstrual blood, whether surgical thread was used instead of agave or acacia thorns, and whether the procedure was performed more than once (for example, to close an opening regarded as too wide or re-open one too small).",
"title": "Complications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Common short-term complications include swelling, excessive bleeding, pain, urine retention, and healing problems/wound infection. A 2014 systematic review of 56 studies suggested that over one in ten girls and women undergoing any form of FGM, including symbolic nicking of the clitoris (Type IV), experience immediate complications, although the risks increased with Type III. The review also suggested that there was under-reporting. Other short-term complications include fatal bleeding, anaemia, urinary infection, septicaemia, tetanus, gangrene, necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating disease), and endometritis. It is not known how many girls and women die as a result of the practice, because complications may not be recognized or reported. The practitioners' use of shared instruments is thought to aid the transmission of hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV, although no epidemiological studies have shown this.",
"title": "Complications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Late complications vary depending on the type of FGM. They include the formation of scars and keloids that lead to strictures and obstruction, epidermoid cysts that may become infected, and neuroma formation (growth of nerve tissue) involving nerves that supplied the clitoris. An infibulated girl may be left with an opening as small as 2–3 mm, which can cause prolonged, drop-by-drop urination, pain while urinating, and a feeling of needing to urinate all the time. Urine may collect underneath the scar, leaving the area under the skin constantly wet, which can lead to infection and the formation of small stones. The opening is larger in women who are sexually active or have given birth by vaginal delivery, but the urethra opening may still be obstructed by scar tissue. Vesicovaginal or rectovaginal fistulae can develop (holes that allow urine or faeces to seep into the vagina). This and other damage to the urethra and bladder can lead to infections and incontinence, pain during sexual intercourse and infertility.",
"title": "Complications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Painful periods are common because of the obstruction to the menstrual flow, and blood can stagnate in the vagina and uterus. Complete obstruction of the vagina can result in hematocolpos and hematometra (where the vagina and uterus fill with menstrual blood). The swelling of the abdomen and lack of menstruation can resemble pregnancy. Asma El Dareer, a Sudanese physician, reported in 1979 that a girl in Sudan with this condition was killed by her family.",
"title": "Complications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "FGM may place women at higher risk of problems during pregnancy and childbirth, which are more common with the more extensive FGM procedures. Infibulated women may try to make childbirth easier by eating less during pregnancy to reduce the baby's size. In women with vesicovaginal or rectovaginal fistulae, it is difficult to obtain clear urine samples as part of prenatal care, making the diagnosis of conditions such as pre-eclampsia harder. Cervical evaluation during labour may be impeded and labour prolonged or obstructed. Third-degree laceration (tears), anal-sphincter damage and emergency caesarean section are more common in infibulated women.",
"title": "Complications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Neonatal mortality is increased. The WHO estimated in 2006 that an additional 10–20 babies die per 1,000 deliveries as a result of FGM. The estimate was based on a study conducted on 28,393 women attending delivery wards at 28 obstetric centres in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan. In those settings all types of FGM were found to pose an increased risk of death to the baby: 15 percent higher for Type I, 32 percent for Type II, and 55 percent for Type III. The reasons for this were unclear, but may be connected to genital and urinary tract infections and the presence of scar tissue. According to the study, FGM was associated with an increased risk to the mother of damage to the perineum and excessive blood loss, as well as a need to resuscitate the baby, and stillbirth, perhaps because of a long second stage of labour.",
"title": "Complications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "According to a 2015 systematic review there is little high-quality information available on the psychological effects of FGM. Several small studies have concluded that women with FGM develop anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Feelings of shame and betrayal can develop when women leave the culture that practices FGM and learn that their condition is not the norm, but within the practicing culture, they may view their FGM with pride because for them it signifies beauty, respect for tradition, chastity and hygiene. Studies on sexual function have also been small. A 2013 meta-analysis of 15 studies involving 12,671 women from seven countries concluded that women with FGM were twice as likely to report no sexual desire and 52 percent more likely to report dyspareunia (painful sexual intercourse). One-third reported reduced sexual feelings.",
"title": "Complications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Aid agencies define the prevalence of FGM as the percentage of the 15–49 age group that has experienced it. These figures are based on nationally representative household surveys known as Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), developed by Macro International and funded mainly by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID); and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) conducted with financial and technical help from UNICEF. These surveys have been carried out in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere roughly every five years since 1984 and 1995 respectively. The first to ask about FGM was the 1989–1990 DHS in northern Sudan. The first publication to estimate FGM prevalence based on DHS data (in seven countries) was written by Dara Carr of Macro International in 1997.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Questions the women are asked during the surveys include: \"Was the genital area just nicked/cut without removing any flesh? Was any flesh (or something) removed from the genital area? Was your genital area sewn?\" Most women report \"cut, some flesh removed\" (Types I and II).",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Type I is the most common form in Egypt, and in the southern parts of Nigeria. Type III (infibulation) is concentrated in northeastern Africa, particularly Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan. In surveys in 2002–2006, 30 percent of cut girls in Djibouti, 38 percent in Eritrea, and 63 percent in Somalia had experienced Type III. There is also a high prevalence of infibulation among girls in Niger and Senegal, and in 2013 it was estimated that in Nigeria three percent of the 0–14 age group had been infibulated. The type of procedure is often linked to ethnicity. In Eritrea, for example, a survey in 2002 found that all Hedareb girls had been infibulated, compared with two percent of the Tigrinya, most of whom fell into the \"cut, no flesh removed\" category.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "FGM is mostly found in what Gerry Mackie called an \"intriguingly contiguous\" zone in Africa—east to west from Somalia to Senegal, and north to south from Egypt to Tanzania. Nationally representative figures are available for 27 countries in Africa, as well as Indonesia, Iraqi Kurdistan and Yemen. Over 200 million women and girls are thought to be living with FGM in those 30 countries.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The highest concentrations among the 15–49 age group are in Somalia (98 percent), Guinea (97 percent), Djibouti (93 percent), Egypt (91 percent), and Sierra Leone (90 percent). As of 2013, 27.2 million women had undergone FGM in Egypt, 23.8 million in Ethiopia, and 19.9 million in Nigeria. There is a high concentration in Indonesia, where according to UNICEF Type I (clitoridectomy) and Type IV (symbolic nicking) are practised; the Indonesian Ministry of Health and Indonesian Ulema Council both say the clitoris should not be cut. The prevalence rate for the 0–11 group in Indonesia is 49 percent (13.4 million). Smaller studies or anecdotal reports suggest that various types of FGM are also practised in various circumstances in Colombia, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, and India, but there are no representative data on the prevalence in these countries. As of 2023, UNICEF reported that \"The highest levels of support for FGM can be found in Mali, Sierra Leone, Guinea, the Gambia, Somalia, and Egypt, where more than half of the female population thinks the practice should continue\".",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Prevalence figures for the 15–19 age group and younger show a downward trend. For example, Burkina Faso fell from 89 percent (1980) to 58 percent (2010); Egypt from 97 percent (1985) to 70 percent (2015); and Kenya from 41 percent (1984) to 11 percent (2014). Beginning in 2010, household surveys asked women about the FGM status of all their living daughters. The highest concentrations among girls aged 0–14 were in Gambia (56 percent), Mauritania (54 percent), Indonesia (49 percent for 0–11) and Guinea (46 percent). The figures suggest that a girl was one third less likely in 2014 to undergo FGM than she was 30 years ago. According to a 2018 study published in BMJ Global Health, the prevalence within the 0–14 year old group fell in East Africa from 71.4 percent in 1995 to 8 percent in 2016; in North Africa from 57.7 percent in 1990 to 14.1 percent in 2015; and in West Africa from 73.6 percent in 1996 to 25.4 percent in 2017. If the current rate of decline continues, the number of girls cut will nevertheless continue to rise because of population growth, according to UNICEF in 2014; they estimate that the figure will increase from 3.6 million a year in 2013 to 4.1 million in 2050.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Surveys have found FGM to be more common in rural areas, less common in most countries among girls from the wealthiest homes, and (except in Sudan and Somalia) less common in girls whose mothers had access to primary or secondary/higher education. In Somalia and Sudan the situation was reversed: in Somalia, the mothers' access to secondary/higher education was accompanied by a rise in prevalence of FGM in their daughters, and in Sudan, access to any education was accompanied by a rise.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "FGM is not invariably a rite of passage between childhood and adulthood but is often performed on much younger children. Girls are most commonly cut shortly after birth to age 15. In half the countries for which national figures were available in 2000–2010, most girls had been cut by age five. Over 80 percent (of those cut) are cut before the age of five in Nigeria, Mali, Eritrea, Ghana and Mauritania. The 1997 Demographic and Health Survey in Yemen found that 76 percent of girls had been cut within two weeks of birth. The percentage is reversed in Somalia, Egypt, Chad, and the Central African Republic, where over 80 percent (of those cut) are cut between five and 14. Just as the type of FGM is often linked to ethnicity, so is the mean age. In Kenya, for example, the Kisi cut around age 10 and the Kamba at 16.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "A country's national prevalence often reflects a high sub-national prevalence among certain ethnicities, rather than a widespread practice. In Iraq, for example, FGM is found mostly among the Kurds in Erbil (58 percent prevalence within age group 15–49, as of 2011), Sulaymaniyah (54 percent) and Kirkuk (20 percent), giving the country a national prevalence of eight percent. The practice is sometimes an ethnic marker, but it may differ along national lines. For example, in the northeastern regions of Ethiopia and Kenya, which share a border with Somalia, the Somali people practise FGM at around the same rate as they do in Somalia. But in Guinea all Fulani women responding to a survey in 2012 said they had experienced FGM, against 12 percent of the Fulani in Chad, while in Nigeria the Fulani are the only large ethnic group in the country not to practise it. In Sierra Leone, the predominantly Christian Creole people are the only ethnicity not known to practice FGM or participate in Bondo society rituals.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "",
"title": "Reasons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Kenyan FGM ceremony",
"title": "Reasons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "— Stephanie Welsh, Newhouse News Service",
"title": "Reasons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Dahabo Musa, a Somali woman, described infibulation in a 1988 poem as the \"three feminine sorrows\": the procedure itself, the wedding night when the woman is cut open, then childbirth when she is cut again. Despite the evident suffering, it is women who organize all forms of FGM. Anthropologist Rose Oldfield Hayes wrote in 1975 that educated Sudanese men who did not want their daughters to be infibulated (preferring clitoridectomy) would find the girls had been sewn up after the grandmothers arranged a visit to relatives. Gerry Mackie has compared the practice to footbinding. Like FGM, footbinding was carried out on young girls, nearly universal where practised, tied to ideas about honour, chastity, and appropriate marriage, and \"supported and transmitted\" by women.",
"title": "Reasons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "FGM practitioners see the procedures as marking not only ethnic boundaries but also gender differences. According to this view, male circumcision defeminizes men while FGM demasculinizes women. Fuambai Ahmadu, an anthropologist and member of the Kono people of Sierra Leone, who in 1992 underwent clitoridectomy as an adult during a Sande society initiation, argued in 2000 that it is a male-centred assumption that the clitoris is important to female sexuality. African female symbolism revolves instead around the concept of the womb. Infibulation draws on that idea of enclosure and fertility. \"[G]enital cutting completes the social definition of a child's sex by eliminating external traces of androgyny,\" Janice Boddy wrote in 2007. \"The female body is then covered, closed, and its productive blood bound within; the male body is unveiled, opened, and exposed.\"",
"title": "Reasons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In communities where infibulation is common, there is a preference for women's genitals to be smooth, dry and without odour, and both women and men may find the natural vulva repulsive. Some men seem to enjoy the effort of penetrating an infibulation. The local preference for dry sex causes women to introduce substances into the vagina to reduce lubrication, including leaves, tree bark, toothpaste and Vicks menthol rub. The WHO includes this practice within Type IV FGM, because the added friction during intercourse can cause lacerations and increase the risk of infection. Because of the smooth appearance of an infibulated vulva, there is also a belief that infibulation increases hygiene.",
"title": "Reasons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Common reasons for FGM cited by women in surveys are social acceptance, religion, hygiene, preservation of virginity, marriageability and enhancement of male sexual pleasure. In a study in northern Sudan, published in 1983, only 17.4 percent of women opposed FGM (558 out of 3,210), and most preferred excision and infibulation over clitoridectomy. Attitudes are changing slowly. In Sudan in 2010, 42 percent of women who had heard of FGM said the practice should continue. In several surveys since 2006, over 50 percent of women in Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Gambia, and Egypt supported FGM's continuance, while elsewhere in Africa, Iraq, and Yemen most said it should end, although in several countries only by a narrow margin.",
"title": "Reasons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Against the argument that women willingly choose FGM for their daughters, UNICEF calls the practice a \"self-enforcing social convention\" to which families feel they must conform to avoid uncut daughters facing social exclusion. Ellen Gruenbaum reported that, in Sudan in the 1970s, cut girls from an Arab ethnic group would mock uncut Zabarma girls with Ya, ghalfa! (\"Hey, unclean!\"). The Zabarma girls would respond Ya, mutmura! (A mutmara was a storage pit for grain that was continually opened and closed, like an infibulated woman.) But despite throwing the insult back, the Zabarma girls would ask their mothers, \"What's the matter? Don't we have razor blades like the Arabs?\"",
"title": "Reasons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Because of poor access to information, and because circumcisers downplay the causal connection, women may not associate the health consequences with the procedure. Lala Baldé, president of a women's association in Medina Cherif, a village in Senegal, told Mackie in 1998 that when girls fell ill or died, it was attributed to evil spirits. When informed of the causal relationship between FGM and ill health, Mackie wrote, the women broke down and wept. He argued that surveys taken before and after this sharing of information would show very different levels of support for FGM. The American non-profit group Tostan, founded by Molly Melching in 1991, introduced community-empowerment programs in several countries that focus on local democracy, literacy, and education about healthcare, giving women the tools to make their own decisions. In 1997, using the Tostan program, Malicounda Bambara in Senegal became the first village to abandon FGM. By August 2019, 8,800 communities in eight countries had pledged to abandon FGM and child marriage.",
"title": "Reasons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Surveys have shown a widespread belief, particularly in Mali, Mauritania, Guinea, and Egypt, that FGM is a religious requirement. Gruenbaum has argued that practitioners may not distinguish between religion, tradition, and chastity, making it difficult to interpret the data. FGM's origins in northeastern Africa are pre-Islamic, but the practice became associated with Islam because of that religion's focus on female chastity and seclusion. According to a 2013 UNICEF report, in 18 African countries at least 10 percent of Muslim females had experienced FGM, and in 13 of those countries, the figure rose to 50–99 percent. There is no mention of the practice in the Quran. It is praised in a few daʻīf (weak) hadith (sayings attributed to Muhammad) as noble but not required, although it is regarded as obligatory by the Shafi'i version of Sunni Islam. In 2007 the Al-Azhar Supreme Council of Islamic Research in Cairo ruled that FGM had \"no basis in core Islamic law or any of its partial provisions\".",
"title": "Reasons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "There is no mention of FGM in the Bible. Christian missionaries in Africa were among the first to object to FGM, but Christian communities in Africa do practise it. In 2013 UNICEF identified 19 African countries in which at least 10 percent of Christian women and girls aged 15 to 49 had undergone FGM; in Niger, 55 percent of Christian women and girls had experienced it, compared with two percent of their Muslim counterparts. The only Jewish group known to have practised it is the Beta Israel of Ethiopia. Judaism requires male circumcision but does not allow FGM. FGM is also practised by animist groups, particularly in Guinea and Mali.",
"title": "Reasons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "But if a man wants to know how to live, he should recite it [a magical spell] every day, after his flesh has been rubbed with the b3d [unknown substance] of an uncircumcised girl ['m't] and the flakes of skin [šnft] of an uncircumcised bald man.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "—From an Egyptian sarcophagus, c. 1991–1786 BCE",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The practice's origins are unknown. Gerry Mackie has suggested that, because FGM's east–west, north–south distribution in Africa meets in Sudan, infibulation may have begun there with the Meroite civilization (c. 800 BCE – c. 350 CE), before the rise of Islam, to increase confidence in paternity. According to historian Mary Knight, Spell 1117 (c. 1991–1786 BCE) of the Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts may refer in hieroglyphs to an uncircumcised girl ('m't):",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The spell was found on the sarcophagus of Sit-hedjhotep, now in the Egyptian Museum, and dates to Egypt's Middle Kingdom. (Paul F. O'Rourke argues that 'm't probably refers instead to a menstruating woman.) The proposed circumcision of an Egyptian girl, Tathemis, is also mentioned on a Greek papyrus, from 163 BCE, in the British Museum: \"Sometime after this, Nephoris [Tathemis's mother] defrauded me, being anxious that it was time for Tathemis to be circumcised, as is the custom among the Egyptians.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The examination of mummies has shown no evidence of FGM. Citing the Australian pathologist Grafton Elliot Smith, who examined hundreds of mummies in the early 20th century, Knight writes that the genital area may resemble Type III because during mummification the skin of the outer labia was pulled toward the anus to cover the pudendal cleft, possibly to prevent a sexual violation. It was similarly not possible to determine whether Types I or II had been performed, because soft tissues had deteriorated or been removed by the embalmers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The Greek geographer Strabo (c. 64 BCE – c. 23 CE) wrote about FGM after visiting Egypt around 25 BCE: \"This is one of the customs most zealously pursued by them [the Egyptians]: to raise every child that is born and to circumcise [peritemnein] the males and excise [ektemnein] the females ...\" Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE – 50 CE) also made reference to it: \"the Egyptians by the custom of their country circumcise the marriageable youth and maid in the fourteenth (year) of their age when the male begins to get seed, and the female to have a menstrual flow.\" It is mentioned briefly in a work attributed to the Greek physician Galen (129 – c. 200 CE): \"When [the clitoris] sticks out to a great extent in their young women, Egyptians consider it appropriate to cut it out.\" Another Greek physician, Aëtius of Amida (mid-5th to mid-6th century CE), offered more detail in book 16 of his Sixteen Books on Medicine, citing the physician Philomenes. The procedure was performed in case the clitoris, or nymphê, grew too large or triggered sexual desire when rubbing against clothing. \"On this account, it seemed proper to the Egyptians to remove it before it became greatly enlarged,\" Aëtius wrote, \"especially at that time when the girls were about to be married\":",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The surgery is performed in this way: Have the girl sit on a chair while a muscled young man standing behind her places his arms below the girl's thighs. Have him separate and steady her legs and whole body. Standing in front and taking hold of the clitoris with a broad-mouthed forceps in his left hand, the surgeon stretches it outward, while with the right hand, he cuts it off at the point next to the pincers of the forceps. It is proper to let a length remain from that cut off, about the size of the membrane that's between the nostrils, so as to take away the excess material only; as I have said, the part to be removed is at that point just above the pincers of the forceps. Because the clitoris is a skinlike structure and stretches out excessively, do not cut off too much, as a urinary fistula may result from cutting such large growths too deeply.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The genital area was then cleaned with a sponge, frankincense powder and wine or cold water, and wrapped in linen bandages dipped in vinegar, until the seventh day when calamine, rose petals, date pits, or a \"genital powder made from baked clay\" might be applied.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Whatever the practice's origins, infibulation became linked to slavery. Research has indicated that linkes between the Red Sea slave trade and female genital mutilation. An investigation combining contemporary from data on slave shipments from 1400 to 1900 with data from 28 African countries has found that women belonging to ethnic groups historically victimized by the Red Sea slave trade were “significantly” more likely to suffer genital mutilation in the 21st-century, as well as “more in favour of continuing the practice”. Women trafficked in the Red Sea slave trade were sold as concubines (sex slaves) in the Islamic Middle East up until as late as in the mid 20th-century, and the practice of infibulation was used to temporarily signal the virginity of girls, increasing their value on the slave market: “According to descriptions by early travellers, infibulated female slaves had a higher price on the market because infibulation was thought to ensure chastity and loyalty to the owner and prevented undesired pregnancies”. Mackie cites the Portuguese missionary João dos Santos, who in 1609 wrote of a group near Mogadishu who had a \"custome to sew up their Females, especially their slaves being young to make them unable for conception, which makes these slaves sell dearer, both for their chastitie, and for better confidence which their Masters put in them\". Thus, Mackie argues, a \"practice associated with shameful female slavery came to stand for honor\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Gynaecologists in 19th-century Europe and the United States removed the clitoris to treat insanity and masturbation. A British doctor, Robert Thomas, suggested clitoridectomy as a cure for nymphomania in 1813. In 1825 The Lancet described a clitoridectomy performed in 1822 in Berlin by Karl Ferdinand von Graefe on a 15-year-old girl who was masturbating excessively.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Isaac Baker Brown, an English gynaecologist, president of the Medical Society of London and co-founder in 1845 of St. Mary's Hospital, believed that masturbation, or \"unnatural irritation\" of the clitoris, caused hysteria, spinal irritation, fits, idiocy, mania, and death. He, therefore \"set to work to remove the clitoris whenever he had the opportunity of doing so\", according to his obituary. Brown performed several clitoridectomies between 1859 and 1866. In the United States, J. Marion Sims followed Brown's work and in 1862 slit the neck of a woman's uterus and amputated her clitoris, \"for the relief of the nervous or hysterical condition as recommended by Baker Brown\". When Brown published his views in On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria in Females (1866), doctors in London accused him of quackery and expelled him from the Obstetrical Society.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Later in the 19th century, A. J. Bloch, a surgeon in New Orleans, removed the clitoris of a two-year-old girl who was reportedly masturbating. According to a 1985 paper in the Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey, clitoridectomy was performed in the United States into the 1960s to treat hysteria, erotomania and lesbianism. From the mid-1950s, James C. Burt, a gynaecologist in Dayton, Ohio, performed non-standard repairs of episiotomies after childbirth, adding more stitches to make the vaginal opening smaller. From 1966 until 1989, he performed \"love surgery\" by cutting women's pubococcygeus muscle, repositioning the vagina and urethra, and removing the clitoral hood, thereby making their genital area more appropriate, in his view, for intercourse in the missionary position. \"Women are structurally inadequate for intercourse,\" he wrote; he said he would turn them into \"horny little mice\". In the 1960s and 1970s he performed these procedures without consent while repairing episiotomies and performing hysterectomies and other surgery; he said he had performed a variation of them on 4,000 women by 1975. Following complaints, he was required in 1989 to stop practicing medicine in the United States.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Little knives in their sheaths That they may fight with the church, The time has come. Elders (of the church) When Kenyatta comes You will be given women's clothes And you will have to cook him his food.",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "— From the Muthirigu (1929), Kikuyu dance-songs against church opposition to FGM",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Protestant missionaries in British East Africa (present-day Kenya) began campaigning against FGM in the early 20th century, when Dr. John Arthur joined the Church of Scotland Mission (CSM) in Kikuyu. An important ethnic marker, the practice was known by the Kikuyu, the country's main ethnic group, as irua for both girls and boys. It involved excision (Type II) for girls and removal of the foreskin for boys. Unexcised Kikuyu women (irugu) were outcasts.",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Jomo Kenyatta, general secretary of the Kikuyu Central Association and later Kenya's first prime minister, wrote in 1938 that, for the Kikuyu, the institution of FGM was the \"conditio sine qua non of the whole teaching of tribal law, religion and morality\". No proper Kikuyu man or woman would marry or have sexual relations with someone who was not circumcised, he wrote. A woman's responsibilities toward the tribe began with her initiation. Her age and place within tribal history were traced to that day, and the group of girls with whom she was cut was named according to current events, an oral tradition that allowed the Kikuyu to track people and events going back hundreds of years.",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Beginning with the CSM in 1925, several missionary churches declared that FGM was prohibited for African Christians; the CSM announced that Africans practising it would be excommunicated, which resulted in hundreds leaving or being expelled. In 1929 the Kenya Missionary Council began referring to FGM as the \"sexual mutilation of women\", and a person's stance toward the practice became a test of loyalty, either to the Christian churches or to the Kikuyu Central Association. The stand-off turned FGM into a focal point of the Kenyan independence movement; the 1929–1931 period is known in the country's historiography as the female circumcision controversy. When Hulda Stumpf, an American missionary who opposed FGM in the girls' school she helped to run, was murdered in 1930, Edward Grigg, the governor of Kenya, told the British Colonial Office that the killer had tried to circumcise her.",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "There was some opposition from Kenyan women themselves. At the mission in Tumutumu, Karatina, where Marion Scott Stevenson worked, a group calling themselves Ngo ya Tuiritu (\"Shield of Young Girls\"), the membership of which included Raheli Warigia (mother of Gakaara wa Wanjaũ), wrote to the Local Native Council of South Nyeri on 25 December 1931: \"[W]e of the Ngo ya Tuiritu heard that there are men who talk of female circumcision, and we get astonished because they (men) do not give birth and feel the pain and even some die and even others become infertile, and the main cause is circumcision. Because of that, the issue of circumcision should not be forced. People are caught like sheep; one should be allowed to cut her own way of either agreeing to be circumcised or not without being dictated on one's own body.\"",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Elsewhere, support for the practice from women was strong. In 1956 in Meru, eastern Kenya, when the council of male elders (the Njuri Nchecke) announced a ban on FGM in 1956, thousands of girls cut each other's genitals with razor blades over the next three years as a symbol of defiance. The movement came to be known as Ngaitana (\"I will circumcise myself\"), because to avoid naming their friends the girls said they had cut themselves. Historian Lynn Thomas described the episode as significant in the history of FGM because it made clear that its victims were also its perpetrators. FGM was eventually outlawed in Kenya in 2001, although the practice continued, reportedly driven by older women.",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "One of the earliest campaigns against FGM began in Egypt in the 1920s, when the Egyptian Doctors' Society called for a ban. There was a parallel campaign in Sudan, run by religious leaders and British women. Infibulation was banned there in 1946, but the law was unpopular and barely enforced. The Egyptian government banned infibulation in state-run hospitals in 1959, but allowed partial clitoridectomy if parents requested it. (Egypt banned FGM entirely in 2007.)",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "In 1959, the UN asked the WHO to investigate FGM, but the latter responded that it was not a medical matter. Feminists took up the issue throughout the 1970s. The Egyptian physician and feminist Nawal El Saadawi criticized FGM in her book Women and Sex (1972); the book was banned in Egypt and El Saadawi lost her job as director-general of public health. She followed up with a chapter, \"The Circumcision of Girls\", in her book The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World (1980), which described her own clitoridectomy when she was six years old:",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "I did not know what they had cut off from my body, and I did not try to find out. I just wept, and called out to my mother for help. But the worst shock of all was when I looked around and found her standing by my side. Yes, it was her, I could not be mistaken, in flesh and blood, right in the midst of these strangers, talking to them and smiling at them, as though they had not participated in slaughtering her daughter just a few moments ago.",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "In 1975, Rose Oldfield Hayes, an American social scientist, became the first female academic to publish a detailed account of FGM, aided by her ability to discuss it directly with women in Sudan. Her article in American Ethnologist called it \"female genital mutilation\", rather than female circumcision, and brought it to wider academic attention. Edna Adan Ismail, who worked at the time for the Somalia Ministry of Health, discussed the health consequences of FGM in 1977 with the Somali Women's Democratic Organization. Two years later Fran Hosken, an Austrian-American feminist, published The Hosken Report: Genital and Sexual Mutilation of Females (1979), the first to offer global figures. She estimated that 110,529,000 women in 20 African countries had experienced FGM. The figures were speculative but consistent with later surveys. Describing FGM as a \"training ground for male violence\", Hosken accused female practitioners of \"participating in the destruction of their own kind\". The language caused a rift between Western and African feminists; African women boycotted a session featuring Hosken during the UN's Mid-Decade Conference on Women in Copenhagen in July 1980.",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "In 1979, the WHO held a seminar, \"Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children\", in Khartoum, Sudan, and in 1981, also in Khartoum, 150 academics and activists signed a pledge to fight FGM after a workshop held by the Babiker Badri Scientific Association for Women's Studies (BBSAWS), \"Female Circumcision Mutilates and Endangers Women – Combat it!\" Another BBSAWS workshop in 1984 invited the international community to write a joint statement for the United Nations. It recommended that the \"goal of all African women\" should be the eradication of FGM and that, to sever the link between FGM and religion, clitoridectomy should no longer be referred to as sunna.",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children, founded in 1984 in Dakar, Senegal, called for an end to the practice, as did the UN's World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993. The conference listed FGM as a form of violence against women, marking it as a human-rights violation, rather than a medical issue. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s governments in Africa and the Middle East passed legislation banning or restricting FGM. In 2003 the African Union ratified the Maputo Protocol on the rights of women, which supported the elimination of FGM. By 2015 laws restricting FGM had been passed in at least 23 of the 27 African countries in which it is concentrated, although several fell short of a ban.",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "As of 2023, UNICEF reported that \"in most countries in Africa and the Middle East with representative data on attitudes (23 out of 30), the majority of girls and women think the practice should end\", and that \"even among communities that practice FGM, there is substantial opposition to its continuation\".",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "In December 1993, the United Nations General Assembly included FGM in resolution 48/104, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and from 2003 sponsored International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, held every 6 February. UNICEF began in 2003 to promote an evidence-based social norms approach, using ideas from game theory about how communities reach decisions about FGM, and building on the work of Gerry Mackie on the demise of footbinding in China. In 2005 the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence published its first report on FGM. UNFPA and UNICEF launched a joint program in Africa in 2007 to reduce FGM by 40 percent within the 0–15 age group and eliminate it from at least one country by 2012, goals that were not met and which they later described as unrealistic. In 2008 several UN bodies recognized FGM as a human-rights violation, and in 2010 the UN called upon healthcare providers to stop carrying out the procedures, including reinfibulation after childbirth and symbolic nicking. In 2012 the General Assembly passed resolution 67/146, \"Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilations\".",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Immigration spread the practice to Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and North America, all of which outlawed it entirely or restricted it to consenting adults. Sweden outlawed FGM in 1982 with the Act Prohibiting the Genital Mutilation of Women, the first Western country to do so. Several former colonial powers, including Belgium, Britain, France, and the Netherlands, introduced new laws or made clear that it was covered by existing legislation. As of 2013, legislation banning FGM had been passed in 33 countries outside Africa and the Middle East.",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "In the United States, an estimated 513,000 women and girls had experienced FGM or were at risk as of 2012. A Nigerian woman successfully contested deportation in March 1994, asking for \"cultural asylum\" on the grounds that her young daughters (who were American citizens) might be cut if she took them to Nigeria, and in 1996 Fauziya Kasinga from Togo became the first to be officially granted asylum to escape FGM. In 1996 the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act made it illegal to perform FGM on minors for non-medical reasons, and in 2013 the Transport for Female Genital Mutilation Act prohibited transporting a minor out of the country for the purpose of FGM. The first FGM conviction in the US was in 2006, when Khalid Adem, who had emigrated from Ethiopia, was sentenced to ten years for aggravated battery and cruelty to children after severing his two-year-old daughter's clitoris with a pair of scissors. A federal judge ruled in 2018 that the 1996 Act was unconstitutional, arguing that FGM is a \"local criminal activity\" that should be regulated by states. Twenty-four states had legislation banning FGM as of 2016, and in 2021 the STOP FGM Act of 2020 was signed into federal law. The American Academy of Pediatrics opposes all forms of the practice, including pricking the clitoral skin.",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Canada recognized FGM as a form of persecution in July 1994, when it granted refugee status to Khadra Hassan Farah, who had fled Somalia to avoid her daughter being cut. In 1997 section 268 of its Criminal Code was amended to ban FGM, except where \"the person is at least eighteen years of age and there is no resulting bodily harm\". As of February 2019, there had been no prosecutions. Officials have expressed concern that thousands of Canadian girls are at risk of being taken overseas to undergo the procedure, so-called \"vacation cutting\".",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "According to the European Parliament, 500,000 women in Europe had undergone FGM as of March 2009. In France up to 30,000 women were thought to have experienced it as of 1995. According to Colette Gallard, a family-planning counsellor, when FGM was first encountered in France, the reaction was that Westerners ought not to intervene. It took the deaths of two girls in 1982, one of them three months old, for that attitude to change. In 1991 a French court ruled that the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees offered protection to FGM victims; the decision followed an asylum application from Aminata Diop, who fled an FGM procedure in Mali. The practice is outlawed by several provisions of France's penal code that address bodily harm causing permanent mutilation or torture. The first civil suit was in 1982, and the first criminal prosecution in 1993. In 1999 a woman was given an eight-year sentence for having performed FGM on 48 girls. By 2014 over 100 parents and two practitioners had been prosecuted in over 40 criminal cases.",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Around 137,000 women and girls living in England and Wales were born in countries where FGM is practised, as of 2011. Performing FGM on children or adults was outlawed under the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985. This was replaced by the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 and Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Act 2005, which added a prohibition on arranging FGM outside the country for British citizens or permanent residents. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) asked the government in July 2013 to \"ensure the full implementation of its legislation on FGM\". The first charges were brought in 2014 against a physician and another man; the physician had stitched an infibulated woman after opening her for childbirth. Both men were acquitted in 2015.",
"title": "Opposition and legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Anthropologists have accused FGM eradicationists of cultural colonialism, and have been criticized in turn for their moral relativism and failure to defend the idea of universal human rights. According to critics of the eradicationist position, the biological reductionism of the opposition to FGM, and the failure to appreciate FGM's cultural context, serves to \"other\" practitioners and undermine their agency—in particular when parents are referred to as \"mutilators\".",
"title": "Criticism of opposition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Africans who object to the tone of FGM opposition risk appearing to defend the practice. The feminist theorist Obioma Nnaemeka, herself strongly opposed to FGM, argued in 2005 that renaming the practice female genital mutilation had introduced \"a subtext of barbaric African and Muslim cultures and the West's relevance (even indispensability) in purging [it]\". According to Ugandan law professor Sylvia Tamale, the early Western opposition to FGM stemmed from a Judeo-Christian judgment that African sexual and family practices, including not only FGM but also dry sex, polygyny, bride price and levirate marriage, required correction. African feminists \"take strong exception to the imperialist, racist and dehumanising infantilization of African women\", she wrote in 2011. Commentators highlight the voyeurism in the treatment of women's bodies as exhibits. Examples include images of women's vulvas after FGM or girls undergoing the procedure. The 1996 Pulitzer-prize-winning photographs of a 16-year-old Kenyan girl experiencing FGM were published by 12 American newspapers, without her consent either to be photographed or to have the images published.",
"title": "Criticism of opposition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "The debate has highlighted a tension between anthropology and feminism, with the former's focus on tolerance and the latter's on equal rights for women. According to the anthropologist Christine Walley, a common position in anti-FGM literature has been to present African women as victims of false consciousness participating in their own oppression, a position promoted by feminists in the 1970s and 1980s, including Fran Hosken, Mary Daly and Hanny Lightfoot-Klein. It prompted the French Association of Anthropologists to issue a statement in 1981, at the height of the early debates, that \"a certain feminism resuscitates (today) the moralistic arrogance of yesterday's colonialism\".",
"title": "Criticism of opposition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Nnaemeka argues that the crucial question, broader than FGM, is why the female body is subjected to so much \"abuse and indignity\", including in the West. Several authors have drawn a parallel between FGM and cosmetic procedures. Ronán Conroy of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland wrote in 2006 that cosmetic genital procedures were \"driving the advance\" of FGM by encouraging women to see natural variations as defects. Anthropologist Fadwa El Guindi compared FGM to breast enhancement, in which the maternal function of the breast becomes secondary to men's sexual pleasure. Benoîte Groult, the French feminist, made a similar point in 1975, citing FGM and cosmetic surgery as sexist and patriarchal. Against this, the medical anthropologist Carla Obermeyer argued in 1999 that FGM may be conducive to a subject's social well-being in the same way that rhinoplasty and male circumcision are. Despite the 2007 ban in Egypt, Egyptian women wanting FGM for their daughters seek amalyet tajmeel (cosmetic surgery) to remove what they see as excess genital tissue.",
"title": "Criticism of opposition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "Cosmetic procedures such as labiaplasty and clitoral hood reduction do fall within the WHO's definition of FGM, which aims to avoid loopholes, but the WHO notes that these elective practices are generally not regarded as FGM. Some legislation banning FGM, such as in Canada and the United States, covers minors only, but several countries, including Sweden and the United Kingdom, have banned it regardless of consent. Sweden, for example, has banned operations \"on the outer female sexual organs with a view to mutilating them or bringing about some other permanent change in them, regardless of whether or not consent has been given for the operation\". Gynaecologist Birgitta Essén and anthropologist Sara Johnsdotter argue that the law seems to distinguish between Western and African genitals, and deems only African women (such as those seeking reinfibulation after childbirth) unfit to make their own decisions.",
"title": "Criticism of opposition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "The philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that a key concern with FGM is that it is mostly conducted on children using physical force. The distinction between social pressure and physical force is morally and legally salient, comparable to the distinction between seduction and rape. She argues further that the literacy of women in practising countries is generally poorer than in developed nations, which reduces their ability to make informed choices.",
"title": "Criticism of opposition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "FGM has been compared to other procedures that modify the human genitalia. Conservatives in the United States during the late 2010s and early 2020s have argued that FGM is similar to gender-affirming surgery for transgender individuals, which has led to bills being drafted in Republican states equating the two. Criticism of these ideas include the fact that the gender-affirming surgeries are approved by American medical authorities, are rare for minors, and are done after reviews by multiple medical professionals. Formerly, FGM was widely referred to as \"female circumcision\" in the academic literature, but this \"was rejected by international medical practitioners because it suggests a fallacious analogy to male circumcision.\" It has been argued that the genital alteration of intersex infants and children is analogous to FGM, who are born with anomalies that physicians choose to “fix”.",
"title": "Criticism of opposition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Books and book chapters",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Journal articles",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "United Nations reports",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Personal stories",
"title": "Further reading"
}
] |
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the vulva. The practice is found in some countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and within their respective diasporas. As of 2023, UNICEF estimates that "at least 200 million girls... in 31 countries"—including Indonesia, Iraq, Yemen, and 27 African countries including Egypt—had been subjected to one or more types of female genital mutilation. Typically carried out by a traditional circumciser using a blade, FGM is conducted from days after birth to puberty and beyond. In half of the countries for which national statistics are available, most girls are cut before the age of five. Procedures differ according to the country or ethnic group. They include removal of the clitoral hood and clitoral glans (1-b); removal of the inner labia (2-a); and removal of the inner and outer labia and closure of the vulva. In this last procedure, known as infibulation, a small hole is left for the passage of urine and menstrual fluid; the vagina is opened for intercourse and opened further for childbirth. The practice is rooted in gender inequality, attempts to control women's sexuality, and ideas about purity, modesty, and beauty. It is usually initiated and carried out by women, who see it as a source of honour, and who fear that failing to have their daughters and granddaughters cut will expose the girls to social exclusion. Adverse health effects depend on the type of procedure; they can include recurrent infections, difficulty urinating and passing menstrual flow, chronic pain, the development of cysts, an inability to get pregnant, complications during childbirth, and fatal bleeding. There are no known health benefits. There have been international efforts since the 1970s to persuade practitioners to abandon FGM, and it has been outlawed or restricted in most of the countries in which it occurs, although the laws are often poorly enforced. Since 2010, the United Nations has called upon healthcare providers to stop performing all forms of the procedure, including reinfibulation after childbirth and symbolic "nicking" of the clitoral hood. The opposition to the practice is not without its critics, particularly among anthropologists, who have raised questions about cultural relativism and the universality of human rights.
|
2001-10-26T00:11:59Z
|
2023-12-30T17:37:48Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation
|
11,411 |
Fermentation (disambiguation)
|
Fermentation is a metabolic process whereby electrons released from nutrients are ultimately transferred to molecules obtained from the breakdown of those same nutrients.
Fermentation may also refer to:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fermentation is a metabolic process whereby electrons released from nutrients are ultimately transferred to molecules obtained from the breakdown of those same nutrients.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Fermentation may also refer to:",
"title": ""
}
] |
Fermentation is a metabolic process whereby electrons released from nutrients are ultimately transferred to molecules obtained from the breakdown of those same nutrients. Fermentation may also refer to: Ethanol fermentation, the production of ethanol for use in food, alcoholic beverage, fuel and industry
Fermentation in food processing, the process of converting sugar to carbon dioxide and alcohol with yeast
Fermentation in winemaking, the process of fermentation used in wine-making
Lactic acid fermentation, the biological process by which sugars such as glucose, fructose, and sucrose, are converted into cellular energy and the metabolic byproduct lactate
Industrial fermentation, the breakdown and re-assembly of biochemicals for industry, often in aerobic growth conditions
Fermentative hydrogen production, the fermentative conversion of organic substrate to biohydrogen manifested by a diverse group of bacteria
Fermentation, the term used in the tea industry in tea processing for the aerobic treatment of tea leaves to break down certain unwanted chemicals and modify others to develop the flavor of the tea
|
2001-10-26T11:36:01Z
|
2023-11-11T19:42:59Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermentation_(disambiguation)
|
11,415 |
Forcemeat
|
Forcemeat (derived from the French farcir, "to stuff") is a uniform mixture of lean meat with fat made by grinding or sieving the ingredients. The result may either be smooth or coarse. Forcemeats are used in the production of numerous items found in charcuterie, including quenelles, sausages, pâtés, terrines, roulades, and galantines. Forcemeats are usually produced from raw meat, except in the case of a gratin. Meats commonly used include pork, fish (pike, trout, or salmon), seafood, game meats (venison, boar, or rabbit), poultry, game birds, veal, and pork livers. Pork fatback is preferred as a fat, as it has a somewhat neutral flavor.
Forcemeats are an ancient food and are included in Apicius, a collection of Roman cookery recipes usually thought to have been compiled in the late 4th or early 5th century AD.
Often, the only binder in a forcemeat is the physical structure of the protein used. Sometimes a secondary binder is necessary to hold the mixture. These binders are generally needed when preparing country-style or gratin forcemeats. The three types of binders are eggs, dry milk powder, and panades. A panade can be made from starchy ingredients which aid in the binding process; these include well-cooked potatoes which have been puréed, cream-soaked bread, or pâte à choux.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Forcemeat (derived from the French farcir, \"to stuff\") is a uniform mixture of lean meat with fat made by grinding or sieving the ingredients. The result may either be smooth or coarse. Forcemeats are used in the production of numerous items found in charcuterie, including quenelles, sausages, pâtés, terrines, roulades, and galantines. Forcemeats are usually produced from raw meat, except in the case of a gratin. Meats commonly used include pork, fish (pike, trout, or salmon), seafood, game meats (venison, boar, or rabbit), poultry, game birds, veal, and pork livers. Pork fatback is preferred as a fat, as it has a somewhat neutral flavor.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Forcemeats are an ancient food and are included in Apicius, a collection of Roman cookery recipes usually thought to have been compiled in the late 4th or early 5th century AD.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Often, the only binder in a forcemeat is the physical structure of the protein used. Sometimes a secondary binder is necessary to hold the mixture. These binders are generally needed when preparing country-style or gratin forcemeats. The three types of binders are eggs, dry milk powder, and panades. A panade can be made from starchy ingredients which aid in the binding process; these include well-cooked potatoes which have been puréed, cream-soaked bread, or pâte à choux.",
"title": "Secondary binders"
}
] |
Forcemeat is a uniform mixture of lean meat with fat made by grinding or sieving the ingredients. The result may either be smooth or coarse. Forcemeats are used in the production of numerous items found in charcuterie, including quenelles, sausages, pâtés, terrines, roulades, and galantines. Forcemeats are usually produced from raw meat, except in the case of a gratin. Meats commonly used include pork, fish, seafood, game meats, poultry, game birds, veal, and pork livers. Pork fatback is preferred as a fat, as it has a somewhat neutral flavor.
|
2001-10-26T15:34:42Z
|
2023-10-01T21:03:31Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forcemeat
|
11,417 |
Forseti
|
Forseti (Old Norse "the presiding one", "president" in modern Icelandic and Faroese) is the god of justice and reconciliation in Norse mythology. He is generally identified with Fosite, a god of the Frisians.
Grimm took Forseti, "praeses", to be the older form of the name, first postulating an unattested Old High German equivalent *forasizo (cf. modern German Vorsitzender "one who presides"). but later preferring a derivation from fors, a "whirling stream" or "cataract", connected to the spring and the god's veneration by seagoing peoples. It is plausible that Fosite is the older name and Forseti a folk etymology. According to the German philologist Hans Kuhn the Germanic form Fosite is linguistically identical to Greek Poseidon, hence the original name must have been introduced before the Proto-Germanic sound change, probably via Greek sailors purchasing amber.
According to Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda, Forseti is the son of Baldr and Nanna. His is the best of courts; all those who come before him leave reconciled. This suggests skill in mediation and is in contrast to his fellow god Týr, who "is not called a reconciler of men." However, as de Vries points out, the only basis for associating Forseti with justice seems to have been his name; there is no corroborating evidence in Norse mythology. 'Puts to sleep all suits' or 'stills all strifes' may have been a late addition to the strophe Snorri cites, from which he derives the information.
The first element in the name Forsetlund (Old Norse Forsetalundr), a farm in the parish of Onsøy ('Odin's island'), in eastern Norway, seems to be the genitive case of Forseti, offering evidence he was worshipped there.
Glitnir (meaning "one who shines") is the hall of Forseti, and the seat of justice amongst gods and men. It is also noted to have been a place of dwelling for Balder, Forseti's father in Norse and Germanic mythologies. Glitnir is symbolic of the importance of discussion rather than violence as a means of resolution of conflict within the Norse tradition. It has pillars of gold and is roofed with silver, which radiated light that could be seen from a great distance.
According to Alcuin's Life of St. Willebrord, the saint visited an island between Frisia and Denmark that was sacred to Fosite and was called Fositesland after the god worshipped there. There was a sacred spring from which water had to be drawn in silence, it was so holy. Willebrord defiled the spring by baptizing people in it and killing a cow there. Altfrid tells the same story of St. Liudger. Adam of Bremen retells the story and adds that the island was Heiligland, i.e., Heligoland.
There is also a late-medieval legend of the origins of written Frisian laws. Wishing to assemble written lawcodes for all his subject peoples, Charlemagne summoned twelve representatives of the Frisian people, the Āsegas ('law-speakers'), and demanded they recite their people's laws. When they could not do so after several days, he let them choose between death, slavery, or being set adrift in a rudderless boat. They chose the last and prayed for help, whereupon a thirteenth man appeared, with a golden axe on his shoulder. He steered the boat to land with the axe, then threw it ashore; a spring appeared where it landed. He taught them laws and then disappeared. The stranger and the spring have traditionally been identified with Fosite and the sacred spring of Fositesland.
This hypothesis has not met with universal acceptance.
Jacob Grimm noted that if, as Adam of Bremen states, Fosite's sacred island was Heligoland, that would make him an ideal candidate for a deity known to both Frisians and Scandinavians, but that it is surprising he is never mentioned by Saxo Grammaticus.
The German neofolk band Forseti named itself after the god.
In the 2002 Ensemble Studios game Age of Mythology, Forseti is one of 9 minor gods Norse players can worship.
In the Cthulhu Mythos fictional universe, created by horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, Forseti is often implied to be a Norse representation of Cthulhu, the judge of the Outer Gods.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Forseti (Old Norse \"the presiding one\", \"president\" in modern Icelandic and Faroese) is the god of justice and reconciliation in Norse mythology. He is generally identified with Fosite, a god of the Frisians.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Grimm took Forseti, \"praeses\", to be the older form of the name, first postulating an unattested Old High German equivalent *forasizo (cf. modern German Vorsitzender \"one who presides\"). but later preferring a derivation from fors, a \"whirling stream\" or \"cataract\", connected to the spring and the god's veneration by seagoing peoples. It is plausible that Fosite is the older name and Forseti a folk etymology. According to the German philologist Hans Kuhn the Germanic form Fosite is linguistically identical to Greek Poseidon, hence the original name must have been introduced before the Proto-Germanic sound change, probably via Greek sailors purchasing amber.",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "According to Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda, Forseti is the son of Baldr and Nanna. His is the best of courts; all those who come before him leave reconciled. This suggests skill in mediation and is in contrast to his fellow god Týr, who \"is not called a reconciler of men.\" However, as de Vries points out, the only basis for associating Forseti with justice seems to have been his name; there is no corroborating evidence in Norse mythology. 'Puts to sleep all suits' or 'stills all strifes' may have been a late addition to the strophe Snorri cites, from which he derives the information.",
"title": "Old Norse Forseti"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The first element in the name Forsetlund (Old Norse Forsetalundr), a farm in the parish of Onsøy ('Odin's island'), in eastern Norway, seems to be the genitive case of Forseti, offering evidence he was worshipped there.",
"title": "Old Norse Forseti"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Glitnir (meaning \"one who shines\") is the hall of Forseti, and the seat of justice amongst gods and men. It is also noted to have been a place of dwelling for Balder, Forseti's father in Norse and Germanic mythologies. Glitnir is symbolic of the importance of discussion rather than violence as a means of resolution of conflict within the Norse tradition. It has pillars of gold and is roofed with silver, which radiated light that could be seen from a great distance.",
"title": "Old Norse Forseti"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "According to Alcuin's Life of St. Willebrord, the saint visited an island between Frisia and Denmark that was sacred to Fosite and was called Fositesland after the god worshipped there. There was a sacred spring from which water had to be drawn in silence, it was so holy. Willebrord defiled the spring by baptizing people in it and killing a cow there. Altfrid tells the same story of St. Liudger. Adam of Bremen retells the story and adds that the island was Heiligland, i.e., Heligoland.",
"title": "Frisian Fosite"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "There is also a late-medieval legend of the origins of written Frisian laws. Wishing to assemble written lawcodes for all his subject peoples, Charlemagne summoned twelve representatives of the Frisian people, the Āsegas ('law-speakers'), and demanded they recite their people's laws. When they could not do so after several days, he let them choose between death, slavery, or being set adrift in a rudderless boat. They chose the last and prayed for help, whereupon a thirteenth man appeared, with a golden axe on his shoulder. He steered the boat to land with the axe, then threw it ashore; a spring appeared where it landed. He taught them laws and then disappeared. The stranger and the spring have traditionally been identified with Fosite and the sacred spring of Fositesland.",
"title": "Frisian Fosite"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "This hypothesis has not met with universal acceptance.",
"title": "Frisian Fosite"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Jacob Grimm noted that if, as Adam of Bremen states, Fosite's sacred island was Heligoland, that would make him an ideal candidate for a deity known to both Frisians and Scandinavians, but that it is surprising he is never mentioned by Saxo Grammaticus.",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The German neofolk band Forseti named itself after the god.",
"title": "In modern culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In the 2002 Ensemble Studios game Age of Mythology, Forseti is one of 9 minor gods Norse players can worship.",
"title": "In modern culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In the Cthulhu Mythos fictional universe, created by horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, Forseti is often implied to be a Norse representation of Cthulhu, the judge of the Outer Gods.",
"title": "In modern culture"
}
] |
Forseti is the god of justice and reconciliation in Norse mythology. He is generally identified with Fosite, a god of the Frisians.
|
2001-10-27T15:06:08Z
|
2023-12-18T22:52:19Z
|
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"Template:ISBN",
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"Template:Portal",
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] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forseti
|
11,418 |
Fiorello La Guardia
|
Fiorello Henry La Guardia (/fiːəˈrɛloʊ ləˈɡwɑːrdiə/; born Fiorello Raffaele Enrico La Guardia, Italian pronunciation: [fjoˈrɛllo raf.faˈɛ.le enˈriːko la ˈɡwardja]; December 11, 1882 – September 20, 1947) was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the House of Representatives and served as the 99th Mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1946. He was known for his irascible, energetic, and charismatic personality and diminutive, rotund stature. A liberal member of the Republican Party, La Guardia was frequently cross-endorsed by parties other than his own, especially parties on the left under New York's electoral fusion laws. A panel of 69 scholars in 1993 ranked him first among the ten best mayors in American history.
He was born to Italian immigrants in New York City. Before serving as mayor, La Guardia represented Manhattan in Congress and on the New York City Board of Aldermen. As mayor, during the Great Depression and World War II, La Guardia unified the city's transit system; expanded construction of public housing, playgrounds, parks, and airports; reorganized the New York Police Department; and implemented federal New Deal programs within the city. He pursued a long series of political reforms, curbing the power of the powerful Irish-controlled Tammany Hall political machine that controlled the Democratic Party in Manhattan. He also re-established merit-based employment and promotion within city administration.
La Guardia was also a highly visible national political figure. His support for the New Deal and relationship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt crossed party lines, brought federal funds to New York City, and cut off patronage to La Guardia's Tammany enemies. La Guardia's WNYC radio program "Talk to the People", which aired from December 1941 until December 1945, expanded his public influence beyond the borders of the city.
Fiorello Raffaele Enrico La Guardia, with Enrico later Americanized as Henry and Raffaele removed, was born in Greenwich Village, New York City, on December 11, 1882, to Achille Luigi Carlo La Guardia and Irene Luzzatto-Coen. He was named in honor of his maternal grandmother, paternal grandfather, and uncle. Achille was born in Foggia, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, on March 26, 1849, and his father, Don Raffaele La Guardia, was a municipal official. Achille visited the United States in 1878, while on tour with Adelina Patti. Irene, a member of the Sephardic Jewish Luzzatto family, was born in Trieste, Austria, on July 18, 1859. They married on June 3, 1880, after having known each other for half a year. Achille, a former Catholic, was an atheist and Irene was a nonpracticing Jew. Achille prohibited his children from speaking Italian and Fiorello would not become proficient in Italian until his time as a consular agent.
Achille enlisted in the United States Army in 1885, and served in the 11th Infantry Regiment as a warrant officer and chief musician. His family lived in the Dakota Territory, New York, and the Arizona Territory during his time at Fort Sully, Madison Barracks, Fort Huachuca, and Whipple Barracks. Fiorello was enrolled in the Episcopal Church in Prescott, Arizona, and practiced that religion all his life. The onset of the Spanish–American War led to their transfer to St. Louis, Missouri, and then Achille was sent to Mobile, Alabama. Fiorello attempted to join the army, but was rejected. He was accepted as a war correspondent for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Achille and Fiorello did not reach Cuba because Achille contracted hepatitis and malaria after consuming embalmed beef. He was discharged from the military on account of his illness and given a pension of $8 per month. The La Guardia family moved to Trieste, and Achille died in Capodistria on October 21, 1904.
Fiorello became a clerk at the US consulate in Budapest and worked there from 1901 to 1904. He then served as the agent in charge of the US consulate in Fiume from 1904 to 1906. He left Europe after failing to gain a promotion to consul-general in Fiume or an appointment as consul-general in Belgrade. He worked as an interpreter for the immigration services at Ellis Island from November 6, 1907, to 1910. He was a Croatian, Italian, and German interpreter and Felix Frankfurter, who met La Guardia during his time at Ellis Island, described him as "a gifted interpreter".
Upon returning to America he worked as a fireproof brick manufacturer in Portsmouth, Ohio. He returned to New York City and worked a series of odd jobs such as a translator for the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, a steamship company clerk, stenographer at Pratt Institute, and a clerk for Abercrombie & Fitch. In 1912, around 60,000 garment workers went on strike and La Guardia, who was friends with August Bellanca, gave speeches in Italian and Yiddish in support of the strike.
La Guardia graduated from the Dwight School, a private school on the Upper West Side of New York City. He graduated from the New York University School of Law and was admitted to the bar in 1910. He became a member of the Garibaldi Lodge of the Masonic Order in 1913. Frederick C. Tanner recommended La Guardia for a job working for the Attorney General of New York on September 15, 1911, and he served as the deputy attorney general from January 1, 1915, to 1917. He left the American Bar Association in the 1930s stating that it devoted "its efforts to special interests rather than to the uplift and welfare of the profession".
In 1925, La Guardia formed the La Guardia Publishing Company using his savings and a second mortgage to publish L'Americolo, an Italian-language magazine. He competed against Generoso Pope's Il Progresso Italo-Americano and Corriere d'America. The magazine failed with La Guardia losing $15,000 and his mortgage.
La Guardia joined the Republican club while attending NYU School of Law. He supported William Howard Taft during the 1912 presidential election and replaced William Chadbourne as district captain due to Chadbourne's support for Theodore Roosevelt's third party campaign. La Guardia refused to support John Purroy Mitchel's Fusion campaign during the 1913 mayoral election despite Mitchel's support among Republicans.
Republican political boss Samuel S. Koenig convinced La Guardia to run in the 1919 special election for President of the New York City Board of Aldermen created by Al Smith's resignation to become governor. La Guardia defeated William M. Bennett for the Republican nomination and Paul Windels worked as his campaign manager. During the campaign he was endorsed by The New York Times and Citizens Union. He defeated Democratic nominee Robert L. Moran. Moran suffered from a spoiler effect caused by Michael Kelly, a former Democrat, running as the Liberty Party candidate. La Guardia resigned from the United States House of Representatives on December 31, 1919.
La Guardia supported Republican presidential and gubernatorial candidates Warren G. Harding and Nathan L. Miller during the 1920 election. However, he later attacked Miller for his public transit policies and getting rid of welfare programs. His opposition to Miller ruined his chances in the 1921 mayoral election and the Republican nomination was given to Henry Curran. He attempted to defeat Curran in the primary, despite warnings from Koenig and Windels, and was defeated. La Guardia favored Smith, the Democratic nominee, during the 1928 presidential election.
La Guardia ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 14th congressional district during the 1914 election. He chose to run as he noticed during a 25th Assembly district Republican club meeting that nobody was nominated for it as Frederick Marshall unexpectedly withdrew. The district was a strongly Democratic and Tammany Hall. He lost to Democratic nominee Michael F. Farley, whom he accused of being illiterate.
Clarence Fay, the Republican district leader in the 25th Assembly district, sought to have Hamilton Fish III nominated for the seat in the 1916 election. Tanner unsuccessfully attempted to convince La Guardia to not run. Fish withdrew before the primary and La Guardia won the Republican nomination. He appealed to the different ethnic groups in the district and was endorsed by New Yorker Staats-Zeitung which traditionally supported Democratic candidates. He defeated Farley by 357 votes.
Tammany Hall and the Democrats supported La Guardia in the 1918 election in order to prevent an anti-war Socialist victory. He defeated Socialist nominee Scott Nearing in the election.
La Guardia considered running in the 1922 gubernatorial election and published his ideas for the Republican state platform in the column in the New York Evening Journal given to him by William Randolph Hearst. Koenig was able to compromise with La Guardia to avoid a primary with Miller. He was given the Republican nomination for New York's 20th congressional district to succeed retiring Representative Isaac Siegel in the 1922 election. He defeated Democratic nominee Henry Frank and Socialist nominee William Karlin.
La Guardia attended the Conference for Progressive Political Action in 1922. Koenig told La Guardia that his renomination was dependent on him supporting the Republicans in the 1924 presidential election. La Guardia considered supporting the Democrats, but declined to do so after the nomination of John W. Davis. He gave his support to Robert M. La Follette and the Progressive Party. La Guardia announced his departure from the Republican Party on the front page of The New York Times. He and Gilbert Roe managed La Follette's presidential campaign in the eastern United States. La Guardia, running with the Socialist nomination, raised $3,764.25 (equivalent to $64,277 in 2022) and defeated Frank and Siegel in the election. La Guardia's partisan affiliation in Congress was labeled as Socialist and Victor L. Berger, the only other Socialist in Congress, described him as "my whip".
La Guardia returned to the Republican Party in the 1926 election and won by 55 votes against Democratic nominee H. Warren Hubbard and Socialist nominee George Dobsevage. He was the only Republican elected to the U.S. House from New York City. He defeated Democratic nominee Saul J. Dickheiser in the 1928 election. He defeated Democratic nominee Vincent H. Auleta in the 1930 election.
La Guardia considered running for reelection to Congress as a Democrat in the 1932 election and the option received support from William Green, John L. Lewis, and Robert F. Wagner. Political boss John H. McCooey supported him running as a Democrat, but Tammany Hall leader James Joseph Hines opposed him and had the nomination given to James J. Lanzetta. Lanzetta defeated La Guardia in the election due to the coattail effect of Franklin D. Roosevelt's victory in the presidential election. Robert M. La Follette Jr. stated that "the people have temporarily lost one of their most faithful servants".
La Guardia was interested in airplanes and served as a director and attorney for Giuseppe Mario Bellanca's company. He enlisted to fight in World War I and was promoted to captain by October 1917. He and Major General William Ord Ryan trained Italian pilots in Foggia. La Guardia became certified to fly on December 12, 1917. King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy gave him the Flying Cross.
He rose to the rank of major in command of a unit of Caproni Ca.44 bombers on the Italian-Austrian front.
While he was away at war his office was managed by Harry Andrews and Marie Fisher while constituent services were handled by Representative Isaac Siegel. A petition with over 3,000 signatures was given to Speaker Champ Clark on January 8, 1918, asking for La Guardia's seat to be vacated, but Clark refused to allow a motion to vacate La Guardia's seat.
During La Guardia's tenure in the U.S. House he served on the Judiciary committee. Oswald Garrison Villard, editor of The Nation, stated that he was "the most valuable member of Congress today". La Guardia supported impeaching Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon on the grounds of him serving as a director of a private company, the Aluminum Company of America, while serving in the presidential cabinet.
La Guardia requested the pardon of Thomas Mooney. In 1931, James Smith, a black railroad porter, was put on trial for assault, but was unable to pay for a lawyer. La Guardia took the case pro bono after being requested by A. Philip Randolph and Smith was acquitted on September 26.
La Guardia's supporters wanted him to run for mayor in the 1925 election, but he declined as he would be unlikely to defeat Jimmy Walker. He received the Republican nomination on August 1,1929.
In 1929, La Guardia ran for Mayor once again. This time, he received the Republican nomination, once again defeating William Bennett. However, he lost the general election to Walker in a landslide.
Mayor Jimmy Walker and his Irish-run Tammany Hall were forced out of office by scandal and La Guardia was determined to replace him. La Guardia ran on the Fusion Party platform, which was supported by Republicans, reform-minded Democrats, and independents. La Guardia had enormous determination, high visibility, the support of reformer Samuel Seabury and a divisive primary contest. He also represented previously underrepresented communities, appealed to a wide range of cultural backgrounds with his lineage. He secured the nominations and expected an easy win against incumbent Mayor John P. O'Brien. However, Joseph V. McKee entered the race as the nominee of the new "Recovery Party" at the last minute. McKee was a formidable opponent, sponsored by Bronx Democratic boss Edward J. Flynn. La Guardia promised a more honest government, championing for greater efficiency and inclusiveness. La Guardia's win was based on a complex coalition of Republicans (mostly middle class German Americans in the boroughs outside Manhattan), a minority of reform-minded Democrats, Socialists, a large proportion of middle-class Jews, and the great majority of Italians, whose votes had previously been overwhelmingly loyal to Tammany.
During his mayoralty, La Guardia served as president of the United States Conference of Mayors from 1935 until 1945.
La Guardia came to office in January 1934 with five main goals:
He achieved most of the first four goals in his first hundred days, as FDR gave him 20% of the entire national CWA budget for work relief. La Guardia then collaborated closely with Robert Moses, with support from the governor, Democrat Herbert Lehman, to upgrade the decaying infrastructure. The city was favored by the New Deal in terms of funding for public works projects. La Guardia's modernization efforts were publicized in the 1936 book New York Advancing: A Scientific Approach to Municipal Government, edited by Rebecca B. Rankin.
In 1935 a riot took place in Harlem. Termed the Harlem riot of 1935, it has been described as the first "modern" race riot, because it was committed primarily against property rather than persons. During the riots, La Guardia and Hubert Delany walked through the streets in an effort to calm the situation. After the riots, La Guardia convened the Mayor's Commission on Conditions of Harlem to determine the causes of the riot and a detailed report was prepared. The report identified "injustices of discrimination in employment, the aggressions of the police, and the racial segregation" as conditions which led to the outbreak of rioting. However, the Mayor shelved the committee's report, and did not make it public. The report would be unknown, except that a black New York newspaper, the Amsterdam News, subsequently published it in serial form.
La Guardia governed in an uneasy alliance with New York's Jews and liberal WASPs, together with ethnic Italians and Germans.
An unorthodox Republican, he also ran as the nominee of the American Labor Party, a union-dominated anti-Tammany left wing group that supported Roosevelt for president beginning in 1936. La Guardia supported Roosevelt, chairing the Committee of Independent Voters for Roosevelt and his running mate, Henry A. Wallace, with Senator George Norris during the 1940 presidential election.
La Guardia was the city's first Italian-American mayor, but was not a typical Italian New Yorker. He was a Republican Episcopalian who had grown up in Arizona and had a Triestine Jewish mother and a lapsed Catholic father. He spoke several languages; when working at Ellis Island, he was certified as an interpreter for Italian, German, Yiddish, and Croatian. It served him well during a contentious congressional campaign in 1922. When Henry Frank, a Jewish opponent, accused him of anti-Semitism, La Guardia rejected the suggestion that he publicly disclose that his mother was Jewish as "self-serving". Instead, La Guardia dictated an open letter in Yiddish that was also printed in Yiddish. In it, he challenged Frank to publicly and openly debate the issues of the campaign entirely in the Yiddish language. Frank, although he was Jewish, could not speak the language and was forced to decline—and lost the election.
La Guardia's 1933 campaign coincided with the rise of racial and religious hostilities in Germany, and he supported a more anti-Nazi response while in office. He publicly supported groups that engaged in boycotts of German goods and spoke alongside Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, leader of the American Jewish Congress. In 1935, La Guardia caused an international stir when he denied a masseur license to a German immigrant, stating that Germany had violated a treaty guaranteeing equal treatment of American professionals by discriminating against American Jews. Despite threats from Germany (including a bomb threat against New York City's German Consulate), La Guardia continued to use his position as mayor to denounce Nazism. During his reelection campaign in 1937, speaking before the Women's Division of the American Jewish Congress, he called for the creation of a special pavilion at the upcoming New York World's Fair, "a chamber of horrors" for "that brown-shirted fanatic," referring to Hitler. He also led anti-Nazi rallies and promoted legislation to facilitate the U.S. rescue of the Jewish refugees. He also appointed more racially and religiously diverse judges to various New York courts, which was one of his most powerful weapons against Nazi prejudice. These appointments included Rosalie Loew Whitney, Herbert O'Brien, Jane Bolin, and Hubert Thomas Delany. La Guardia would soon regret appointing O'Brien, who used his position as Domestic Relations judge to oppose some New Deal policies, leading to La Guardia's condemnation of him with the famous line, "Senator, I have made a lot of good appointments and I think I am good ... but when I make a mistake, it's a beaut."
La Guardia criticized the gangsters who brought a negative stereotype and shame to the Italian community. His first action as mayor was to order the chief of police to arrest mob boss Lucky Luciano on whatever charges could be found. La Guardia then went after the gangsters with a vengeance, stating in a radio address to the people of New York in his distinct voice, "Let's drive the bums out of town." In 1934 he went on a search-and-destroy mission looking for mob boss Frank Costello's slot machines, rounding up thousands of the "one armed bandits," swinging a sledgehammer and dumping them off a barge into the water for the newspapers and media. In 1935 La Guardia appeared at the Bronx Terminal Market to institute a citywide ban on the sale, display, and possession of artichokes, whose prices were inflated by mobsters. When prices went down, the ban was lifted. In 1936, La Guardia had special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, a future Republican presidential candidate, single out Lucky Luciano for prosecution. Dewey led a successful investigation into Luciano's lucrative prostitution operation, eventually sending Luciano to jail with a 30–50 year sentence. The case was made into the 1937 movie Marked Woman, starring Bette Davis.
La Guardia proved successful in shutting down the burlesque theaters, whose shows offended his sensibilities. However, he also came to the assistance of comic book creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, when they were openly threatened by sympathizers of Nazi Germany with their new superhero character, Captain America, when he arranged police protection.
As part of his campaign against organized crime in the early 1940s, La Guardia banned pinball games, calling them gambling machines. The ban held until 1976, when avid player Roger Sharpe proved the actual skill involved in the game. La Guardia spearheaded major raids throughout the city, collecting thousands of machines. The mayor participated with police in destroying machines with sledgehammers before dumping the remnants into the city's rivers.
La Guardia's admirers credit him, among other things, with restoring the economy of New York City during and after the Great Depression. He is given credit for many massive public works programs administered by his powerful Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, which employed thousands of voters. The mayor's relentless lobbying for federal funds allowed New York to develop its economic infrastructure.
To obtain large-scale federal money the mayor became a close ally of Roosevelt and New Deal agencies such as the CWA, PWA, and WPA, which poured $1.1 billion into the city from 1934 to 1939. In turn he gave FDR a showcase for New Deal achievement, helped defeat FDR's political enemies in Tammany Hall (the Democratic party machine in Manhattan). He and Moses built highways, bridges and tunnels, transforming the physical landscape of New York City. The West Side Highway, East River Drive, Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Triborough Bridge, and two airports (LaGuardia Airport, and, later, Idlewild, now JFK Airport) were built during his mayoralty.
In 1943, La Guardia saved the Mecca Temple on 55th Street from demolition. Together with New York City Council President Newbold Morris, La Guardia converted the building to the New York City Center of Music and Dance. On December 11, 1943, City Center opened its doors with a concert from the New York Philharmonic—La Guardia even conducted a rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner."
1939 was a busy year, as he opened the 1939 New York World's Fair at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens, opened New York Municipal Airport No. 2 in Queens (later renamed Fiorello H. La Guardia Field), and had the city buy out the Interborough Rapid Transit Company and the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, thus completing the public takeover of the New York City Subway system. The U.S. arrival of Georg and Maria Von Trapp and their children from Austria that fall at Ellis Island who would eventually become the Trapp Family Singers was another significant decade-ending event that year in La Guardia's mayoralty.
Responding to popular disdain for the sometimes corrupt City Council, La Guardia successfully proposed a reformed 1938 City Charter that created a powerful new New York City Board of Estimate, similar to a corporate board of directors.
La Guardia was also a supporter of the Ives-Quinn Act, "a law that would ban discrimination in employment on the bases of 'race, creed, color or national origin' and task a new agency, the New York State Commission Against Discrimination (SCAD), with education and enforcement." The bill passed in 1945, making New York the first state in the country to create an agency tasked with handling employment discrimination complaints.
In 1941 during the run-up to American involvement in World War II, President Roosevelt appointed La Guardia first director of the new Office of Civilian Defense (OCD). Roosevelt was an admirer of La Guardia; after meeting Winston Churchill for the first time he described him as "an English Mayor La Guardia". The OCD was the national agency responsible for preparing for blackouts, air raid wardens, sirens, and shelters in case of German air raids. The goal was to psychologically mobilize many thousands of middle class volunteers to make them feel part of the war effort. At the urging of aviation advocate Gill Robb Wilson, La Guardia, in his capacity as Director of the OCD, created the Civil Air Patrol with Administrative Order 9, signed by him on December 1, 1941, and published December 8, 1941. La Guardia remained Mayor of New York, shuttling back and forth with three days in Washington and four in the city in an effort to do justice to two herculean jobs. La Guardia focused on setting up air raid systems and training volunteer wardens. However, Roosevelt appointed his wife Eleanor Roosevelt as his assistant. She issued calls for actors to lead a volunteer talent program, and dancers to start a physical fitness program. That led to widespread ridicule and the president replaced both of them in December 1941 with a full-time director James M. Landis.
The war ended the Great Depression in the city. Unemployment ended, and the city was a gateway for military supplies and soldiers sent to Europe, with the Brooklyn Navy Yard providing many of the warships and the garment trade providing uniforms. The city's great financiers, however, were less important in decision making than the policy makers in Washington, and very high wartime taxes were not offset by heavy war spending. New York was not a center of heavy industry and did not see a wartime boom, as defense plants were built elsewhere.
FDR refused to make La Guardia a general and was unable to provide fresh money for the city. By 1944 the city was short of funds to pay for La Guardia's new programs. La Guardia was frustrated and his popularity slipped away and he ran so poorly in straw polls in 1945 that he did not run for a fourth term.
In July 1945, when the city's newspapers were closed by a strike, La Guardia famously read the comics on the radio.
La Guardia opposed the Espionage Act of 1917 and stated that "if you pass this bill and if it is enacted into law you change all that our flag ever stood for and stands for". He supported the League of Women Voters in the 1920s. He voted in favor of the Child Labor Amendment. He proposed legislation to create a holiday in honor of Christopher Columbus.
As a congressman, La Guardia was a tireless and vocal champion of progressive causes, including relaxed restriction on immigration, removal of U.S. troops from Nicaragua to speaking up for the rights and livelihoods of striking miners, impoverished farmers, oppressed minorities, and struggling families. He supported progressive income taxes, greater government oversight of Wall Street, and national employment insurance for workers idled by the Great Depression. He supported allowing the direct election of the Governor of Puerto Rico.
In domestic policies he tended toward socialism and wanted to nationalize and regulate; however he was never close to the Socialist Party and never bothered to read Karl Marx.
When Mussolini's Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia on October 3, 1935, a Black protest of Italian vendors at the King Julius General Market on Lenox and 118th Street turned into a riot and 1,200 extra NYC policemen were deployed on "war duty" to quell the riot. In December 1935, at an Italian-American rally, attended by 20,000, in Madison Square Garden, La Guardia presented a $100,000 check to the Italian Consul General, part of a total $700,000 raised from Italian-Americans to help fund the invasion.
La Guardia sponsored labor legislation and railed against immigration quotas. His major legislation was the Norris–La Guardia Act, cosponsored with Nebraska senator George Norris in 1932. It circumvented Supreme Court limitations on the activities of labor unions, especially as those limitations were imposed between the enactment of the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914 and the end of the 1920s. Based on the theory that the lower courts are creations not of the Constitution but of Congress, and that Congress therefore has wide power in defining and restricting their jurisdiction, the act forbids issuance of injunctions to sustain anti-union contracts of employment, to prevent ceasing or refusing to perform any work or remain in any relation of employment, or to restrain acts generally constituting component parts of strikes, boycotts, and picketing. It also said courts could no longer enforce yellow-dog contracts, which are labor contracts prohibiting a worker from joining a union.
La Guardia opposed an attempt to raise the sales tax during the Great Depression and instead supported taxes on luxury items and a graduated income tax for people earning more than $100,000.
La Guardia supported the League of Nations. He called for Fiume to be given to Italy despite it being promised to Yugoslavia by the Treaty of London. He supported the Russian Revolution, but criticized Ambassador David R. Francis for supporting Alexander Kerensky rather than Lavr Kornilov.
Never an isolationist, he supported using American influence abroad on behalf of democracy or for national independence or against autocracy. Thus he supported the Irish independence movement and the anti-czarist Russian Revolution of 1917, but did not approve of Vladimir Lenin. By 1946 he was praising Moscow. Unlike most progressive colleagues who were isolationist, La Guardia consistently backed internationalism, speaking in favor of the League of Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union as well as peace and disarmament conferences.
In 1946 President Harry Truman sent the ex-mayor as an envoy to Brazil, but diplomacy was not his forte. Truman then gave him as major job as head of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), with responsibility for helping millions of desperate refugees in Europe. La Guardia was exhausted and after seeing the horrors of war in Europe called for a massive aid program. Critics ridiculed that as worldwide WPA and the biggest boondoggle ever. He sided with Henry A. Wallace in calling for friendship with the Soviet Union, and attacked the new breed of Cold Warriors. He provided UNRRA funds to the Soviets despite warnings that the Kremlin used the money to rebuild its army. UNRRA shut down at the end of 1946. Despite his declining health La Guardia attacked the emerging "Truman Doctrine" that promised American financial help to stop the spread of Communism.
La Guardia opposed prohibition. He was one of the first Republicans in Congress to voice their opinions against prohibition. He testified to that effect before the first session of Congress in 1926.
On June 19, 1926, La Guardia mixed near beer and malt extract, which were legal, to create 2% beer in order to protest prohibition. He was immune from prosecution as a member of Congress.
La Guardia met Thea Almerigotti, an immigrant from Trieste, while marching in a union picket line in 1913. They married on March 8, 1919, in a Catholic ceremony at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Their daughter, Fioretta Thea La Guardia, was born in June 1920, but died on May 8, 1921, and Thea died on November 29. The death of his wife was described as "the greatest tragedy of La Guardia's life" by M.R. Werner, who aided La Guardia when he wrote his autobiography.
Fisher volunteered for La Guardia's 1916 congressional campaign and became his secretary after his election. They were married by Rev. Ole J. Kvale, a Lutheran like Fisher, on February 28, 1929.
They adopted two children:
La Guardia's sister, the writer Gemma La Guardia Gluck and brother-in-law, Herman Gluck were living in Hungary and were arrested by the Gestapo on June 7, 1944, when the Nazis took control of Budapest. Adolf Eichmann and Heinrich Himmler knew that Gemma was La Guardia's sister and ordered her to be held as a political prisoner. She and Herman were deported to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. Gemma did not learn until her release that Herman had died at Mauthausen. Gemma was transferred from Mauthausen to the notorious women's concentration camp at Ravensbrück, fifty miles from Berlin, where—unbeknownst to Gemma at the time—her daughter Yolanda (whose husband also died in the camps) and baby grandson were also held for a year in a separate barracks. Gemma Gluck, who was held in Block II of the camp and assigned prisoner #44139, was one of the few survivors of Ravensbrück and wrote about her time there.
The Germans abandoned Gluck, her daughter, and her grandson for a possible hostage exchange in April 1945 as the Soviets advanced on Berlin. After the liberation of the camps, Gemma later wrote, the Soviets were "violating girls and women of all ages," and the three struggled as displaced persons in postwar Berlin, because they did not speak German and had no identity papers, money, or means of documenting where they had been.
Gemma finally managed to get word to the Americans, who contacted Fiorello, who was then director of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and had been unable to locate his sister and brother-in-law since their disappearance. He worked to get them on the immigration lists, but asserted in a letter, included in the appendix of Gemma's memoir, that her "case was the same as that of hundreds of thousands of displaced people" and "no exceptions can be made." It took two years for her to be cleared and sent to the United States. She returned to New York in May 1947, where she was reunited with her brother only four months before his death. As he had made no provision for her, she lived the remainder of her life in very reduced circumstances in a public housing project in Queens until her death in 1962.
Gluck is one of the few American-born women interned by the Nazis, along with Virginia d'Albert-Lake.
La Guardia was a man of short stature; his height is sometimes given as 5 feet 0 inches (1.52 m), but an article in The New York Times in 2006 gave his height as 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 m).
La Guardia died of pancreatic cancer in his home at 5020 Goodridge Avenue, in the Fieldston neighborhood of Riverdale, Bronx, on September 20, 1947, aged 64. La Guardia is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists, and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked La Guardia as the best American big-city mayor to serve between the years 1820 and 1993.
According to a biographer, Mason B. Williams, his close collaboration with Roosevelt's New Deal proved a striking success in linking national money and local needs. La Guardia enabled the political recognition of new groups that had been largely excluded from the political system, such as Jews and Italians. His administration (in cooperation with Robert Moses) gave New York its modern infrastructure. His far-sighted goals raised ambitions for new levels of urban possibility. According to Thomas Kessner, trends since his tenure mean that "people would be afraid of allowing anybody to take that kind of power".
New York's LaGuardia Airport, LaGuardia Community College, LaGuardia Place, and various parks and buildings around New York City are named for him.
Known for his love of music, La Guardia was noted for spontaneously conducting professional and student orchestras and was instrumental in the creation of the High School of Music & Art in 1936, now renamed the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.
In 1972, the United States Postal Service honored La Guardia with a 14-cent postage stamp.
La Guardia was a strong supporter of Zionism, and LaGuardia Street and LaGuardia interchange, both in Tel Aviv, Israel, were named in his honor.
A street in Rijeka, Croatia, is named after Fiorello La Guardia. La Guardia worked in Rijeka as a U.S. Consular Agent from 1903 to 1906, when the city was known as Fiume and was under Hungarian administration. It was during this time that Rijeka's port played a vital role in connecting the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the United States, featuring direct passenger service between Rijeka and New York.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fiorello Henry La Guardia (/fiːəˈrɛloʊ ləˈɡwɑːrdiə/; born Fiorello Raffaele Enrico La Guardia, Italian pronunciation: [fjoˈrɛllo raf.faˈɛ.le enˈriːko la ˈɡwardja]; December 11, 1882 – September 20, 1947) was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the House of Representatives and served as the 99th Mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1946. He was known for his irascible, energetic, and charismatic personality and diminutive, rotund stature. A liberal member of the Republican Party, La Guardia was frequently cross-endorsed by parties other than his own, especially parties on the left under New York's electoral fusion laws. A panel of 69 scholars in 1993 ranked him first among the ten best mayors in American history.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "He was born to Italian immigrants in New York City. Before serving as mayor, La Guardia represented Manhattan in Congress and on the New York City Board of Aldermen. As mayor, during the Great Depression and World War II, La Guardia unified the city's transit system; expanded construction of public housing, playgrounds, parks, and airports; reorganized the New York Police Department; and implemented federal New Deal programs within the city. He pursued a long series of political reforms, curbing the power of the powerful Irish-controlled Tammany Hall political machine that controlled the Democratic Party in Manhattan. He also re-established merit-based employment and promotion within city administration.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "La Guardia was also a highly visible national political figure. His support for the New Deal and relationship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt crossed party lines, brought federal funds to New York City, and cut off patronage to La Guardia's Tammany enemies. La Guardia's WNYC radio program \"Talk to the People\", which aired from December 1941 until December 1945, expanded his public influence beyond the borders of the city.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Fiorello Raffaele Enrico La Guardia, with Enrico later Americanized as Henry and Raffaele removed, was born in Greenwich Village, New York City, on December 11, 1882, to Achille Luigi Carlo La Guardia and Irene Luzzatto-Coen. He was named in honor of his maternal grandmother, paternal grandfather, and uncle. Achille was born in Foggia, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, on March 26, 1849, and his father, Don Raffaele La Guardia, was a municipal official. Achille visited the United States in 1878, while on tour with Adelina Patti. Irene, a member of the Sephardic Jewish Luzzatto family, was born in Trieste, Austria, on July 18, 1859. They married on June 3, 1880, after having known each other for half a year. Achille, a former Catholic, was an atheist and Irene was a nonpracticing Jew. Achille prohibited his children from speaking Italian and Fiorello would not become proficient in Italian until his time as a consular agent.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Achille enlisted in the United States Army in 1885, and served in the 11th Infantry Regiment as a warrant officer and chief musician. His family lived in the Dakota Territory, New York, and the Arizona Territory during his time at Fort Sully, Madison Barracks, Fort Huachuca, and Whipple Barracks. Fiorello was enrolled in the Episcopal Church in Prescott, Arizona, and practiced that religion all his life. The onset of the Spanish–American War led to their transfer to St. Louis, Missouri, and then Achille was sent to Mobile, Alabama. Fiorello attempted to join the army, but was rejected. He was accepted as a war correspondent for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Achille and Fiorello did not reach Cuba because Achille contracted hepatitis and malaria after consuming embalmed beef. He was discharged from the military on account of his illness and given a pension of $8 per month. The La Guardia family moved to Trieste, and Achille died in Capodistria on October 21, 1904.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Fiorello became a clerk at the US consulate in Budapest and worked there from 1901 to 1904. He then served as the agent in charge of the US consulate in Fiume from 1904 to 1906. He left Europe after failing to gain a promotion to consul-general in Fiume or an appointment as consul-general in Belgrade. He worked as an interpreter for the immigration services at Ellis Island from November 6, 1907, to 1910. He was a Croatian, Italian, and German interpreter and Felix Frankfurter, who met La Guardia during his time at Ellis Island, described him as \"a gifted interpreter\".",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Upon returning to America he worked as a fireproof brick manufacturer in Portsmouth, Ohio. He returned to New York City and worked a series of odd jobs such as a translator for the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, a steamship company clerk, stenographer at Pratt Institute, and a clerk for Abercrombie & Fitch. In 1912, around 60,000 garment workers went on strike and La Guardia, who was friends with August Bellanca, gave speeches in Italian and Yiddish in support of the strike.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "La Guardia graduated from the Dwight School, a private school on the Upper West Side of New York City. He graduated from the New York University School of Law and was admitted to the bar in 1910. He became a member of the Garibaldi Lodge of the Masonic Order in 1913. Frederick C. Tanner recommended La Guardia for a job working for the Attorney General of New York on September 15, 1911, and he served as the deputy attorney general from January 1, 1915, to 1917. He left the American Bar Association in the 1930s stating that it devoted \"its efforts to special interests rather than to the uplift and welfare of the profession\".",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1925, La Guardia formed the La Guardia Publishing Company using his savings and a second mortgage to publish L'Americolo, an Italian-language magazine. He competed against Generoso Pope's Il Progresso Italo-Americano and Corriere d'America. The magazine failed with La Guardia losing $15,000 and his mortgage.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "La Guardia joined the Republican club while attending NYU School of Law. He supported William Howard Taft during the 1912 presidential election and replaced William Chadbourne as district captain due to Chadbourne's support for Theodore Roosevelt's third party campaign. La Guardia refused to support John Purroy Mitchel's Fusion campaign during the 1913 mayoral election despite Mitchel's support among Republicans.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Republican political boss Samuel S. Koenig convinced La Guardia to run in the 1919 special election for President of the New York City Board of Aldermen created by Al Smith's resignation to become governor. La Guardia defeated William M. Bennett for the Republican nomination and Paul Windels worked as his campaign manager. During the campaign he was endorsed by The New York Times and Citizens Union. He defeated Democratic nominee Robert L. Moran. Moran suffered from a spoiler effect caused by Michael Kelly, a former Democrat, running as the Liberty Party candidate. La Guardia resigned from the United States House of Representatives on December 31, 1919.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "La Guardia supported Republican presidential and gubernatorial candidates Warren G. Harding and Nathan L. Miller during the 1920 election. However, he later attacked Miller for his public transit policies and getting rid of welfare programs. His opposition to Miller ruined his chances in the 1921 mayoral election and the Republican nomination was given to Henry Curran. He attempted to defeat Curran in the primary, despite warnings from Koenig and Windels, and was defeated. La Guardia favored Smith, the Democratic nominee, during the 1928 presidential election.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "La Guardia ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 14th congressional district during the 1914 election. He chose to run as he noticed during a 25th Assembly district Republican club meeting that nobody was nominated for it as Frederick Marshall unexpectedly withdrew. The district was a strongly Democratic and Tammany Hall. He lost to Democratic nominee Michael F. Farley, whom he accused of being illiterate.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Clarence Fay, the Republican district leader in the 25th Assembly district, sought to have Hamilton Fish III nominated for the seat in the 1916 election. Tanner unsuccessfully attempted to convince La Guardia to not run. Fish withdrew before the primary and La Guardia won the Republican nomination. He appealed to the different ethnic groups in the district and was endorsed by New Yorker Staats-Zeitung which traditionally supported Democratic candidates. He defeated Farley by 357 votes.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Tammany Hall and the Democrats supported La Guardia in the 1918 election in order to prevent an anti-war Socialist victory. He defeated Socialist nominee Scott Nearing in the election.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "La Guardia considered running in the 1922 gubernatorial election and published his ideas for the Republican state platform in the column in the New York Evening Journal given to him by William Randolph Hearst. Koenig was able to compromise with La Guardia to avoid a primary with Miller. He was given the Republican nomination for New York's 20th congressional district to succeed retiring Representative Isaac Siegel in the 1922 election. He defeated Democratic nominee Henry Frank and Socialist nominee William Karlin.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "La Guardia attended the Conference for Progressive Political Action in 1922. Koenig told La Guardia that his renomination was dependent on him supporting the Republicans in the 1924 presidential election. La Guardia considered supporting the Democrats, but declined to do so after the nomination of John W. Davis. He gave his support to Robert M. La Follette and the Progressive Party. La Guardia announced his departure from the Republican Party on the front page of The New York Times. He and Gilbert Roe managed La Follette's presidential campaign in the eastern United States. La Guardia, running with the Socialist nomination, raised $3,764.25 (equivalent to $64,277 in 2022) and defeated Frank and Siegel in the election. La Guardia's partisan affiliation in Congress was labeled as Socialist and Victor L. Berger, the only other Socialist in Congress, described him as \"my whip\".",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "La Guardia returned to the Republican Party in the 1926 election and won by 55 votes against Democratic nominee H. Warren Hubbard and Socialist nominee George Dobsevage. He was the only Republican elected to the U.S. House from New York City. He defeated Democratic nominee Saul J. Dickheiser in the 1928 election. He defeated Democratic nominee Vincent H. Auleta in the 1930 election.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "La Guardia considered running for reelection to Congress as a Democrat in the 1932 election and the option received support from William Green, John L. Lewis, and Robert F. Wagner. Political boss John H. McCooey supported him running as a Democrat, but Tammany Hall leader James Joseph Hines opposed him and had the nomination given to James J. Lanzetta. Lanzetta defeated La Guardia in the election due to the coattail effect of Franklin D. Roosevelt's victory in the presidential election. Robert M. La Follette Jr. stated that \"the people have temporarily lost one of their most faithful servants\".",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "La Guardia was interested in airplanes and served as a director and attorney for Giuseppe Mario Bellanca's company. He enlisted to fight in World War I and was promoted to captain by October 1917. He and Major General William Ord Ryan trained Italian pilots in Foggia. La Guardia became certified to fly on December 12, 1917. King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy gave him the Flying Cross.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "He rose to the rank of major in command of a unit of Caproni Ca.44 bombers on the Italian-Austrian front.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "While he was away at war his office was managed by Harry Andrews and Marie Fisher while constituent services were handled by Representative Isaac Siegel. A petition with over 3,000 signatures was given to Speaker Champ Clark on January 8, 1918, asking for La Guardia's seat to be vacated, but Clark refused to allow a motion to vacate La Guardia's seat.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "During La Guardia's tenure in the U.S. House he served on the Judiciary committee. Oswald Garrison Villard, editor of The Nation, stated that he was \"the most valuable member of Congress today\". La Guardia supported impeaching Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon on the grounds of him serving as a director of a private company, the Aluminum Company of America, while serving in the presidential cabinet.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "La Guardia requested the pardon of Thomas Mooney. In 1931, James Smith, a black railroad porter, was put on trial for assault, but was unable to pay for a lawyer. La Guardia took the case pro bono after being requested by A. Philip Randolph and Smith was acquitted on September 26.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "La Guardia's supporters wanted him to run for mayor in the 1925 election, but he declined as he would be unlikely to defeat Jimmy Walker. He received the Republican nomination on August 1,1929.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In 1929, La Guardia ran for Mayor once again. This time, he received the Republican nomination, once again defeating William Bennett. However, he lost the general election to Walker in a landslide.",
"title": "Early political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Mayor Jimmy Walker and his Irish-run Tammany Hall were forced out of office by scandal and La Guardia was determined to replace him. La Guardia ran on the Fusion Party platform, which was supported by Republicans, reform-minded Democrats, and independents. La Guardia had enormous determination, high visibility, the support of reformer Samuel Seabury and a divisive primary contest. He also represented previously underrepresented communities, appealed to a wide range of cultural backgrounds with his lineage. He secured the nominations and expected an easy win against incumbent Mayor John P. O'Brien. However, Joseph V. McKee entered the race as the nominee of the new \"Recovery Party\" at the last minute. McKee was a formidable opponent, sponsored by Bronx Democratic boss Edward J. Flynn. La Guardia promised a more honest government, championing for greater efficiency and inclusiveness. La Guardia's win was based on a complex coalition of Republicans (mostly middle class German Americans in the boroughs outside Manhattan), a minority of reform-minded Democrats, Socialists, a large proportion of middle-class Jews, and the great majority of Italians, whose votes had previously been overwhelmingly loyal to Tammany.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "During his mayoralty, La Guardia served as president of the United States Conference of Mayors from 1935 until 1945.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "La Guardia came to office in January 1934 with five main goals:",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "He achieved most of the first four goals in his first hundred days, as FDR gave him 20% of the entire national CWA budget for work relief. La Guardia then collaborated closely with Robert Moses, with support from the governor, Democrat Herbert Lehman, to upgrade the decaying infrastructure. The city was favored by the New Deal in terms of funding for public works projects. La Guardia's modernization efforts were publicized in the 1936 book New York Advancing: A Scientific Approach to Municipal Government, edited by Rebecca B. Rankin.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In 1935 a riot took place in Harlem. Termed the Harlem riot of 1935, it has been described as the first \"modern\" race riot, because it was committed primarily against property rather than persons. During the riots, La Guardia and Hubert Delany walked through the streets in an effort to calm the situation. After the riots, La Guardia convened the Mayor's Commission on Conditions of Harlem to determine the causes of the riot and a detailed report was prepared. The report identified \"injustices of discrimination in employment, the aggressions of the police, and the racial segregation\" as conditions which led to the outbreak of rioting. However, the Mayor shelved the committee's report, and did not make it public. The report would be unknown, except that a black New York newspaper, the Amsterdam News, subsequently published it in serial form.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "La Guardia governed in an uneasy alliance with New York's Jews and liberal WASPs, together with ethnic Italians and Germans.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "An unorthodox Republican, he also ran as the nominee of the American Labor Party, a union-dominated anti-Tammany left wing group that supported Roosevelt for president beginning in 1936. La Guardia supported Roosevelt, chairing the Committee of Independent Voters for Roosevelt and his running mate, Henry A. Wallace, with Senator George Norris during the 1940 presidential election.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "La Guardia was the city's first Italian-American mayor, but was not a typical Italian New Yorker. He was a Republican Episcopalian who had grown up in Arizona and had a Triestine Jewish mother and a lapsed Catholic father. He spoke several languages; when working at Ellis Island, he was certified as an interpreter for Italian, German, Yiddish, and Croatian. It served him well during a contentious congressional campaign in 1922. When Henry Frank, a Jewish opponent, accused him of anti-Semitism, La Guardia rejected the suggestion that he publicly disclose that his mother was Jewish as \"self-serving\". Instead, La Guardia dictated an open letter in Yiddish that was also printed in Yiddish. In it, he challenged Frank to publicly and openly debate the issues of the campaign entirely in the Yiddish language. Frank, although he was Jewish, could not speak the language and was forced to decline—and lost the election.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "La Guardia's 1933 campaign coincided with the rise of racial and religious hostilities in Germany, and he supported a more anti-Nazi response while in office. He publicly supported groups that engaged in boycotts of German goods and spoke alongside Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, leader of the American Jewish Congress. In 1935, La Guardia caused an international stir when he denied a masseur license to a German immigrant, stating that Germany had violated a treaty guaranteeing equal treatment of American professionals by discriminating against American Jews. Despite threats from Germany (including a bomb threat against New York City's German Consulate), La Guardia continued to use his position as mayor to denounce Nazism. During his reelection campaign in 1937, speaking before the Women's Division of the American Jewish Congress, he called for the creation of a special pavilion at the upcoming New York World's Fair, \"a chamber of horrors\" for \"that brown-shirted fanatic,\" referring to Hitler. He also led anti-Nazi rallies and promoted legislation to facilitate the U.S. rescue of the Jewish refugees. He also appointed more racially and religiously diverse judges to various New York courts, which was one of his most powerful weapons against Nazi prejudice. These appointments included Rosalie Loew Whitney, Herbert O'Brien, Jane Bolin, and Hubert Thomas Delany. La Guardia would soon regret appointing O'Brien, who used his position as Domestic Relations judge to oppose some New Deal policies, leading to La Guardia's condemnation of him with the famous line, \"Senator, I have made a lot of good appointments and I think I am good ... but when I make a mistake, it's a beaut.\"",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "La Guardia criticized the gangsters who brought a negative stereotype and shame to the Italian community. His first action as mayor was to order the chief of police to arrest mob boss Lucky Luciano on whatever charges could be found. La Guardia then went after the gangsters with a vengeance, stating in a radio address to the people of New York in his distinct voice, \"Let's drive the bums out of town.\" In 1934 he went on a search-and-destroy mission looking for mob boss Frank Costello's slot machines, rounding up thousands of the \"one armed bandits,\" swinging a sledgehammer and dumping them off a barge into the water for the newspapers and media. In 1935 La Guardia appeared at the Bronx Terminal Market to institute a citywide ban on the sale, display, and possession of artichokes, whose prices were inflated by mobsters. When prices went down, the ban was lifted. In 1936, La Guardia had special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, a future Republican presidential candidate, single out Lucky Luciano for prosecution. Dewey led a successful investigation into Luciano's lucrative prostitution operation, eventually sending Luciano to jail with a 30–50 year sentence. The case was made into the 1937 movie Marked Woman, starring Bette Davis.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "La Guardia proved successful in shutting down the burlesque theaters, whose shows offended his sensibilities. However, he also came to the assistance of comic book creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, when they were openly threatened by sympathizers of Nazi Germany with their new superhero character, Captain America, when he arranged police protection.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "As part of his campaign against organized crime in the early 1940s, La Guardia banned pinball games, calling them gambling machines. The ban held until 1976, when avid player Roger Sharpe proved the actual skill involved in the game. La Guardia spearheaded major raids throughout the city, collecting thousands of machines. The mayor participated with police in destroying machines with sledgehammers before dumping the remnants into the city's rivers.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "La Guardia's admirers credit him, among other things, with restoring the economy of New York City during and after the Great Depression. He is given credit for many massive public works programs administered by his powerful Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, which employed thousands of voters. The mayor's relentless lobbying for federal funds allowed New York to develop its economic infrastructure.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "To obtain large-scale federal money the mayor became a close ally of Roosevelt and New Deal agencies such as the CWA, PWA, and WPA, which poured $1.1 billion into the city from 1934 to 1939. In turn he gave FDR a showcase for New Deal achievement, helped defeat FDR's political enemies in Tammany Hall (the Democratic party machine in Manhattan). He and Moses built highways, bridges and tunnels, transforming the physical landscape of New York City. The West Side Highway, East River Drive, Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Triborough Bridge, and two airports (LaGuardia Airport, and, later, Idlewild, now JFK Airport) were built during his mayoralty.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In 1943, La Guardia saved the Mecca Temple on 55th Street from demolition. Together with New York City Council President Newbold Morris, La Guardia converted the building to the New York City Center of Music and Dance. On December 11, 1943, City Center opened its doors with a concert from the New York Philharmonic—La Guardia even conducted a rendition of \"The Star Spangled Banner.\"",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "1939 was a busy year, as he opened the 1939 New York World's Fair at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens, opened New York Municipal Airport No. 2 in Queens (later renamed Fiorello H. La Guardia Field), and had the city buy out the Interborough Rapid Transit Company and the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, thus completing the public takeover of the New York City Subway system. The U.S. arrival of Georg and Maria Von Trapp and their children from Austria that fall at Ellis Island who would eventually become the Trapp Family Singers was another significant decade-ending event that year in La Guardia's mayoralty.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Responding to popular disdain for the sometimes corrupt City Council, La Guardia successfully proposed a reformed 1938 City Charter that created a powerful new New York City Board of Estimate, similar to a corporate board of directors.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "La Guardia was also a supporter of the Ives-Quinn Act, \"a law that would ban discrimination in employment on the bases of 'race, creed, color or national origin' and task a new agency, the New York State Commission Against Discrimination (SCAD), with education and enforcement.\" The bill passed in 1945, making New York the first state in the country to create an agency tasked with handling employment discrimination complaints.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In 1941 during the run-up to American involvement in World War II, President Roosevelt appointed La Guardia first director of the new Office of Civilian Defense (OCD). Roosevelt was an admirer of La Guardia; after meeting Winston Churchill for the first time he described him as \"an English Mayor La Guardia\". The OCD was the national agency responsible for preparing for blackouts, air raid wardens, sirens, and shelters in case of German air raids. The goal was to psychologically mobilize many thousands of middle class volunteers to make them feel part of the war effort. At the urging of aviation advocate Gill Robb Wilson, La Guardia, in his capacity as Director of the OCD, created the Civil Air Patrol with Administrative Order 9, signed by him on December 1, 1941, and published December 8, 1941. La Guardia remained Mayor of New York, shuttling back and forth with three days in Washington and four in the city in an effort to do justice to two herculean jobs. La Guardia focused on setting up air raid systems and training volunteer wardens. However, Roosevelt appointed his wife Eleanor Roosevelt as his assistant. She issued calls for actors to lead a volunteer talent program, and dancers to start a physical fitness program. That led to widespread ridicule and the president replaced both of them in December 1941 with a full-time director James M. Landis.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The war ended the Great Depression in the city. Unemployment ended, and the city was a gateway for military supplies and soldiers sent to Europe, with the Brooklyn Navy Yard providing many of the warships and the garment trade providing uniforms. The city's great financiers, however, were less important in decision making than the policy makers in Washington, and very high wartime taxes were not offset by heavy war spending. New York was not a center of heavy industry and did not see a wartime boom, as defense plants were built elsewhere.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "FDR refused to make La Guardia a general and was unable to provide fresh money for the city. By 1944 the city was short of funds to pay for La Guardia's new programs. La Guardia was frustrated and his popularity slipped away and he ran so poorly in straw polls in 1945 that he did not run for a fourth term.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In July 1945, when the city's newspapers were closed by a strike, La Guardia famously read the comics on the radio.",
"title": "Mayor of New York"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "La Guardia opposed the Espionage Act of 1917 and stated that \"if you pass this bill and if it is enacted into law you change all that our flag ever stood for and stands for\". He supported the League of Women Voters in the 1920s. He voted in favor of the Child Labor Amendment. He proposed legislation to create a holiday in honor of Christopher Columbus.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "As a congressman, La Guardia was a tireless and vocal champion of progressive causes, including relaxed restriction on immigration, removal of U.S. troops from Nicaragua to speaking up for the rights and livelihoods of striking miners, impoverished farmers, oppressed minorities, and struggling families. He supported progressive income taxes, greater government oversight of Wall Street, and national employment insurance for workers idled by the Great Depression. He supported allowing the direct election of the Governor of Puerto Rico.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "In domestic policies he tended toward socialism and wanted to nationalize and regulate; however he was never close to the Socialist Party and never bothered to read Karl Marx.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "When Mussolini's Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia on October 3, 1935, a Black protest of Italian vendors at the King Julius General Market on Lenox and 118th Street turned into a riot and 1,200 extra NYC policemen were deployed on \"war duty\" to quell the riot. In December 1935, at an Italian-American rally, attended by 20,000, in Madison Square Garden, La Guardia presented a $100,000 check to the Italian Consul General, part of a total $700,000 raised from Italian-Americans to help fund the invasion.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "La Guardia sponsored labor legislation and railed against immigration quotas. His major legislation was the Norris–La Guardia Act, cosponsored with Nebraska senator George Norris in 1932. It circumvented Supreme Court limitations on the activities of labor unions, especially as those limitations were imposed between the enactment of the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914 and the end of the 1920s. Based on the theory that the lower courts are creations not of the Constitution but of Congress, and that Congress therefore has wide power in defining and restricting their jurisdiction, the act forbids issuance of injunctions to sustain anti-union contracts of employment, to prevent ceasing or refusing to perform any work or remain in any relation of employment, or to restrain acts generally constituting component parts of strikes, boycotts, and picketing. It also said courts could no longer enforce yellow-dog contracts, which are labor contracts prohibiting a worker from joining a union.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "La Guardia opposed an attempt to raise the sales tax during the Great Depression and instead supported taxes on luxury items and a graduated income tax for people earning more than $100,000.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "La Guardia supported the League of Nations. He called for Fiume to be given to Italy despite it being promised to Yugoslavia by the Treaty of London. He supported the Russian Revolution, but criticized Ambassador David R. Francis for supporting Alexander Kerensky rather than Lavr Kornilov.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Never an isolationist, he supported using American influence abroad on behalf of democracy or for national independence or against autocracy. Thus he supported the Irish independence movement and the anti-czarist Russian Revolution of 1917, but did not approve of Vladimir Lenin. By 1946 he was praising Moscow. Unlike most progressive colleagues who were isolationist, La Guardia consistently backed internationalism, speaking in favor of the League of Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union as well as peace and disarmament conferences.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "In 1946 President Harry Truman sent the ex-mayor as an envoy to Brazil, but diplomacy was not his forte. Truman then gave him as major job as head of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), with responsibility for helping millions of desperate refugees in Europe. La Guardia was exhausted and after seeing the horrors of war in Europe called for a massive aid program. Critics ridiculed that as worldwide WPA and the biggest boondoggle ever. He sided with Henry A. Wallace in calling for friendship with the Soviet Union, and attacked the new breed of Cold Warriors. He provided UNRRA funds to the Soviets despite warnings that the Kremlin used the money to rebuild its army. UNRRA shut down at the end of 1946. Despite his declining health La Guardia attacked the emerging \"Truman Doctrine\" that promised American financial help to stop the spread of Communism.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "La Guardia opposed prohibition. He was one of the first Republicans in Congress to voice their opinions against prohibition. He testified to that effect before the first session of Congress in 1926.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "On June 19, 1926, La Guardia mixed near beer and malt extract, which were legal, to create 2% beer in order to protest prohibition. He was immune from prosecution as a member of Congress.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "La Guardia met Thea Almerigotti, an immigrant from Trieste, while marching in a union picket line in 1913. They married on March 8, 1919, in a Catholic ceremony at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Their daughter, Fioretta Thea La Guardia, was born in June 1920, but died on May 8, 1921, and Thea died on November 29. The death of his wife was described as \"the greatest tragedy of La Guardia's life\" by M.R. Werner, who aided La Guardia when he wrote his autobiography.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Fisher volunteered for La Guardia's 1916 congressional campaign and became his secretary after his election. They were married by Rev. Ole J. Kvale, a Lutheran like Fisher, on February 28, 1929.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "They adopted two children:",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "La Guardia's sister, the writer Gemma La Guardia Gluck and brother-in-law, Herman Gluck were living in Hungary and were arrested by the Gestapo on June 7, 1944, when the Nazis took control of Budapest. Adolf Eichmann and Heinrich Himmler knew that Gemma was La Guardia's sister and ordered her to be held as a political prisoner. She and Herman were deported to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. Gemma did not learn until her release that Herman had died at Mauthausen. Gemma was transferred from Mauthausen to the notorious women's concentration camp at Ravensbrück, fifty miles from Berlin, where—unbeknownst to Gemma at the time—her daughter Yolanda (whose husband also died in the camps) and baby grandson were also held for a year in a separate barracks. Gemma Gluck, who was held in Block II of the camp and assigned prisoner #44139, was one of the few survivors of Ravensbrück and wrote about her time there.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The Germans abandoned Gluck, her daughter, and her grandson for a possible hostage exchange in April 1945 as the Soviets advanced on Berlin. After the liberation of the camps, Gemma later wrote, the Soviets were \"violating girls and women of all ages,\" and the three struggled as displaced persons in postwar Berlin, because they did not speak German and had no identity papers, money, or means of documenting where they had been.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Gemma finally managed to get word to the Americans, who contacted Fiorello, who was then director of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and had been unable to locate his sister and brother-in-law since their disappearance. He worked to get them on the immigration lists, but asserted in a letter, included in the appendix of Gemma's memoir, that her \"case was the same as that of hundreds of thousands of displaced people\" and \"no exceptions can be made.\" It took two years for her to be cleared and sent to the United States. She returned to New York in May 1947, where she was reunited with her brother only four months before his death. As he had made no provision for her, she lived the remainder of her life in very reduced circumstances in a public housing project in Queens until her death in 1962.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Gluck is one of the few American-born women interned by the Nazis, along with Virginia d'Albert-Lake.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "La Guardia was a man of short stature; his height is sometimes given as 5 feet 0 inches (1.52 m), but an article in The New York Times in 2006 gave his height as 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 m).",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "La Guardia died of pancreatic cancer in his home at 5020 Goodridge Avenue, in the Fieldston neighborhood of Riverdale, Bronx, on September 20, 1947, aged 64. La Guardia is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists, and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked La Guardia as the best American big-city mayor to serve between the years 1820 and 1993.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "According to a biographer, Mason B. Williams, his close collaboration with Roosevelt's New Deal proved a striking success in linking national money and local needs. La Guardia enabled the political recognition of new groups that had been largely excluded from the political system, such as Jews and Italians. His administration (in cooperation with Robert Moses) gave New York its modern infrastructure. His far-sighted goals raised ambitions for new levels of urban possibility. According to Thomas Kessner, trends since his tenure mean that \"people would be afraid of allowing anybody to take that kind of power\".",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "New York's LaGuardia Airport, LaGuardia Community College, LaGuardia Place, and various parks and buildings around New York City are named for him.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Known for his love of music, La Guardia was noted for spontaneously conducting professional and student orchestras and was instrumental in the creation of the High School of Music & Art in 1936, now renamed the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "In 1972, the United States Postal Service honored La Guardia with a 14-cent postage stamp.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "La Guardia was a strong supporter of Zionism, and LaGuardia Street and LaGuardia interchange, both in Tel Aviv, Israel, were named in his honor.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "A street in Rijeka, Croatia, is named after Fiorello La Guardia. La Guardia worked in Rijeka as a U.S. Consular Agent from 1903 to 1906, when the city was known as Fiume and was under Hungarian administration. It was during this time that Rijeka's port played a vital role in connecting the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the United States, featuring direct passenger service between Rijeka and New York.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
}
] |
Fiorello Henry La Guardia was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the House of Representatives and served as the 99th Mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1946. He was known for his irascible, energetic, and charismatic personality and diminutive, rotund stature. A liberal member of the Republican Party, La Guardia was frequently cross-endorsed by parties other than his own, especially parties on the left under New York's electoral fusion laws. A panel of 69 scholars in 1993 ranked him first among the ten best mayors in American history. He was born to Italian immigrants in New York City. Before serving as mayor, La Guardia represented Manhattan in Congress and on the New York City Board of Aldermen. As mayor, during the Great Depression and World War II, La Guardia unified the city's transit system; expanded construction of public housing, playgrounds, parks, and airports; reorganized the New York Police Department; and implemented federal New Deal programs within the city. He pursued a long series of political reforms, curbing the power of the powerful Irish-controlled Tammany Hall political machine that controlled the Democratic Party in Manhattan. He also re-established merit-based employment and promotion within city administration. La Guardia was also a highly visible national political figure. His support for the New Deal and relationship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt crossed party lines, brought federal funds to New York City, and cut off patronage to La Guardia's Tammany enemies. La Guardia's WNYC radio program "Talk to the People", which aired from December 1941 until December 1945, expanded his public influence beyond the borders of the city.
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2023-12-30T18:06:03Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiorello_La_Guardia
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Flag
|
A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term flag is also used to refer to the graphic design employed, and flags have evolved into a general tool for rudimentary signalling and identification, especially in environments where communication is challenging (such as the maritime environment, where semaphore is used). Many flags fall into groups of similar designs called flag families. The study of flags is known as "vexillology" from the Latin vexillum, meaning "flag" or "banner".
National flags are patriotic symbols with widely varied interpretations that often include strong military associations because of their original and ongoing use for that purpose. Flags are also used in messaging, advertising, or for decorative purposes.
Some military units are called "flags" after their use of flags. A flag (Arabic: لواء) is equivalent to a brigade in Arab countries. In Spain, a flag (Spanish: bandera) is a battalion-equivalent in the Spanish Legion.
The origin of the flag is unknown and it remains unclear when the first flag was raised. Ships with vexilloids were represented on predynastic Egyptian pottery c. 3500 BCE. In antiquity, field signs that can be categorised as vexilloid or "flag-like" were used in warfare, originating in ancient Egypt or Assyria. Examples include the Sassanid battle standard Derafsh Kaviani, and the standards of the Roman legions such as the eagle of Augustus Caesar's Xth legion and the dragon standard of the Sarmatians; the latter was allowed to fly freely in the wind, carried by a horseman, but depictions suggest that it bore more similarity to an elongated dragon kite than to a simple flag.
While the origin of the flag remains a mystery, the oldest flag discovered is made of bronze: a Derafsh or 'flag-like' Shahdad, which was found in Shahdad, Iran, and dates back to c. 2400 BCE. It features a seated man and a kneeling woman facing each other, with a star in between. This iconography was found in other Iranian Bronze Age pieces of art.
Flags made of cloth were almost certainly the invention of the ancient peoples of the Indian subcontinent or the Zhou dynasty of Ancient China. Chinese flags had iconography such as a red bird, a white tiger, or a blue dragon, and royal flags were to be treated with a level of respect similar to that given to the ruler. Indian flags were often triangular and decorated with attachments such as a yak's tail and the state umbrella. Silk flags either spread to the Near East from China or it was just the silk itself, later fashioned by people who had independently conceptualized a rectangular cloth attached to a pole. Flags were probably transmitted to Europe via the Muslim world, where plainly coloured flags were used due to Islamic proscriptions. They are often mentioned in the early history of Islam and may have been copied from India.
In Europe, during the High Middle Ages, flags came to be used primarily as a heraldic device in battle, allowing easier identification of a knight over only the heraldic icon painted on the shield. Already during the high medieval period, and increasingly during the Late Middle Ages, city states and communes such as those of the Old Swiss Confederacy also began to use flags as field signs. Regimental flags for individual units became commonplace during the Early Modern period.
During the peak of the sailing age, beginning in the early 17th century, it was customary (and later a legal requirement) for ships to fly flags designating their nationality; these flags eventually evolved into the national flags and maritime flags of today. Flags also became the preferred means of communications at sea, resulting in various systems of flag signals; see, International maritime signal flags.
Use of flags beyond a military or naval context began with the rise of nationalism by the end of the 18th century, although some flags date back earlier. The flags of countries such as Austria, Denmark or Turkey have legendary origins while many others, including those of Poland and Switzerland, grew out of the heraldic emblems of the Middle Ages. The 17th century saw the birth of several national flags through revolutionary struggle. One of these was the flag of the Netherlands, which appeared during the 80-year Dutch rebellion which began in 1568 against Spanish domination.
Political change and social reform, allied with a growing sense of nationhood among ordinary people, led to the creation of new nations and flags all over the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.
One of the most popular uses of a flag is to symbolise a nation or country. Some national flags have been particularly inspirational to other nations, countries, or subnational entities in the design of their own flags. Some prominent examples include:
National flag designs are often used to signify nationality in other forms, such as flag patches.
A civil flag is a version of the national flag that is flown by civilians on non-government installations or craft. The use of civil flags was more common in the past, in order to denote buildings or ships that were not crewed by the military. In some countries the civil flag is the same as the war flag or state flag, but without the coat of arms, such as in the case of Spain, and in others it is an alteration of the war flag.
Several countries, including the British Army and the Royal Navy (White Ensign) of the United Kingdom (Great Britain) and the Soviet Union have had unique flags flown by their armed forces separately, rather than the national flag.
Other countries' armed forces (such as those of the United States or Switzerland) use their standard national flag; in addition, the U.S. has alongside flags and seals designed from long tradition for each of its six uniformed military services/military sub-departments in the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. The Philippines' armed forces may use their standard national flag, but during times of war the flag is turned upside down. Bulgaria's flag is also turned upside down during times of war. These are also considered war flags, though the terminology only applies to the flag's military usage.
Large versions of the war flag flown on the warships of countries' navies are known as battle ensigns. In addition, besides flying the national standard or a military services' emblem flag at a military fort, base, station or post and at sea at the stern (rear) or main top mast of a warship, a Naval Jack flag and other maritime flags, pennants and emblems are flown at the bow (front). In times of war waving a white flag is a banner of truce, talks/negotiations or surrender.
Four distinctive African flags currently in the collection of the National Maritime Museum in Britain were flown in action by Itsekiri ships under the control of Nana Olomu during the conflict in the late 19th century. One is the flag generally known as the Benin Empire flag and one is referred to as Nana Olomu's flag.
Among international flags are the United Nations, Europe, Olympic, NATO and Paralympic flags.
Flags are particularly important at sea, where they can mean the difference between life and death, and consequently where the rules and regulations for the flying of flags are strictly enforced. A national flag flown at sea is known as an ensign. A courteous, peaceable merchant ship or yacht customarily flies its ensign (in the usual ensign position), together with the flag of whatever nation it is currently visiting at the mast (known as a courtesy flag). To fly one's ensign alone in foreign waters, a foreign port or in the face of a foreign warship traditionally indicates a willingness to fight, with cannon, for the right to do so. As of 2009, this custom is still taken seriously by many naval and port authorities and is readily enforced in many parts of the world by boarding, confiscation and other civil penalties. In some countries yacht ensigns are different from merchant ensigns in order to signal that the yacht is not carrying cargo that requires a customs declaration. Carrying commercial cargo on a boat with a yacht ensign is deemed to be smuggling in many jurisdictions. Traditionally, a vessel flying under the courtesy flag of a specific nation, regardless of the vessel's country of registry, is considered to be operating under the law of her 'host' nation.
There is a system of international maritime signal flags for numerals and letters of the alphabet. Each flag or pennant has a specific meaning when flown individually. As well, semaphore flags can be used to communicate on an ad hoc basis from ship to ship over short distances.
Another category of maritime flag flown by some United States government ships is the distinctive mark. Although the United States Coast Guard has its own service ensign, all other U.S. government ships fly the national ensign their service ensign, following United States Navy practice. To distinguish themselves from ships of the Navy, such ships historically have flown their parent organisation's flag from a forward mast as a distinctive mark. Today, for example, commissioned ships of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fly the NOAA flag as a distinctive mark.
Flags are usually rectangular in shape (often in the ratio 2:3, 1:2, or 3:5), but may be of any shape or size that is practical for flying, including square, triangular, or swallow tailed. A more unusual flag shape is that of the flag of Nepal, which is in the shape of two stacked triangles. Other unusually shaped flags include the civil flags of Ohio (a swallowtail); Tampa, Florida; and Pike County, Ohio.
Many flags are dyed through and through to be inexpensive to manufacture, such that the reverse side is the mirror image of the obverse (front) side, generally the side displayed when, from the observer's point of view, the flag flies from pole-side left to right. This presents two possibilities:
Some complex flag designs are not intended to be shown on both sides, requiring separate obverse and reverse sides if made correctly. In these cases there is a design element (usually text) which is not symmetric and should be read in the same direction, regardless of whether the hoist is to the viewer's left or right. These cases can be divided into two types:
Common designs on flags include crosses, stripes, and divisions of the surface, or field, into bands or quarters—patterns and principles mainly derived from heraldry. A heraldic coat of arms may also be flown as a banner of arms, as is done on both the state flag of Maryland and the flag of Kiribati.
The de jure flag of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, which consisted of a rectangular field of green, was for a long period the only national flag using a single colour and no design or insignia. However, other historical states have also used flags without designs or insignia, such as the short-lived Soviet Republic of Hungary and the more recent Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, whose flags were both a plain field of red.
Colours are normally described with common names, such as "red", but may be further specified using colourimetry.
The largest flag flown from a flagpole worldwide, according to Guinness World Records, is the flag of the United Arab Emirates flown in Sharjah. This flag was 2,448.56 m (26,356.1 sq ft). The largest flag ever made was the flag of Qatar; the flag, which measures at 101,978 m (1,097,680 sq ft), was completed in December 2013 in Doha.
The general parts of a flag are: canton (the upper inner section of the flag), field or ground (the entire flag except the canton), the hoist (the edge used to attach the flag to the hoist), and the fly (the furthest edge from the hoist end).
Vertical flags are sometimes used in lieu of the standard horizontal flag in central and eastern Europe, particularly in the German-speaking countries. This practice came about because the relatively brisk wind needed to display horizontal flags is not common in these countries.
The standard horizontal flag (no. 1 in the preceding illustration) is nonetheless the form most often used even in these countries.
The vertical flag (German: Hochformatflagge or Knatterflagge; no. 2) is a vertical form of the standard flag. The flag's design may remain unchanged (No. 2a) or it may change, e.g. by changing horizontal stripes to vertical ones (no. 2b). If the flag carries an emblem, it may remain centred or may be shifted slightly upwards.
The vertical flag for hoisting from a beam (German: Auslegerflagge or Galgenflagge; no. 3) is additionally attached to a horizontal beam, ensuring that it is fully displayed even if there is no wind.
The vertical flag for hoisting from a horizontal pole (German: Hängeflagge; no. 4) is hoisted from a horizontal pole, normally attached to a building. The topmost stripe on the horizontal version of the flag faces away from the building.
The vertical flag for hoisting from a crossbar or banner (German: Bannerflagge; no. 5) is firmly attached to a horizontal crossbar from which it is hoisted, either by a vertical pole (no. 5a) or a horizontal one (no. 5b). The topmost stripe on the horizontal version of the flag normally faces to the left.
Flags can play many different roles in religion. In Buddhism, prayer flags are used, usually in sets of five differently coloured flags. Several flags and banners including the Black Standard are associated with Islam. Many national flags and other flags include religious symbols such as the cross, the crescent, or a reference to a patron saint. Flags are also adopted by religious groups and flags such as the Jain flag, Nishan Sahib (Sikhism), the Saffron flag (Hindu) and the Christian flag are used to represent a whole religion.
Because of their ease of signalling and identification, flags are often used in sports.
Some countries use diplomatic flags, such as the United Kingdom (see image of the Embassy flag) and the Kingdom of Thailand (see image of the Embassy flag).
The socialist movement uses red flags to represent their cause. The anarchist movement has a variety of different flags, but the primary flag associated with them is the black flag. In the Spanish civil war, the anarchists used the red-and-black bisected flag. In the 20th century, the rainbow flag was adopted as a symbol of the LGBT social movements. Its derivatives include the Bisexual pride and Transgender pride flags.
Some of these political flags have become national flags, such as the red flag of the Soviet Union and national socialist banners for Nazi Germany. The present Flag of Portugal is based on what had been the political flag of the Portuguese Republican Party previous to the 5 October 1910 revolution which brought this party to power.
Throughout history, monarchs have often had personal flags (including royal standards), representing the royal person, including in personal union of national monarchies.
Flags are often representative of an individual's affinity or allegiance to a country, team or business and can be presented in various ways. A popular trend that has surfaced revolves around the idea of the 'mobile' flag in which an individual displays their particular flag of choice on their vehicle. These items are commonly referred to as car flags and are usually manufactured from high strength polyester material and are attached to a vehicle via a polypropylene pole and clip window attachment.
In Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, Ireland and the United Kingdom, a pair of red-yellow flags is used to mark the limits of the bathing area on a beach, usually guarded by surf lifesavers. If the beach is closed, the poles of the flags are crossed. The flags are coloured with a red triangle and a yellow triangle making a rectangular flag, or a red rectangle over a yellow rectangle. On many Australian beaches there is a slight variation with beach condition signalling. A red flag signifies a closed beach (in the UK also other dangers), yellow signifies strong current or difficult swimming conditions, and green represents a beach safe for general swimming. In Ireland, a red and yellow flag indicates that it is safe to swim; a red flag that it is unsafe; and no flag indicates that there are no lifeguards on duty. Blue flags may also be used away from the yellow-red lifesaver area to designate a zone for surfboarding and other small, non-motorised watercraft.
Reasons for closing the beach include:
A surf flag exists, divided into four quadrants. The top left and bottom right quadrants are black, and the remaining area is white.
Signal flag "India" (a black circle on a yellow square) is frequently used to denote a "blackball" zone where surfboards cannot be used but other water activities are permitted.
Railways use a number of coloured flags. When used as wayside signals they usually use the following meanings (exact meanings are set by the individual railroad company):
At night, the flags are replaced with lanterns showing the same colours.
Flags displayed on the front of a moving locomotive are an acceptable replacement for classification lights and usually have the following meanings (exact meanings are set by the individual railroad company):
Additionally, a railroad brakeman will typically carry a red flag to make his or her hand signals more visible to the engineer. Railway signals are a development of railway flags.
A flagpole, flagmast, flagstaff, or staff can be a simple support made of wood or metal. If it is taller than can be easily reached to raise the flag, a cord is used, looping around a pulley at the top of the pole with the ends tied at the bottom. The flag is fixed to one lower end of the cord, and is then raised by pulling on the other end. The cord is then tightened and tied to the pole at the bottom. The pole is usually topped by a flat plate or ball called a "truck" (originally meant to keep a wooden pole from splitting) or a finial in a more complex shape. Very high flagpoles may require more complex support structures than a simple pole, such as a guyed mast.
Dwajasthambam are flagpoles commonly found at the entrances of South Indian Hindu temples.
Since 26 December 2021, the tallest free-standing flagpole in the world is the Cairo Flagpole, located in the New Administrative Capital under construction in Egypt at a height of 201.952 m (662.57 ft), exceeding the former record holders, the Jeddah Flagpole in Saudi Arabia (height: 171 m; 561 ft), the Dushanbe Flagpole in Tajikistan (height: 165 m; 541 ft) and the National Flagpole in Azerbaijan (height: 162 m; 531 ft). The flagpole in North Korea is the fourth tallest flagpole in the world, however, it is not free-standing. It is a radio tower supported flagpole. Many of these were built by American company Trident Support: the Dushanbe Flagpole, the National Flagpole in Azerbaijan, the Ashgabat flagpole in Turkmenistan at 133 m (436 ft); the Aqaba Flagpole in Jordan at 130 m (430 ft); the Raghadan Flagpole in Jordan at 126.8 m (416 ft); and the Abu Dhabi Flagpole in the United Arab Emirates at 122 m (400 ft).
The current tallest flagpole in India (and the tallest flying the tricolour) is the 110-metre (360 ft) flagpole in Belgaum, Karnataka which was first hoisted on 12 March 2018. The tallest flagpole in the United Kingdom from 1959 until 2013 stood in Kew Gardens. It was made from a Canadian Douglas-fir tree and was 68.5 m (225 ft) in height.
The current tallest flagpole in the United States (and the tallest flying an American flag) is the 400-foot (120 m) pole completed before Memorial Day 2014 and custom-made with an 11-foot (3.4 m) base in concrete by wind turbine manufacturer Broadwind Energy. It is situated on the north side of the Acuity Insurance headquarters campus along Interstate 43 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and is visible from Cedar Grove. The pole can fly a 220-pound flag in light wind conditions and a heavier 350-pound flag in higher wind conditions.
Flagpoles can be designed in one piece with a taper (typically a steel taper or a Greek entasis taper), or be made from multiple pieces to make them able to expand. In the United States, ANSI/NAAMM guide specification FP-1001-97 covers the engineering design of metal flagpoles to ensure safety.
Hoisting the flag is the act of raising the flag on the flagpole. Raising or lowering flags, especially national flags, usually involves ceremonies and certain sets of rules, depending on the country, and usually involve the performance of a national anthem.
A flag-raising squad is a group of people, usually troops, cadets, or students, that march in and bring the flags for the flag-hoisting ceremony. Flag-hoisting ceremonies involving flag-raising squads can be simple or elaborate, involving large numbers of squads. Elaborate flag-hoisting ceremonies are usually performed on national holidays.
The cord or rope that ties a flag to its pole is called a halyard. Flags may have a strip of fabric along the hoist side called a heading for the halyard to pass through, or a pair of grommets for the halyard to be threaded through. Flags may also be held in position using Inglefield clips.
Semaphore is a form of communication that utilises flags. The signalling is performed by an individual using two flags (or lighted wands), the positions of the flags indicating a symbol. The person who holds the flags is known as the signalman. This form of communication is primarily used by naval signallers. This technique of signalling was adopted in the early 19th century and is still used in various forms today.
The colours of the flags can also be used to communicate. For example; a white flag means, among other things, surrender or peace, a red flag can be used as a warning signal, and a black flag can mean war, or determination to defeat enemies.
Orientation of a flag is also used for communication, though the practice is rarely used given modern communication systems. Raising a flag upside-down was indicative that the raising force controlled that particular area, but that it was in severe distress.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term flag is also used to refer to the graphic design employed, and flags have evolved into a general tool for rudimentary signalling and identification, especially in environments where communication is challenging (such as the maritime environment, where semaphore is used). Many flags fall into groups of similar designs called flag families. The study of flags is known as \"vexillology\" from the Latin vexillum, meaning \"flag\" or \"banner\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "National flags are patriotic symbols with widely varied interpretations that often include strong military associations because of their original and ongoing use for that purpose. Flags are also used in messaging, advertising, or for decorative purposes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Some military units are called \"flags\" after their use of flags. A flag (Arabic: لواء) is equivalent to a brigade in Arab countries. In Spain, a flag (Spanish: bandera) is a battalion-equivalent in the Spanish Legion.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The origin of the flag is unknown and it remains unclear when the first flag was raised. Ships with vexilloids were represented on predynastic Egyptian pottery c. 3500 BCE. In antiquity, field signs that can be categorised as vexilloid or \"flag-like\" were used in warfare, originating in ancient Egypt or Assyria. Examples include the Sassanid battle standard Derafsh Kaviani, and the standards of the Roman legions such as the eagle of Augustus Caesar's Xth legion and the dragon standard of the Sarmatians; the latter was allowed to fly freely in the wind, carried by a horseman, but depictions suggest that it bore more similarity to an elongated dragon kite than to a simple flag.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "While the origin of the flag remains a mystery, the oldest flag discovered is made of bronze: a Derafsh or 'flag-like' Shahdad, which was found in Shahdad, Iran, and dates back to c. 2400 BCE. It features a seated man and a kneeling woman facing each other, with a star in between. This iconography was found in other Iranian Bronze Age pieces of art.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Flags made of cloth were almost certainly the invention of the ancient peoples of the Indian subcontinent or the Zhou dynasty of Ancient China. Chinese flags had iconography such as a red bird, a white tiger, or a blue dragon, and royal flags were to be treated with a level of respect similar to that given to the ruler. Indian flags were often triangular and decorated with attachments such as a yak's tail and the state umbrella. Silk flags either spread to the Near East from China or it was just the silk itself, later fashioned by people who had independently conceptualized a rectangular cloth attached to a pole. Flags were probably transmitted to Europe via the Muslim world, where plainly coloured flags were used due to Islamic proscriptions. They are often mentioned in the early history of Islam and may have been copied from India.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In Europe, during the High Middle Ages, flags came to be used primarily as a heraldic device in battle, allowing easier identification of a knight over only the heraldic icon painted on the shield. Already during the high medieval period, and increasingly during the Late Middle Ages, city states and communes such as those of the Old Swiss Confederacy also began to use flags as field signs. Regimental flags for individual units became commonplace during the Early Modern period.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "During the peak of the sailing age, beginning in the early 17th century, it was customary (and later a legal requirement) for ships to fly flags designating their nationality; these flags eventually evolved into the national flags and maritime flags of today. Flags also became the preferred means of communications at sea, resulting in various systems of flag signals; see, International maritime signal flags.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Use of flags beyond a military or naval context began with the rise of nationalism by the end of the 18th century, although some flags date back earlier. The flags of countries such as Austria, Denmark or Turkey have legendary origins while many others, including those of Poland and Switzerland, grew out of the heraldic emblems of the Middle Ages. The 17th century saw the birth of several national flags through revolutionary struggle. One of these was the flag of the Netherlands, which appeared during the 80-year Dutch rebellion which began in 1568 against Spanish domination.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Political change and social reform, allied with a growing sense of nationhood among ordinary people, led to the creation of new nations and flags all over the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "One of the most popular uses of a flag is to symbolise a nation or country. Some national flags have been particularly inspirational to other nations, countries, or subnational entities in the design of their own flags. Some prominent examples include:",
"title": "National flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "National flag designs are often used to signify nationality in other forms, such as flag patches.",
"title": "National flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "A civil flag is a version of the national flag that is flown by civilians on non-government installations or craft. The use of civil flags was more common in the past, in order to denote buildings or ships that were not crewed by the military. In some countries the civil flag is the same as the war flag or state flag, but without the coat of arms, such as in the case of Spain, and in others it is an alteration of the war flag.",
"title": "National flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Several countries, including the British Army and the Royal Navy (White Ensign) of the United Kingdom (Great Britain) and the Soviet Union have had unique flags flown by their armed forces separately, rather than the national flag.",
"title": "National flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Other countries' armed forces (such as those of the United States or Switzerland) use their standard national flag; in addition, the U.S. has alongside flags and seals designed from long tradition for each of its six uniformed military services/military sub-departments in the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. The Philippines' armed forces may use their standard national flag, but during times of war the flag is turned upside down. Bulgaria's flag is also turned upside down during times of war. These are also considered war flags, though the terminology only applies to the flag's military usage.",
"title": "National flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Large versions of the war flag flown on the warships of countries' navies are known as battle ensigns. In addition, besides flying the national standard or a military services' emblem flag at a military fort, base, station or post and at sea at the stern (rear) or main top mast of a warship, a Naval Jack flag and other maritime flags, pennants and emblems are flown at the bow (front). In times of war waving a white flag is a banner of truce, talks/negotiations or surrender.",
"title": "National flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Four distinctive African flags currently in the collection of the National Maritime Museum in Britain were flown in action by Itsekiri ships under the control of Nana Olomu during the conflict in the late 19th century. One is the flag generally known as the Benin Empire flag and one is referred to as Nana Olomu's flag.",
"title": "National flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Among international flags are the United Nations, Europe, Olympic, NATO and Paralympic flags.",
"title": "National flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Flags are particularly important at sea, where they can mean the difference between life and death, and consequently where the rules and regulations for the flying of flags are strictly enforced. A national flag flown at sea is known as an ensign. A courteous, peaceable merchant ship or yacht customarily flies its ensign (in the usual ensign position), together with the flag of whatever nation it is currently visiting at the mast (known as a courtesy flag). To fly one's ensign alone in foreign waters, a foreign port or in the face of a foreign warship traditionally indicates a willingness to fight, with cannon, for the right to do so. As of 2009, this custom is still taken seriously by many naval and port authorities and is readily enforced in many parts of the world by boarding, confiscation and other civil penalties. In some countries yacht ensigns are different from merchant ensigns in order to signal that the yacht is not carrying cargo that requires a customs declaration. Carrying commercial cargo on a boat with a yacht ensign is deemed to be smuggling in many jurisdictions. Traditionally, a vessel flying under the courtesy flag of a specific nation, regardless of the vessel's country of registry, is considered to be operating under the law of her 'host' nation.",
"title": "Maritime flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "There is a system of international maritime signal flags for numerals and letters of the alphabet. Each flag or pennant has a specific meaning when flown individually. As well, semaphore flags can be used to communicate on an ad hoc basis from ship to ship over short distances.",
"title": "Maritime flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Another category of maritime flag flown by some United States government ships is the distinctive mark. Although the United States Coast Guard has its own service ensign, all other U.S. government ships fly the national ensign their service ensign, following United States Navy practice. To distinguish themselves from ships of the Navy, such ships historically have flown their parent organisation's flag from a forward mast as a distinctive mark. Today, for example, commissioned ships of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fly the NOAA flag as a distinctive mark.",
"title": "Maritime flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Flags are usually rectangular in shape (often in the ratio 2:3, 1:2, or 3:5), but may be of any shape or size that is practical for flying, including square, triangular, or swallow tailed. A more unusual flag shape is that of the flag of Nepal, which is in the shape of two stacked triangles. Other unusually shaped flags include the civil flags of Ohio (a swallowtail); Tampa, Florida; and Pike County, Ohio.",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Many flags are dyed through and through to be inexpensive to manufacture, such that the reverse side is the mirror image of the obverse (front) side, generally the side displayed when, from the observer's point of view, the flag flies from pole-side left to right. This presents two possibilities:",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Some complex flag designs are not intended to be shown on both sides, requiring separate obverse and reverse sides if made correctly. In these cases there is a design element (usually text) which is not symmetric and should be read in the same direction, regardless of whether the hoist is to the viewer's left or right. These cases can be divided into two types:",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Common designs on flags include crosses, stripes, and divisions of the surface, or field, into bands or quarters—patterns and principles mainly derived from heraldry. A heraldic coat of arms may also be flown as a banner of arms, as is done on both the state flag of Maryland and the flag of Kiribati.",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The de jure flag of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, which consisted of a rectangular field of green, was for a long period the only national flag using a single colour and no design or insignia. However, other historical states have also used flags without designs or insignia, such as the short-lived Soviet Republic of Hungary and the more recent Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, whose flags were both a plain field of red.",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Colours are normally described with common names, such as \"red\", but may be further specified using colourimetry.",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The largest flag flown from a flagpole worldwide, according to Guinness World Records, is the flag of the United Arab Emirates flown in Sharjah. This flag was 2,448.56 m (26,356.1 sq ft). The largest flag ever made was the flag of Qatar; the flag, which measures at 101,978 m (1,097,680 sq ft), was completed in December 2013 in Doha.",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The general parts of a flag are: canton (the upper inner section of the flag), field or ground (the entire flag except the canton), the hoist (the edge used to attach the flag to the hoist), and the fly (the furthest edge from the hoist end).",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Vertical flags are sometimes used in lieu of the standard horizontal flag in central and eastern Europe, particularly in the German-speaking countries. This practice came about because the relatively brisk wind needed to display horizontal flags is not common in these countries.",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The standard horizontal flag (no. 1 in the preceding illustration) is nonetheless the form most often used even in these countries.",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The vertical flag (German: Hochformatflagge or Knatterflagge; no. 2) is a vertical form of the standard flag. The flag's design may remain unchanged (No. 2a) or it may change, e.g. by changing horizontal stripes to vertical ones (no. 2b). If the flag carries an emblem, it may remain centred or may be shifted slightly upwards.",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The vertical flag for hoisting from a beam (German: Auslegerflagge or Galgenflagge; no. 3) is additionally attached to a horizontal beam, ensuring that it is fully displayed even if there is no wind.",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The vertical flag for hoisting from a horizontal pole (German: Hängeflagge; no. 4) is hoisted from a horizontal pole, normally attached to a building. The topmost stripe on the horizontal version of the flag faces away from the building.",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The vertical flag for hoisting from a crossbar or banner (German: Bannerflagge; no. 5) is firmly attached to a horizontal crossbar from which it is hoisted, either by a vertical pole (no. 5a) or a horizontal one (no. 5b). The topmost stripe on the horizontal version of the flag normally faces to the left.",
"title": "Shapes and designs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Flags can play many different roles in religion. In Buddhism, prayer flags are used, usually in sets of five differently coloured flags. Several flags and banners including the Black Standard are associated with Islam. Many national flags and other flags include religious symbols such as the cross, the crescent, or a reference to a patron saint. Flags are also adopted by religious groups and flags such as the Jain flag, Nishan Sahib (Sikhism), the Saffron flag (Hindu) and the Christian flag are used to represent a whole religion.",
"title": "Religious flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "",
"title": "Religious flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Because of their ease of signalling and identification, flags are often used in sports.",
"title": "In sports"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Some countries use diplomatic flags, such as the United Kingdom (see image of the Embassy flag) and the Kingdom of Thailand (see image of the Embassy flag).",
"title": "Diplomatic flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The socialist movement uses red flags to represent their cause. The anarchist movement has a variety of different flags, but the primary flag associated with them is the black flag. In the Spanish civil war, the anarchists used the red-and-black bisected flag. In the 20th century, the rainbow flag was adopted as a symbol of the LGBT social movements. Its derivatives include the Bisexual pride and Transgender pride flags.",
"title": "Diplomatic flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Some of these political flags have become national flags, such as the red flag of the Soviet Union and national socialist banners for Nazi Germany. The present Flag of Portugal is based on what had been the political flag of the Portuguese Republican Party previous to the 5 October 1910 revolution which brought this party to power.",
"title": "Diplomatic flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Throughout history, monarchs have often had personal flags (including royal standards), representing the royal person, including in personal union of national monarchies.",
"title": "Personal flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Flags are often representative of an individual's affinity or allegiance to a country, team or business and can be presented in various ways. A popular trend that has surfaced revolves around the idea of the 'mobile' flag in which an individual displays their particular flag of choice on their vehicle. These items are commonly referred to as car flags and are usually manufactured from high strength polyester material and are attached to a vehicle via a polypropylene pole and clip window attachment.",
"title": "Vehicle flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, Ireland and the United Kingdom, a pair of red-yellow flags is used to mark the limits of the bathing area on a beach, usually guarded by surf lifesavers. If the beach is closed, the poles of the flags are crossed. The flags are coloured with a red triangle and a yellow triangle making a rectangular flag, or a red rectangle over a yellow rectangle. On many Australian beaches there is a slight variation with beach condition signalling. A red flag signifies a closed beach (in the UK also other dangers), yellow signifies strong current or difficult swimming conditions, and green represents a beach safe for general swimming. In Ireland, a red and yellow flag indicates that it is safe to swim; a red flag that it is unsafe; and no flag indicates that there are no lifeguards on duty. Blue flags may also be used away from the yellow-red lifesaver area to designate a zone for surfboarding and other small, non-motorised watercraft.",
"title": "Swimming flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Reasons for closing the beach include:",
"title": "Swimming flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "A surf flag exists, divided into four quadrants. The top left and bottom right quadrants are black, and the remaining area is white.",
"title": "Swimming flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Signal flag \"India\" (a black circle on a yellow square) is frequently used to denote a \"blackball\" zone where surfboards cannot be used but other water activities are permitted.",
"title": "Swimming flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Railways use a number of coloured flags. When used as wayside signals they usually use the following meanings (exact meanings are set by the individual railroad company):",
"title": "Railway flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "At night, the flags are replaced with lanterns showing the same colours.",
"title": "Railway flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Flags displayed on the front of a moving locomotive are an acceptable replacement for classification lights and usually have the following meanings (exact meanings are set by the individual railroad company):",
"title": "Railway flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Additionally, a railroad brakeman will typically carry a red flag to make his or her hand signals more visible to the engineer. Railway signals are a development of railway flags.",
"title": "Railway flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "A flagpole, flagmast, flagstaff, or staff can be a simple support made of wood or metal. If it is taller than can be easily reached to raise the flag, a cord is used, looping around a pulley at the top of the pole with the ends tied at the bottom. The flag is fixed to one lower end of the cord, and is then raised by pulling on the other end. The cord is then tightened and tied to the pole at the bottom. The pole is usually topped by a flat plate or ball called a \"truck\" (originally meant to keep a wooden pole from splitting) or a finial in a more complex shape. Very high flagpoles may require more complex support structures than a simple pole, such as a guyed mast.",
"title": "Flagpoles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Dwajasthambam are flagpoles commonly found at the entrances of South Indian Hindu temples.",
"title": "Flagpoles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Since 26 December 2021, the tallest free-standing flagpole in the world is the Cairo Flagpole, located in the New Administrative Capital under construction in Egypt at a height of 201.952 m (662.57 ft), exceeding the former record holders, the Jeddah Flagpole in Saudi Arabia (height: 171 m; 561 ft), the Dushanbe Flagpole in Tajikistan (height: 165 m; 541 ft) and the National Flagpole in Azerbaijan (height: 162 m; 531 ft). The flagpole in North Korea is the fourth tallest flagpole in the world, however, it is not free-standing. It is a radio tower supported flagpole. Many of these were built by American company Trident Support: the Dushanbe Flagpole, the National Flagpole in Azerbaijan, the Ashgabat flagpole in Turkmenistan at 133 m (436 ft); the Aqaba Flagpole in Jordan at 130 m (430 ft); the Raghadan Flagpole in Jordan at 126.8 m (416 ft); and the Abu Dhabi Flagpole in the United Arab Emirates at 122 m (400 ft).",
"title": "Flagpoles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The current tallest flagpole in India (and the tallest flying the tricolour) is the 110-metre (360 ft) flagpole in Belgaum, Karnataka which was first hoisted on 12 March 2018. The tallest flagpole in the United Kingdom from 1959 until 2013 stood in Kew Gardens. It was made from a Canadian Douglas-fir tree and was 68.5 m (225 ft) in height.",
"title": "Flagpoles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The current tallest flagpole in the United States (and the tallest flying an American flag) is the 400-foot (120 m) pole completed before Memorial Day 2014 and custom-made with an 11-foot (3.4 m) base in concrete by wind turbine manufacturer Broadwind Energy. It is situated on the north side of the Acuity Insurance headquarters campus along Interstate 43 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and is visible from Cedar Grove. The pole can fly a 220-pound flag in light wind conditions and a heavier 350-pound flag in higher wind conditions.",
"title": "Flagpoles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Flagpoles can be designed in one piece with a taper (typically a steel taper or a Greek entasis taper), or be made from multiple pieces to make them able to expand. In the United States, ANSI/NAAMM guide specification FP-1001-97 covers the engineering design of metal flagpoles to ensure safety.",
"title": "Flagpoles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Hoisting the flag is the act of raising the flag on the flagpole. Raising or lowering flags, especially national flags, usually involves ceremonies and certain sets of rules, depending on the country, and usually involve the performance of a national anthem.",
"title": "Hoisting the flag"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "A flag-raising squad is a group of people, usually troops, cadets, or students, that march in and bring the flags for the flag-hoisting ceremony. Flag-hoisting ceremonies involving flag-raising squads can be simple or elaborate, involving large numbers of squads. Elaborate flag-hoisting ceremonies are usually performed on national holidays.",
"title": "Hoisting the flag"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The cord or rope that ties a flag to its pole is called a halyard. Flags may have a strip of fabric along the hoist side called a heading for the halyard to pass through, or a pair of grommets for the halyard to be threaded through. Flags may also be held in position using Inglefield clips.",
"title": "Hoisting the flag"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Semaphore is a form of communication that utilises flags. The signalling is performed by an individual using two flags (or lighted wands), the positions of the flags indicating a symbol. The person who holds the flags is known as the signalman. This form of communication is primarily used by naval signallers. This technique of signalling was adopted in the early 19th century and is still used in various forms today.",
"title": "Flags in communication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The colours of the flags can also be used to communicate. For example; a white flag means, among other things, surrender or peace, a red flag can be used as a warning signal, and a black flag can mean war, or determination to defeat enemies.",
"title": "Flags in communication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Orientation of a flag is also used for communication, though the practice is rarely used given modern communication systems. Raising a flag upside-down was indicative that the raising force controlled that particular area, but that it was in severe distress.",
"title": "Flags in communication"
}
] |
A flag is a piece of fabric with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term flag is also used to refer to the graphic design employed, and flags have evolved into a general tool for rudimentary signalling and identification, especially in environments where communication is challenging. Many flags fall into groups of similar designs called flag families. The study of flags is known as "vexillology" from the Latin vexillum, meaning "flag" or "banner". National flags are patriotic symbols with widely varied interpretations that often include strong military associations because of their original and ongoing use for that purpose. Flags are also used in messaging, advertising, or for decorative purposes. Some military units are called "flags" after their use of flags. A flag is equivalent to a brigade in Arab countries. In Spain, a flag is a battalion-equivalent in the Spanish Legion.
|
2001-11-02T20:55:32Z
|
2023-12-04T11:49:05Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag
|
11,425 |
Father Dougal McGuire
|
Father Dougal McGuire is a character in the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted. Created by Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, Dougal was portrayed by comedian Ardal O'Hanlon for the programme's three series. The character is a childlike, simple-minded Roman Catholic curate exiled to Craggy Island, a small island off the coast of Galway.
Dougal originated as an unseen character in a short-lived stand-up routine performed by Mathews in the late 1980s. Portraying an early version of Father Ted Crilly on-stage, Mathews occasionally discussed Dougal as one of Ted's great friends. In 1994, the writers took Father Ted to television, casting O'Hanlon as the on-screen Dougal. In a 2001 poll conducted by Channel 4, Dougal was ranked fifth on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters.
Arthur Mathews created the character of Father Ted while working at Hot Press in 1987–89. During production weekends, he and Paul Woodfull had the idea for The Joshua Trio, a comedic U2 tribute band. The band performed various warm-up sketches written by Mathews, Woodfull, and Graham Linehan, who joined in a non-musical capacity. These sketches included stand-up performed by Mathews in-character as Father Ted Crilly. As Ted, Mathews sometimes read from a book, Notes from Africa, purportedly written by Father Dougal McGuire, a missionary friend who described his experiences of being attacked and chased by natives. In one sketch, Ted discussed his concern for Dougal, who had been voted Most Unpopular Priest in Africa for two years running and was spending Christmas up a tree in the grounds of The Bob Geldof Centre.
In 1990, Linehan and Mathews began writing Irish Lives, a six-part comedy television series. The show would have taken the form of a mockumentary, with each episode focusing on interviewing a different character, one of whom was Father Ted Crilly. The story involved Ted returning to his seminary to catch up with old friends. When producer Geoffrey Perkins asked Linehan and Mathews to discard the mockumentary format and expand the Father Ted episode to a traditional sitcom, Father Dougal became one of the main characters. When writing Dougal, Linehan and Mathews drew on Stan Laurel, incorporating some of Linehan's own behaviour during moments of confusion.
Linehan and Mathews saw O'Hanlon in a modernised Shakespeare play broadcast by RTÉ, and were impressed by the "weird, gormless" face he could pull. Linehan later said, "That was Dougal right there. He was just spot-on and he became our secret weapon. The show took off so quickly because Ardal was so instantly funny." The writers have said that the only other actor they feel might have worked in the role is Don Wycherley, who plays Dougal's Rugged Island counterpart, Father Cyril McDuff, in the show.
There have been several attempts to remake the show for American audiences. In 2004, it was reported that Graham Norton (who played Father Noel Furlong in Father Ted) had signed on to play Dougal alongside Steve Martin as Ted. No remake has yet entered production, as of 2019.
References to Dougal's family are rare. In "Grant Unto Him Eternal Rest", he mentions that his parents are dead, and also refers to an uncle who died after his heart stopped beating for a week. It is unclear how Dougal entered the priesthood, with Ted wondering, "Dougal, how did you get into the Church? Was it, like, collect twelve crisp packets and become a priest?"
Dougal is dim-witted and childlike. In "Chirpy Burpy Cheap Sheep", it is revealed that Ted has made him write a list of things that do not exist, which is on a pull-down chart in their bedroom. Often he says things that Ted specifically told him not to say, such as by asking about Bishop Brennan's son, as well as shouting to Ted to ask if the Bishop found a large number of rabbits that they are hiding in the parochial house (fortunately for Ted, the bishop was more concerned about Dougal addressing him by his first name instead of using his proper title). In "The Mainland", he forgets to have any breakfast and fails to realise this until he and Ted are waiting for Father Jack at the optician. He also nearly gives a visiting bishop a heart attack when he screams in excitement after remembering the director's cut of Aliens is airing on television that night.
Sometimes he talks more sense, however, such as when Ted inadvertently winds up his unravelled jumper upon discovering that it could provide a way out, and he asks what use it will be when all wound up. In "Kicking Bishop Brennan Up the Arse", he suggests that Ted use his fear of Bishop Brennan to his advantage to carry out the forfeit he was assigned by his rival, and to get Bishop Brennan into position, draws a crude watercolour painting on the skirting board, depicting a man wearing a bishop's hat.
By the time the show begins, Dougal has been exiled to Craggy Island as punishment for unknown misdeeds. In an early interview, the writers stated that it involved "a baptism gone wrong". In "The Passion of Saint Tibulus", Bishop Brennan says that Dougal cannot be allowed back into "the real world" after "the Blackrock incident", in which hundreds of nuns' lives were "irreparably damaged".
In "A Christmassy Ted", Dougal performs a funeral that Ted was meant to do, but forgot about. Ted is alarmed to learn from Mrs Doyle that Dougal is performing a funeral, and the consequences of Dougal performing the funeral are predictably disastrous.
Bishop Brennan despises Dougal, at one point referring to him as a "cabbage". He also does not take kindly to Dougal calling him "Len", often shouting profanity at him when he does.
Dougal is famously known for wearing an Irish football jersey when he is in bed. He and Ted share a bedroom, but owing to his childlike nature Dougal does not sleep with a normal blanket like Ted; instead he sleeps with a child's cartoon character bedspread (specifically Masters of the Universe).
On the Channel 4 website for Father Ted, the profile for Father Dougal states that 'Dougal was relegated to the island after an unfortunate incident on a SeaLink ferry that put the lives of hundreds of nuns in danger.'
In "Old Grey Whistle Theft", Dougal mentions that he is 25 years old (soon to be 26).
In the 2011 documentary Unintelligent Design, Linehan said that Dougal had been conceived as a cross between wide-eyed bartender Woody in Cheers and roadsweeper Trigger in Only Fools and Horses. In another interview, they mentioned Latka Gravas from Taxi as an influence and compared the relationship between Ted and Dougal to that between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza: "Alongside the wily priest who would lie at the drop of a hat we wanted a gormless idiot who was the very model of innocence."
For his portrayal of Dougal, O'Hanlon turned to Laurel and Hardy and Fawlty Towers's bumbling waiter Manuel. O'Hanlon also drew inspiration from his child sister, as well as dogs, explaining: "Dougal had to be more than just stupid. He had to be otherworldly and very, very strange. I saw Dougal as very doglike, very puppyish and lovable, and really loyal to Ted."
After the first episode aired, Ben Thompson of The Independent singled out O'Hanlon as "the real star of the show", and said that Dougal's "holy-fool innocence" as "worthy of James Stewart". Writing for the Irish Examiner, Ed Power said that while the "meme-worthy" Dougal and Jack received the most attention at the time of broadcast, Morgan's straight-man performance was the highlight in retrospect. Morgan attributed the show's success to the appealing double-act formed by Dougal, "an idiot who knows nothing", and Ted, "an idiot who thinks he knows something but actually knows nothing."
As testament to the character's enduring popularity, Irish bookmakers humorously began collecting bets on whether Dougal would succeed Pope John Paul II upon his death. The odds were 1,000-1 (better odds than some genuine candidates), and some small stakes were actually received.
In 2001, O'Hanlon reprised the role of Dougal for a series of PBS advertisements to coincide with Father Ted's American broadcast; these segments were included on later DVD releases as "Fundraising with Father Dougal".
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Father Dougal McGuire is a character in the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted. Created by Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, Dougal was portrayed by comedian Ardal O'Hanlon for the programme's three series. The character is a childlike, simple-minded Roman Catholic curate exiled to Craggy Island, a small island off the coast of Galway.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Dougal originated as an unseen character in a short-lived stand-up routine performed by Mathews in the late 1980s. Portraying an early version of Father Ted Crilly on-stage, Mathews occasionally discussed Dougal as one of Ted's great friends. In 1994, the writers took Father Ted to television, casting O'Hanlon as the on-screen Dougal. In a 2001 poll conducted by Channel 4, Dougal was ranked fifth on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Arthur Mathews created the character of Father Ted while working at Hot Press in 1987–89. During production weekends, he and Paul Woodfull had the idea for The Joshua Trio, a comedic U2 tribute band. The band performed various warm-up sketches written by Mathews, Woodfull, and Graham Linehan, who joined in a non-musical capacity. These sketches included stand-up performed by Mathews in-character as Father Ted Crilly. As Ted, Mathews sometimes read from a book, Notes from Africa, purportedly written by Father Dougal McGuire, a missionary friend who described his experiences of being attacked and chased by natives. In one sketch, Ted discussed his concern for Dougal, who had been voted Most Unpopular Priest in Africa for two years running and was spending Christmas up a tree in the grounds of The Bob Geldof Centre.",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1990, Linehan and Mathews began writing Irish Lives, a six-part comedy television series. The show would have taken the form of a mockumentary, with each episode focusing on interviewing a different character, one of whom was Father Ted Crilly. The story involved Ted returning to his seminary to catch up with old friends. When producer Geoffrey Perkins asked Linehan and Mathews to discard the mockumentary format and expand the Father Ted episode to a traditional sitcom, Father Dougal became one of the main characters. When writing Dougal, Linehan and Mathews drew on Stan Laurel, incorporating some of Linehan's own behaviour during moments of confusion.",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Linehan and Mathews saw O'Hanlon in a modernised Shakespeare play broadcast by RTÉ, and were impressed by the \"weird, gormless\" face he could pull. Linehan later said, \"That was Dougal right there. He was just spot-on and he became our secret weapon. The show took off so quickly because Ardal was so instantly funny.\" The writers have said that the only other actor they feel might have worked in the role is Don Wycherley, who plays Dougal's Rugged Island counterpart, Father Cyril McDuff, in the show.",
"title": "Casting"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "There have been several attempts to remake the show for American audiences. In 2004, it was reported that Graham Norton (who played Father Noel Furlong in Father Ted) had signed on to play Dougal alongside Steve Martin as Ted. No remake has yet entered production, as of 2019.",
"title": "Casting"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "References to Dougal's family are rare. In \"Grant Unto Him Eternal Rest\", he mentions that his parents are dead, and also refers to an uncle who died after his heart stopped beating for a week. It is unclear how Dougal entered the priesthood, with Ted wondering, \"Dougal, how did you get into the Church? Was it, like, collect twelve crisp packets and become a priest?\"",
"title": "Fictional character biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Dougal is dim-witted and childlike. In \"Chirpy Burpy Cheap Sheep\", it is revealed that Ted has made him write a list of things that do not exist, which is on a pull-down chart in their bedroom. Often he says things that Ted specifically told him not to say, such as by asking about Bishop Brennan's son, as well as shouting to Ted to ask if the Bishop found a large number of rabbits that they are hiding in the parochial house (fortunately for Ted, the bishop was more concerned about Dougal addressing him by his first name instead of using his proper title). In \"The Mainland\", he forgets to have any breakfast and fails to realise this until he and Ted are waiting for Father Jack at the optician. He also nearly gives a visiting bishop a heart attack when he screams in excitement after remembering the director's cut of Aliens is airing on television that night.",
"title": "Fictional character biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Sometimes he talks more sense, however, such as when Ted inadvertently winds up his unravelled jumper upon discovering that it could provide a way out, and he asks what use it will be when all wound up. In \"Kicking Bishop Brennan Up the Arse\", he suggests that Ted use his fear of Bishop Brennan to his advantage to carry out the forfeit he was assigned by his rival, and to get Bishop Brennan into position, draws a crude watercolour painting on the skirting board, depicting a man wearing a bishop's hat.",
"title": "Fictional character biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "By the time the show begins, Dougal has been exiled to Craggy Island as punishment for unknown misdeeds. In an early interview, the writers stated that it involved \"a baptism gone wrong\". In \"The Passion of Saint Tibulus\", Bishop Brennan says that Dougal cannot be allowed back into \"the real world\" after \"the Blackrock incident\", in which hundreds of nuns' lives were \"irreparably damaged\".",
"title": "Fictional character biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In \"A Christmassy Ted\", Dougal performs a funeral that Ted was meant to do, but forgot about. Ted is alarmed to learn from Mrs Doyle that Dougal is performing a funeral, and the consequences of Dougal performing the funeral are predictably disastrous.",
"title": "Fictional character biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Bishop Brennan despises Dougal, at one point referring to him as a \"cabbage\". He also does not take kindly to Dougal calling him \"Len\", often shouting profanity at him when he does.",
"title": "Fictional character biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Dougal is famously known for wearing an Irish football jersey when he is in bed. He and Ted share a bedroom, but owing to his childlike nature Dougal does not sleep with a normal blanket like Ted; instead he sleeps with a child's cartoon character bedspread (specifically Masters of the Universe).",
"title": "Fictional character biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "On the Channel 4 website for Father Ted, the profile for Father Dougal states that 'Dougal was relegated to the island after an unfortunate incident on a SeaLink ferry that put the lives of hundreds of nuns in danger.'",
"title": "Fictional character biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In \"Old Grey Whistle Theft\", Dougal mentions that he is 25 years old (soon to be 26).",
"title": "Fictional character biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In the 2011 documentary Unintelligent Design, Linehan said that Dougal had been conceived as a cross between wide-eyed bartender Woody in Cheers and roadsweeper Trigger in Only Fools and Horses. In another interview, they mentioned Latka Gravas from Taxi as an influence and compared the relationship between Ted and Dougal to that between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza: \"Alongside the wily priest who would lie at the drop of a hat we wanted a gormless idiot who was the very model of innocence.\"",
"title": "Personality"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "For his portrayal of Dougal, O'Hanlon turned to Laurel and Hardy and Fawlty Towers's bumbling waiter Manuel. O'Hanlon also drew inspiration from his child sister, as well as dogs, explaining: \"Dougal had to be more than just stupid. He had to be otherworldly and very, very strange. I saw Dougal as very doglike, very puppyish and lovable, and really loyal to Ted.\"",
"title": "Personality"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "After the first episode aired, Ben Thompson of The Independent singled out O'Hanlon as \"the real star of the show\", and said that Dougal's \"holy-fool innocence\" as \"worthy of James Stewart\". Writing for the Irish Examiner, Ed Power said that while the \"meme-worthy\" Dougal and Jack received the most attention at the time of broadcast, Morgan's straight-man performance was the highlight in retrospect. Morgan attributed the show's success to the appealing double-act formed by Dougal, \"an idiot who knows nothing\", and Ted, \"an idiot who thinks he knows something but actually knows nothing.\"",
"title": "Reception and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "As testament to the character's enduring popularity, Irish bookmakers humorously began collecting bets on whether Dougal would succeed Pope John Paul II upon his death. The odds were 1,000-1 (better odds than some genuine candidates), and some small stakes were actually received.",
"title": "Reception and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In 2001, O'Hanlon reprised the role of Dougal for a series of PBS advertisements to coincide with Father Ted's American broadcast; these segments were included on later DVD releases as \"Fundraising with Father Dougal\".",
"title": "Reception and legacy"
}
] |
Father Dougal McGuire is a character in the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted. Created by Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, Dougal was portrayed by comedian Ardal O'Hanlon for the programme's three series. The character is a childlike, simple-minded Roman Catholic curate exiled to Craggy Island, a small island off the coast of Galway. Dougal originated as an unseen character in a short-lived stand-up routine performed by Mathews in the late 1980s. Portraying an early version of Father Ted Crilly on-stage, Mathews occasionally discussed Dougal as one of Ted's great friends. In 1994, the writers took Father Ted to television, casting O'Hanlon as the on-screen Dougal. In a 2001 poll conducted by Channel 4, Dougal was ranked fifth on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters.
|
2001-10-29T20:22:07Z
|
2023-11-28T03:27:30Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Dougal_McGuire
|
11,426 |
Flores
|
Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Including Komodo Island off its west coast (but excluding the Solor Archipelago to the east of Flores), the land area is 15,530.58 km, and the population was 1,878,875 in the 2020 Census (including various offshore islands); the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 1,919,395. The largest towns are Maumere and Ende. The name Flores is of Portuguese origin, meaning "Flowers".
Flores is located east of Sumbawa and the Komodo islands, and west of the Solor Islands and the Alor Archipelago. To the southeast is Timor. To the south, across the Sumba Strait, is Sumba island and to the north, beyond the Flores Sea, is Sulawesi.
Among all islands containing Indonesian territory, Flores is the 10th most populous after Java, Sumatra, Borneo (Kalimantan), Sulawesi, New Guinea, Bali, Madura, Lombok, and Timor and also the 10th biggest island of Indonesia.
Until the arrival of modern humans, Flores was inhabited by Homo floresiensis, a small archaic human.
Unlike most islands in the Indonesian archipelago, the modern name Flores was given by the Portuguese, from Cabo das Flores (Cape of Flowers), the Portuguese term for the eastern part of the island. This part of the island, originally called Kopondai, was so named by the Portuguese because of the flowering Delonix regia trees found there. The original name of Flores was Nipa, referring to the serpent.
Before the arrival of modern humans, Flores was occupied by Homo floresiensis, a small archaic human. The ancestors of Homo floresiensis arrived on the island between 1.3 and 1 million years ago.
Remains of nine individuals have been found, and the dominant consensus is that these remains do represent a distinct species due to anatomical differences from modern humans. The most recent evidence shows that Homo floresiensis likely became extinct 50,000 years ago, around the time of modern human arrival to the archipelago.
Flores was most likely first inhabited by Melanesians at least since 30,000 BC. This is shown in their DNA results which mirror those of Maluku and East Timor which are around half Melanesian and half Austronesian.
Portuguese traders and missionaries came to Flores in the 16th century, mainly to Larantuka and Sikka. Their influence is still discernible in Sikka's language, culture and religion. The first Portuguese visit took place in 1511, through the expedition of António de Abreu and his vice-captain Francisco Serrão, en route through the Sunda islands.
The Dominican order played an important role on this island, as well as on the neighbouring islands of Timor and Solor. When the Dutch attacked the Fortress of Solor in 1613, the population of the fort, led by the Dominicans, moved to the harbor town of Larantuka on the eastern coast of Flores. This population was mixed, of Portuguese and local islander descent and Larantuqueiros, Topasses or, as Dutch knew them, the 'Black Portuguese' (Zwarte Portugezen).
The Larantuqueiros or Topasses became the dominant sandalwood trading people of the region for the next 200 years. This group used Portuguese as the language for worship, Malay as the language of trade and a mixed dialect as mother tongue. This was observed by William Dampier, an English privateer visiting the Island in 1699:
These [the Topasses] have no Forts, but depend on their Alliance with the Natives: And indeed they are already so mixt, that it is hard to distinguish whether they are Portuguese or Indians. Their Language is Portuguese; and the religion they have, is Romish. They seem in Words to acknowledge the King of Portugal for their Sovereign; yet they will not accept any Officers sent by him. They speak indifferently the Malayan and their own native Languages, as well as Portuguese.
In the western part of Flores, the Manggarai came under the control of the sultanate of Bima, in eastern Sumbawa; the Dutch effectively established their administration over western Flores in 1907 while in 1929, the Bimanese sultanate ceded any control over Manggarai.
In 1846, Dutch and Portuguese initiated negotiations towards delimiting the territories but these negotiations led nowhere. In 1851 Lima Lopes, the new governor of Timor, Solor and Flores, agreed to sell eastern Flores and the nearby islands to the Dutch in return for a payment of 200,000 Florins in order to support his impoverished administration. Lima Lopes did so without the consent of Lisbon and was dismissed in disgrace, but his agreement was not rescinded and in 1854 Portugal ceded all its historical claims on Flores. After this, Flores became part of the territory of the Dutch East Indies.
During World War II a Japanese invasion force landed at Reo on 14 May 1942 and occupied Flores. After the war Flores became part of independent Indonesia.
On 12 December 1992, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale killed 2,500 people in and around Maumere, including islands off the north coast.
In 2017 two men were killed in Flores due to land disputes between warrior clans; the Mbehel, a West Manggarai mountain tribe, and the Rangko from Sulawesi island who helped build Manggarai and were given land near Labuan Bajo by the Manggarai king.
Flores is part of the East Nusa Tenggara province. The island along with smaller minor islands is split into eight regencies (local government divisions); from west to east these are: Manggarai Barat (West Manggarai), Manggarai (Central Manggarai), Manggarai Timur (East Manggarai), Ngada, Nagekeo, Ende, Sikka and part of Flores Timur (East Flores). Flores has 35.22% of the East Nusa Tenggara provincial population as of 2022, and is the largest of all islands in the province, with the second-largest population (Timor has slightly more people).
The eight regencies are listed below from east to west, with their areas and their populations at the 2010 Census and the 2020 Census, together with the official estimates as at mid 2022.
Notes: (a) only the eight districts of this regency actually on Flores Island are included in these figures; the three districts comprising Solor Island and the eight districts on Adonara Island are excluded.(b) West Manggarai Regency includes Komodo and Rinca islands off the west coast of Flores; these islands are part of a National Park and thus poorly inhabited.
The main towns on Flores are Maumere, Ende, Ruteng, Larantuka and Bajawa, listed with their populations as at mid 2022.
The Komodo dragon is endemic to Flores and surrounding islands, and has been continuously present on Flores for at least 1.4 million years. Today, it is confined to a handful of small areas on Flores itself.
The endemic fauna of Flores includes a number of rats (Murinae), some of which are now extinct, ranging from small sized forms such as Rattus hainaldi, Paulamys, and the Polynesian rat (which possibly originated on the island), medium sized such as Komodomys, and Hooijeromys, and giant such as Spelaeomys and Papagomys, the largest species of which, the still living Papagomys armandvillei (Flores giant rat) is approximately the size of a rabbit, with a weight of up to 2.5 kilograms.
Flores was also the habitat of several extinct dwarf forms of the proboscidean (elephant-relative) Stegodon, the most recent (Stegodon florensis insularis) disappearing approximately 50,000 years ago. The island prior to modern human arrival was also inhabited by the giant stork Leptoptilos robustus and the vulture Trigonoceps.
There are many languages spoken on the island of Flores, all of them belonging to the Austronesian family. In the west Manggarai is spoken; Riung, often classified as a dialect of Manggarai, is spoken in the north-central part of the island. In the centre of the island in the districts of Ngada, Nagekeo, and Ende there is what is variously called the Central Flores dialect chain or linkage. Within this area there are slight linguistic differences in almost every village. At least six separate languages are identifiable. These are from west to east: Ngadha, Nage, Keo, Ende, Lio and Palu'e, which is spoken on the island with the same name off the north coast of Flores. Locals would probably also add So'a and Bajawa to this list, which anthropologists have labeled dialects of Ngadha. To the east, Sika and Lamaholot can be found.
The native peoples of Flores are mostly Roman Catholic Christians, whereas most other Indonesians are Muslim. As a consequence, Flores may be regarded as surrounded by a religious border. The prominence of Catholicism on the island results from its colonisation by Portugal in the east and early 20th-century support by the Dutch in the west. In other parts of Indonesia with significant Christian populations, such as the Maluku Islands and Sulawesi, the geographical divide is less rigid and Muslims and Christians sometimes live side by side. Flores thereby also has less religious violence than that which has sporadically occurred in other parts of Indonesia. There are several churches on the island. On 26 May 2019, Flores' St. Paul Catholic University of Indonesia was formally inaugurated by Indonesian Education Minister Mohamad Nasir, becoming the first Catholic University in Flores. Aside from Catholicism, Islam also has a presence on the island especially in some coastal communities.
The most famous tourist attraction in Flores is the 1,639-metre-high (5,377-foot) Kelimutu volcano, containing three colored lakes, located in the district of Ende close to the town of Moni, although there is also the Inierie volcano near Bajawa. These crater lakes are in the caldera of a volcano, and fed by a volcanic gas source, resulting in highly acidic water. The colored lakes change colors on an irregular basis, depending on the oxidation state of the lake from bright red through green and blue.
There are snorkelling and diving locations along the north coast of Flores, most notably Maumere and Riung. However, due to the destructive practice of local fishermen using bombs to fish, and locals selling shells to tourists, combined with the after effects of a devastating tsunami in 1992, the reefs have slowly been destroyed.
Labuan Bajo, located on the western tip is often used by tourists as a base to visit Komodo and Rinca islands. Labuan Bajo also attracts scuba divers, as whale sharks inhabit the waters around Labuan bajo.
The Luba and Bena villages include traditional houses in Flores. Bena is also noted for its Stone Age megaliths.
Larantuka, on the isle's eastern end, is known for its Holy Week festivals.
In recent years, local tourist firms around Kelimutu have begun promoting cycling tours around Flores, some of which take up to five or six days depending on the particular program.
In addition to tourism, the main economic activities on Flores are agriculture, fishing and seaweed production. The primary food crops being grown on Flores are rice, maize, sweet potato and cassava, while the main cash crops are coffee, coconut, candle nut and cashew. Flores is one of the newest origins for Indonesian coffee. Previously, most Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica) from Flores was blended with other origins. Now, demand is growing for this coffee because of its heavy body and sweet chocolate, floral and woody notes.
There are at least six airports in Flores distributed along the island, ordered from west to east:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Including Komodo Island off its west coast (but excluding the Solor Archipelago to the east of Flores), the land area is 15,530.58 km, and the population was 1,878,875 in the 2020 Census (including various offshore islands); the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 1,919,395. The largest towns are Maumere and Ende. The name Flores is of Portuguese origin, meaning \"Flowers\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Flores is located east of Sumbawa and the Komodo islands, and west of the Solor Islands and the Alor Archipelago. To the southeast is Timor. To the south, across the Sumba Strait, is Sumba island and to the north, beyond the Flores Sea, is Sulawesi.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Among all islands containing Indonesian territory, Flores is the 10th most populous after Java, Sumatra, Borneo (Kalimantan), Sulawesi, New Guinea, Bali, Madura, Lombok, and Timor and also the 10th biggest island of Indonesia.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Until the arrival of modern humans, Flores was inhabited by Homo floresiensis, a small archaic human.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Unlike most islands in the Indonesian archipelago, the modern name Flores was given by the Portuguese, from Cabo das Flores (Cape of Flowers), the Portuguese term for the eastern part of the island. This part of the island, originally called Kopondai, was so named by the Portuguese because of the flowering Delonix regia trees found there. The original name of Flores was Nipa, referring to the serpent.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Before the arrival of modern humans, Flores was occupied by Homo floresiensis, a small archaic human. The ancestors of Homo floresiensis arrived on the island between 1.3 and 1 million years ago.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Remains of nine individuals have been found, and the dominant consensus is that these remains do represent a distinct species due to anatomical differences from modern humans. The most recent evidence shows that Homo floresiensis likely became extinct 50,000 years ago, around the time of modern human arrival to the archipelago.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Flores was most likely first inhabited by Melanesians at least since 30,000 BC. This is shown in their DNA results which mirror those of Maluku and East Timor which are around half Melanesian and half Austronesian.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Portuguese traders and missionaries came to Flores in the 16th century, mainly to Larantuka and Sikka. Their influence is still discernible in Sikka's language, culture and religion. The first Portuguese visit took place in 1511, through the expedition of António de Abreu and his vice-captain Francisco Serrão, en route through the Sunda islands.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Dominican order played an important role on this island, as well as on the neighbouring islands of Timor and Solor. When the Dutch attacked the Fortress of Solor in 1613, the population of the fort, led by the Dominicans, moved to the harbor town of Larantuka on the eastern coast of Flores. This population was mixed, of Portuguese and local islander descent and Larantuqueiros, Topasses or, as Dutch knew them, the 'Black Portuguese' (Zwarte Portugezen).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Larantuqueiros or Topasses became the dominant sandalwood trading people of the region for the next 200 years. This group used Portuguese as the language for worship, Malay as the language of trade and a mixed dialect as mother tongue. This was observed by William Dampier, an English privateer visiting the Island in 1699:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "These [the Topasses] have no Forts, but depend on their Alliance with the Natives: And indeed they are already so mixt, that it is hard to distinguish whether they are Portuguese or Indians. Their Language is Portuguese; and the religion they have, is Romish. They seem in Words to acknowledge the King of Portugal for their Sovereign; yet they will not accept any Officers sent by him. They speak indifferently the Malayan and their own native Languages, as well as Portuguese.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In the western part of Flores, the Manggarai came under the control of the sultanate of Bima, in eastern Sumbawa; the Dutch effectively established their administration over western Flores in 1907 while in 1929, the Bimanese sultanate ceded any control over Manggarai.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 1846, Dutch and Portuguese initiated negotiations towards delimiting the territories but these negotiations led nowhere. In 1851 Lima Lopes, the new governor of Timor, Solor and Flores, agreed to sell eastern Flores and the nearby islands to the Dutch in return for a payment of 200,000 Florins in order to support his impoverished administration. Lima Lopes did so without the consent of Lisbon and was dismissed in disgrace, but his agreement was not rescinded and in 1854 Portugal ceded all its historical claims on Flores. After this, Flores became part of the territory of the Dutch East Indies.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "During World War II a Japanese invasion force landed at Reo on 14 May 1942 and occupied Flores. After the war Flores became part of independent Indonesia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "On 12 December 1992, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale killed 2,500 people in and around Maumere, including islands off the north coast.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In 2017 two men were killed in Flores due to land disputes between warrior clans; the Mbehel, a West Manggarai mountain tribe, and the Rangko from Sulawesi island who helped build Manggarai and were given land near Labuan Bajo by the Manggarai king.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Flores is part of the East Nusa Tenggara province. The island along with smaller minor islands is split into eight regencies (local government divisions); from west to east these are: Manggarai Barat (West Manggarai), Manggarai (Central Manggarai), Manggarai Timur (East Manggarai), Ngada, Nagekeo, Ende, Sikka and part of Flores Timur (East Flores). Flores has 35.22% of the East Nusa Tenggara provincial population as of 2022, and is the largest of all islands in the province, with the second-largest population (Timor has slightly more people).",
"title": "Administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The eight regencies are listed below from east to west, with their areas and their populations at the 2010 Census and the 2020 Census, together with the official estimates as at mid 2022.",
"title": "Administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Notes: (a) only the eight districts of this regency actually on Flores Island are included in these figures; the three districts comprising Solor Island and the eight districts on Adonara Island are excluded.(b) West Manggarai Regency includes Komodo and Rinca islands off the west coast of Flores; these islands are part of a National Park and thus poorly inhabited.",
"title": "Administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The main towns on Flores are Maumere, Ende, Ruteng, Larantuka and Bajawa, listed with their populations as at mid 2022.",
"title": "Administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The Komodo dragon is endemic to Flores and surrounding islands, and has been continuously present on Flores for at least 1.4 million years. Today, it is confined to a handful of small areas on Flores itself.",
"title": "Flora and fauna"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The endemic fauna of Flores includes a number of rats (Murinae), some of which are now extinct, ranging from small sized forms such as Rattus hainaldi, Paulamys, and the Polynesian rat (which possibly originated on the island), medium sized such as Komodomys, and Hooijeromys, and giant such as Spelaeomys and Papagomys, the largest species of which, the still living Papagomys armandvillei (Flores giant rat) is approximately the size of a rabbit, with a weight of up to 2.5 kilograms.",
"title": "Flora and fauna"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Flores was also the habitat of several extinct dwarf forms of the proboscidean (elephant-relative) Stegodon, the most recent (Stegodon florensis insularis) disappearing approximately 50,000 years ago. The island prior to modern human arrival was also inhabited by the giant stork Leptoptilos robustus and the vulture Trigonoceps.",
"title": "Flora and fauna"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "There are many languages spoken on the island of Flores, all of them belonging to the Austronesian family. In the west Manggarai is spoken; Riung, often classified as a dialect of Manggarai, is spoken in the north-central part of the island. In the centre of the island in the districts of Ngada, Nagekeo, and Ende there is what is variously called the Central Flores dialect chain or linkage. Within this area there are slight linguistic differences in almost every village. At least six separate languages are identifiable. These are from west to east: Ngadha, Nage, Keo, Ende, Lio and Palu'e, which is spoken on the island with the same name off the north coast of Flores. Locals would probably also add So'a and Bajawa to this list, which anthropologists have labeled dialects of Ngadha. To the east, Sika and Lamaholot can be found.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The native peoples of Flores are mostly Roman Catholic Christians, whereas most other Indonesians are Muslim. As a consequence, Flores may be regarded as surrounded by a religious border. The prominence of Catholicism on the island results from its colonisation by Portugal in the east and early 20th-century support by the Dutch in the west. In other parts of Indonesia with significant Christian populations, such as the Maluku Islands and Sulawesi, the geographical divide is less rigid and Muslims and Christians sometimes live side by side. Flores thereby also has less religious violence than that which has sporadically occurred in other parts of Indonesia. There are several churches on the island. On 26 May 2019, Flores' St. Paul Catholic University of Indonesia was formally inaugurated by Indonesian Education Minister Mohamad Nasir, becoming the first Catholic University in Flores. Aside from Catholicism, Islam also has a presence on the island especially in some coastal communities.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The most famous tourist attraction in Flores is the 1,639-metre-high (5,377-foot) Kelimutu volcano, containing three colored lakes, located in the district of Ende close to the town of Moni, although there is also the Inierie volcano near Bajawa. These crater lakes are in the caldera of a volcano, and fed by a volcanic gas source, resulting in highly acidic water. The colored lakes change colors on an irregular basis, depending on the oxidation state of the lake from bright red through green and blue.",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "There are snorkelling and diving locations along the north coast of Flores, most notably Maumere and Riung. However, due to the destructive practice of local fishermen using bombs to fish, and locals selling shells to tourists, combined with the after effects of a devastating tsunami in 1992, the reefs have slowly been destroyed.",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Labuan Bajo, located on the western tip is often used by tourists as a base to visit Komodo and Rinca islands. Labuan Bajo also attracts scuba divers, as whale sharks inhabit the waters around Labuan bajo.",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The Luba and Bena villages include traditional houses in Flores. Bena is also noted for its Stone Age megaliths.",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Larantuka, on the isle's eastern end, is known for its Holy Week festivals.",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In recent years, local tourist firms around Kelimutu have begun promoting cycling tours around Flores, some of which take up to five or six days depending on the particular program.",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In addition to tourism, the main economic activities on Flores are agriculture, fishing and seaweed production. The primary food crops being grown on Flores are rice, maize, sweet potato and cassava, while the main cash crops are coffee, coconut, candle nut and cashew. Flores is one of the newest origins for Indonesian coffee. Previously, most Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica) from Flores was blended with other origins. Now, demand is growing for this coffee because of its heavy body and sweet chocolate, floral and woody notes.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "There are at least six airports in Flores distributed along the island, ordered from west to east:",
"title": "Transport"
}
] |
Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Including Komodo Island off its west coast, the land area is 15,530.58 km2, and the population was 1,878,875 in the 2020 Census; the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 1,919,395. The largest towns are Maumere and Ende. The name Flores is of Portuguese origin, meaning "Flowers". Flores is located east of Sumbawa and the Komodo islands, and west of the Solor Islands and the Alor Archipelago. To the southeast is Timor. To the south, across the Sumba Strait, is Sumba island and to the north, beyond the Flores Sea, is Sulawesi. Among all islands containing Indonesian territory, Flores is the 10th most populous after Java, Sumatra, Borneo (Kalimantan), Sulawesi, New Guinea, Bali, Madura, Lombok, and Timor and also the 10th biggest island of Indonesia. Until the arrival of modern humans, Flores was inhabited by Homo floresiensis, a small archaic human.
|
2001-10-31T20:48:38Z
|
2023-12-24T12:24:36Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flores
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11,427 |
First Punic War
|
The First Punic War (264–241 BC) was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and greatest naval war of antiquity, the two powers struggled for supremacy. The war was fought primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters, and also in North Africa. After immense losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were defeated.
The war began in 264 BC with the Romans gaining a foothold on Sicily at Messana (modern Messina). The Romans then pressed Syracuse, the only significant independent power on the island, into allying with them and laid siege to Carthage's main base at Akragas. A large Carthaginian army attempted to lift the siege in 262 BC but was heavily defeated at the Battle of Akragas. The Romans then built a navy to challenge the Carthaginians', and using novel tactics inflicted several defeats. A Carthaginian base on Corsica was seized, but an attack on Sardinia was repulsed; the base on Corsica was then lost. Taking advantage of their naval victories the Romans launched an invasion of North Africa, which the Carthaginians intercepted. At the Battle of Cape Ecnomus the Carthaginians were again beaten; this was possibly the largest naval battle in history by the number of combatants involved. The invasion initially went well and in 255 BC the Carthaginians sued for peace; the proposed terms were so harsh they fought on, defeating the invaders. The Romans sent a fleet to evacuate their survivors and the Carthaginians opposed it at the Battle of Cape Hermaeum off Africa; the Carthaginians were heavily defeated. The Roman fleet, in turn, was devastated by a storm while returning to Italy, losing most of its ships and over 100,000 men.
The war continued, with neither side able to gain a decisive advantage. The Carthaginians attacked and recaptured Akragas in 255 BC but, not believing they could hold the city, they razed and abandoned it. The Romans rapidly rebuilt their fleet, adding 220 new ships, and captured Panormus (modern Palermo) in 254 BC. The next year they lost 150 ships to a storm. In 251 BC the Carthaginians attempted to recapture Panormus, but were defeated in a battle outside the walls. Slowly the Romans had occupied most of Sicily; in 249 BC they besieged the last two Carthaginian strongholds – in the extreme west. They also launched a surprise attack on the Carthaginian fleet but were defeated at the Battle of Drepana. The Carthaginians followed up their victory and most of the remaining Roman warships were lost at the Battle of Phintias. After several years of stalemate, the Romans rebuilt their fleet again in 243 BC and effectively blockaded the Carthaginian garrisons. Carthage assembled a fleet that attempted to relieve them, but it was destroyed at the Battle of the Aegates Islands in 241 BC, forcing the cut-off Carthaginian troops on Sicily to negotiate for peace.
A treaty was agreed. By its terms Carthage paid large reparations and Sicily was annexed as a Roman province. Henceforth Rome was the leading military power in the western Mediterranean, and increasingly the Mediterranean region as a whole. The immense effort of building 1,000 galleys during the war laid the foundation for Rome's maritime dominance for 600 years. The end of the war sparked a major but unsuccessful revolt within the Carthaginian Empire. The unresolved strategic competition between Rome and Carthage led to the eruption of the Second Punic War in 218 BC.
The term Punic comes from the Latin word Punicus (or Poenicus), meaning "Phoenician", and is a reference to the Carthaginians' Phoenician ancestry. The main source for almost every aspect of the First Punic War is the historian Polybius (c. 200 – c. 118 BC), a Greek sent to Rome in 167 BC as a hostage. His works include a now-lost manual on military tactics, but he is known today for The Histories, written sometime after 146 BC or about a century after the end of the war. Polybius's work is considered broadly objective and largely neutral as between Carthaginian and Roman points of view.
Carthaginian written records were destroyed along with their capital, Carthage, in 146 BC and so Polybius's account of the First Punic War is based on several, now-lost, Greek and Latin sources. Polybius was an analytical historian and wherever possible personally interviewed participants in the events he wrote about. Only the first book of the 40 comprising The Histories deals with the First Punic War. The accuracy of Polybius's account has been much debated over the past 150 years, but the modern consensus is to accept it largely at face value, and the details of the war in modern sources are almost entirely based on interpretations of Polybius's account. The modern historian Andrew Curry considers that "Polybius turns out to [be] fairly reliable"; while Craige B. Champion describes him as "a remarkably well-informed, industrious, and insightful historian". Other, later, histories of the war exist, but in fragmentary or summary form. Modern historians usually take into account the fragmentary writings of various Roman annalists, especially Livy (who relied on Polybius), the Sicilian Greek Diodorus Siculus, and the later Greek writers Appian and Cassius Dio. The classicist Adrian Goldsworthy states that "Polybius' account is usually to be preferred when it differs with any of our other accounts". Other sources include inscriptions, terrestrial archaeological evidence, and empirical evidence from reconstructions such as the trireme Olympias.
Since 2010, 19 bronze warship rams have been found by archaeologists in the sea off the west coast of Sicily, a mix of Roman and Carthaginian. Ten bronze helmets and hundreds of amphorae have also been found. The rams, seven of the helmets, and six intact amphorae, along with a large number of fragments, have since been recovered. It is believed the rams were each attached to a sunken warship when they were deposited on the seabed. The archaeologists involved stated that the location of artefacts so far discovered supports Polybius's account of where the Battle of the Aegates Islands took place. Based on the dimensions of the recovered rams, the archaeologists who have studied them believe they all came from triremes, contrary to Polybius's account that all the warships involved were quinqueremes. However, they believe that the many amphorae identified confirm the accuracy of other aspects of Polybius's account of this battle: "It is the sought-after convergence of the archaeological and historical records."
The Roman Republic had been aggressively expanding in the southern Italian mainland for a century before the First Punic War. It had conquered peninsular Italy south of the River Arno by 272 BC when the Greek cities of southern Italy (Magna Graecia) submitted at the conclusion of the Pyrrhic War. During this period Carthage, with its capital in what is now Tunisia, had come to dominate southern Spain, much of the coastal regions of North Africa, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, and the western half of Sicily, in a military and commercial empire. Beginning in 480 BC Carthage had fought a series of inconclusive wars against the Greek city states of Sicily, led by Syracuse. By 264 BC Carthage and Rome were the preeminent powers in the western Mediterranean. The two states had several times asserted their mutual friendship via formal alliances: in 509 BC, 348 BC and around 279 BC. Relationships were good, with strong commercial links. During the Pyrrhic War of 280–275 BC, against a king of Epirus who alternately fought Rome in Italy and Carthage on Sicily, Carthage provided materiel to the Romans and on at least one occasion used its navy to ferry a Roman force.
In 289 BC a group of Italian mercenaries known as Mamertines, previously hired by Syracuse, occupied the city of Messana (modern Messina) on the north-eastern tip of Sicily. Hard-pressed by Syracuse, the Mamertines appealed to both Rome and Carthage for assistance in 265 BC. The Carthaginians acted first, pressing Hiero II, king of Syracuse, into taking no further action and convincing the Mamertines to accept a Carthaginian garrison. According to Polybius, a considerable debate then took place in Rome as to whether to accept the Mamertines' appeal for assistance. As the Carthaginians had already garrisoned Messana acceptance could easily lead to war with Carthage. The Romans had not previously displayed any interest in Sicily and did not wish to come to the aid of soldiers who had unjustly stolen a city from its rightful owners. However, many of them saw strategic and monetary advantages in gaining a foothold in Sicily. The deadlocked Roman Senate, possibly at the instigation of Appius Claudius Caudex, put the matter before the popular assembly in 264 BC. Caudex encouraged a vote for action and held out the prospect of plentiful booty; the popular assembly decided to accept the Mamertines' request. Caudex was appointed commander of a military expedition with orders to cross to Sicily and place a Roman garrison in Messana.
The war began with the Romans landing on Sicily in 264 BC. Despite the Carthaginian naval advantage, the Roman crossing of the Strait of Messina was ineffectively opposed. Two legions commanded by Caudex marched to Messana, where the Mamertines had expelled the Carthaginian garrison commanded by Hanno (no relation to Hanno the Great) and were besieged by both the Carthaginians and the Syracusans. The sources are unclear as to why, but first the Syracusans, and then the Carthaginians withdrew from the siege. The Romans marched south and in turn besieged Syracuse, but they had neither a strong enough force nor the secure supply lines to prosecute a successful siege, and soon withdrew. The Carthaginians' experience over the previous two centuries of warfare on Sicily was that decisive action was impossible; military efforts petered out after heavy losses and huge expense. The Carthaginian leaders expected that this war would run a similar course. Meanwhile, their overwhelming maritime superiority would allow the war to be kept at a distance, and even for them to continue to prosper. This would allow them to recruit and pay an army that would operate in the open against the Romans, while their strongly fortified cities could be supplied by sea and provide a defensive base from which to operate.
Adult male Roman citizens were liable for military service; most would serve as infantry with the wealthier minority providing a cavalry component. Traditionally the Romans would raise two legions, each of 4,200 infantry and 300 cavalry. A small number of the infantry served as javelin-armed skirmishers. The balance were equipped as heavy infantry, with body armour, a large shield, and short thrusting swords. They were divided into three ranks, of which the front rank also carried two javelins, while the second and third ranks had a thrusting spear instead. Both legionary sub-units and individual legionaries fought in relatively open order. An army was usually formed by combining a Roman legion with a similarly sized and equipped legion provided by their Latin allies.
Carthaginian citizens served in their army only if there was a direct threat to the city. In most circumstances Carthage recruited foreigners to make up its army. Many would be from North Africa which provided several types of fighters including: close-order infantry equipped with large shields, helmets, short swords and long thrusting spears; javelin-armed light infantry skirmishers; close-order shock cavalry (also known as "heavy cavalry") carrying spears; and light cavalry skirmishers who threw javelins from a distance and avoided close combat. Both Spain and Gaul provided experienced infantry; unarmoured troops who would charge ferociously, but had a reputation for breaking off if a combat was protracted. Most of the Carthaginian infantry would fight in a tightly packed formation known as a phalanx, usually forming two or three lines. Specialist slingers were recruited from the Balearic Islands. The Carthaginians also employed war elephants; North Africa had indigenous African forest elephants at the time. The sources are not clear as to whether they carried towers containing fighting men.
Quinqueremes, meaning "five-oared", provided the workhorse of the Roman and Carthaginian fleets throughout the Punic Wars. So ubiquitous was the type that Polybius uses it as a shorthand for "warship" in general. A quinquereme carried a crew of 300: 280 oarsmen and 20 deck crew and officers. It would also normally carry a complement of 40 marines – usually soldiers assigned to the ship – if battle was thought to be imminent this would be increased to as many as 120.
Getting the oarsmen to row as a unit, let alone to execute more complex battle manoeuvres, required long and arduous training. At least half of the oarsmen would need to have had some experience if the ship was to be handled effectively. As a result, the Romans were initially at a disadvantage against the more experienced Carthaginians. To counter this, the Romans introduced the corvus, a bridge 1.2 metres (4 feet) wide and 11 metres (36 feet) long, with a heavy spike on the underside of the free end, which was designed to pierce and anchor into an enemy ship's deck. This allowed Roman legionaries acting as marines to board enemy ships and capture them, rather than employing the previously traditional tactic of ramming.
All warships were equipped with rams, a triple set of 60-centimetre-wide (2 ft) bronze blades weighing up to 270 kilograms (600 lb) positioned at the waterline. In the century prior to the Punic Wars, boarding had become increasingly common and ramming had declined, as the larger and heavier vessels adopted in this period lacked the speed and manoeuvrability necessary to ram, while their sturdier construction reduced the ram's effect even in case of a successful attack. The Roman adaptation of the corvus was a continuation of this trend and compensated for their initial disadvantage in ship-manoeuvring skills. The added weight in the prow compromised both the ship's manoeuvrability and its seaworthiness, and in rough sea conditions the corvus became useless.
Much of the war was to be fought on, or in the waters near, Sicily. Away from the coasts, its hilly and rugged terrain made manoeuvring large forces difficult and favoured defence over offence. Land operations were largely confined to raids, sieges, and interdiction; in 23 years of war on Sicily there were only two full-scale pitched battles – Akragas in 262 BC and Panormus in 250 BC. Garrison duty and land blockades were the most common operations for both armies.
It was the long-standing Roman procedure to appoint two men each year, known as consuls, to each lead an army. In 263 BC both consuls were sent to Sicily with a force of 40,000. Syracuse was again besieged, and with no Carthaginian assistance anticipated, Syracuse rapidly made peace with the Romans: it became a Roman ally, paid an indemnity of 100 talents of silver and, perhaps most importantly, agreed to help supply the Roman army in Sicily. Following the defection of Syracuse, several small Carthaginian dependencies switched to the Romans. Akragas (Latin: Agrigentum; modern Agrigento), a port city halfway along the south coast of Sicily, was chosen by the Carthaginians as their strategic centre. The Romans marched on it in 262 BC and besieged it. The Romans had an inadequate supply system, partly because the Carthaginian naval supremacy prevented them from shipping supplies by sea, and they were not in any case accustomed to feeding an army as large as 40,000 men. At harvest time most of the army was dispersed over a wide area to harvest the crops and to forage. The Carthaginians, commanded by Hannibal Gisco, sortied in force, taking the Romans by surprise and penetrating their camp; the Romans rallied and routed the Carthaginians; after this experience both sides were more guarded.
Meanwhile, Carthage had recruited an army, which assembled in Africa and was shipped to Sicily. It was composed of 50,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry and 60 elephants, and was commanded by Hanno, son of Hannibal; it was partly made up of Ligurians, Celts and Iberians. Five months after the siege began, Hanno marched to Akragas's relief. When he arrived, he merely camped on high ground, engaged in desultory skirmishing and trained his army. Two months later, in spring 261 BC, he attacked. The Carthaginians were defeated with heavy losses at the Battle of Akragas. The Romans, under both consuls – Lucius Postumius Megellus and Quintus Mamilius Vitulus – pursued, capturing the Carthaginians' elephants and baggage train. That night the Carthaginian garrison escaped while the Romans were distracted. The next day the Romans seized the city and its inhabitants, selling 25,000 of them into slavery.
After this success for the Romans, the war became fragmented for several years, with minor successes for each side, but no clear focus. In part this was because the Romans diverted many of their resources to an ultimately fruitless campaign against Corsica and Sardinia, and then into the equally fruitless expedition to Africa. After taking Akragas the Romans advanced westward to besiege Mytistraton for seven months, without success. In 259 BC they advanced toward Thermae on the north coast. After a quarrel, the Roman troops and their allies set up separate camps. Hamilcar took advantage of this to launch a counter-attack, taking one of the contingents by surprise as it was breaking camp and killing 4,000–6,000. Hamilcar went on to seize Enna, in central Sicily, and Camarina, in the south east, dangerously close to Syracuse. Hamilcar seemed close to overrunning the whole of Sicily. The following year the Romans retook Enna and finally captured Mytistraton. They then moved on Panormus (modern Palermo), but had to withdraw, although they did capture Hippana. In 258 BC they recaptured Camarina after a lengthy siege. For the next few years petty raiding, skirmishing and the occasional defection of a smaller town from one side to the other continued on Sicily.
The war in Sicily reached a stalemate, as the Carthaginians focused on defending their well-fortified towns and cities; these were mostly on the coast and so could be supplied and reinforced without the Romans being able to use their superior army to interdict. The focus of the war shifted to the sea, where the Romans had little experience; on the few occasions they had previously felt the need for a naval presence they had usually relied on small squadrons provided by their Latin or Greek allies. In 260 BC Romans set out to construct a fleet and used a shipwrecked Carthaginian quinquereme as a blueprint for their own. As novice shipwrights, the Romans built copies that were heavier than the Carthaginian vessels, making them much slower and less maneuvrable.
The Romans built 120 warships and despatched them to Sicily in 260 BC for their crews to carry out basic training. One of the consuls for the year, Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, sailed with the first 17 ships to arrive to the Lipari Islands, a little way off the north-east coast of Sicily, in an attempt to seize the islands' main port, Lipara. The Carthaginian fleet was commanded by Hannibal Gisco, the general who had commanded the garrison of Akragas, and was based at Panormus, some 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Lipara. When Hannibal heard of the Romans' move he despatched 20 ships under Boodes to the town. The Carthaginians arrived at night and trapped the Romans in the harbour. Boodes' ships attacked and Scipio's inexperienced men offered little resistance. Some Romans panicked and fled inland and the consul himself was taken prisoner. All of the Roman ships were captured, most with little damage. A little later, Hannibal was scouting with 50 Carthaginian ships when he encountered the full Roman fleet. He escaped, but lost most of his ships. It was after this skirmish that the Romans installed the corvus on their ships.
Scipio's fellow consul, Gaius Duilius, placed the Roman army units under subordinates and took command of the fleet. He promptly sailed, seeking battle. The two fleets met off the coast of Mylae in the Battle of Mylae. Hannibal had 130 ships, and the historian John Lazenby calculates that Duilius had approximately the same number. The Carthaginians anticipated victory, due to the superior experience of their crews, and their faster and more manoeuvrable galleys, and broke formation to close rapidly with the Romans. The first 30 Carthaginian ships were grappled by the corvus and successfully boarded by the Romans, including Hannibal's ship – he escaped in a skiff. Seeing this, the remaining Carthaginians swung wide, attempting to take the Romans in the sides or rear. The Romans successfully countered and captured a further 20 Carthaginian vessels. The surviving Carthaginians broke off the action, and being faster than the Romans were able to escape. Duilius sailed to relieve the Roman-held city of Segesta, which had been under siege.
From early 262 BC Carthaginian ships had been raiding the Italian coast from bases on Sardinia and Corsica. The year after Mylae, 259 BC, the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio led part of the fleet against Aléria in Corsica and captured it. He then attacked Ulbia on Sardinia, but was repulsed, and also lost Aléria. In 258 BC a stronger Roman fleet engaged a smaller Carthaginian fleet at the Battle of Sulci off the city of Sulci, in western Sardinia, and inflicted a heavy defeat. The Carthaginian commander Hannibal Gisco, who abandoned his men and fled to Sulci, was later captured by his soldiers and crucified. Despite this victory, the Romans – who were attempting to support simultaneous offensives against both Sardinia and Sicily – were unable to exploit it, and the attack on Carthaginian-held Sardinia petered out.
In 257 BC the Roman fleet happened to be anchored off Tyndaris in north-east Sicily when the Carthaginian fleet, unaware of its presence, sailed past in loose formation. The Roman commander, Gaius Atilius Regulus, ordered an immediate attack, initiating the Battle of Tyndaris. This led to the Roman fleet in turn putting to sea in a disordered manner. The Carthaginians responded rapidly, ramming and sinking nine of the leading ten Roman ships. As the main Roman force came into action they sank eight Carthaginian ships and captured ten. The Carthaginians withdrew, again being faster than the Romans and so able to make off without further loss. The Romans then raided both the Liparis and Malta.
Rome's naval victories at Mylae and Sulci, and their frustration at the stalemate in Sicily, led them to adopt a sea-based strategy and to develop a plan to invade the Carthaginian heartland in North Africa and threaten Carthage (close to Tunis). Both sides were determined to establish naval supremacy and invested large amounts of money and manpower in maintaining and increasing the size of their navies. The Roman fleet of 330 warships and an unknown number of transports sailed from Ostia, the port of Rome, in early 256 BC, commanded by the consuls for the year, Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus. The Romans embarked approximately 26,000 legionaries from the Roman forces on Sicily shortly before the battle. They planned to cross to Africa and invade what is now Tunisia.
The Carthaginians knew of the Romans' intentions and mustered all their 350 warships under Hanno the Great and Hamilcar, off the south coast of Sicily to intercept them. With a combined total of about 680 warships carrying up to 290,000 crew and marines, the ensuing Battle of Cape Ecnomus was possibly the largest naval battle in history by the number of combatants involved. At the start of the battle the Carthaginians took the initiative, hoping their superior ship handling skills would tell. After a day of prolonged and confused fighting the Carthaginians were defeated, losing 30 ships sunk and 64 captured to Roman losses of 24 ships sunk.
After the victory the Roman army, commanded by Regulus, landed in Africa near Aspis (modern Kelibia) on the Cape Bon Peninsula and began ravaging the Carthaginian countryside. After a brief siege, Aspis was captured. Most of the Roman ships returned to Sicily, leaving Regulus with 15,000 infantry and 500 cavalry to continue the war in Africa; Regulus laid siege to the city of Adys. The Carthaginians had recalled Hamilcar from Sicily with 5,000 infantry and 500 cavalry. Hamilcar, Hasdrubal and a third general called Bostar were placed in joint command of an army which was strong in cavalry and elephants and was approximately the same size as the Roman force. The Carthaginians established a camp on a hill near Adys. The Romans carried out a night march and launched a surprise dawn attack on the camp from two directions. After confused fighting the Carthaginians broke and fled. Their losses are unknown, although their elephants and cavalry escaped with few casualties.
The Romans followed up and captured Tunis, only 16 km (10 mi) from Carthage. From Tunis the Romans raided and devastated the immediate area around Carthage. In despair, the Carthaginians sued for peace but Regulus offered such harsh terms that the Carthaginians decided to fight on. Charge of the training of their army was given to the Spartan mercenary commander Xanthippus. In 255 BC Xanthippus led an army of 12,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and 100 elephants against the Romans and defeated them at the Battle of Tunis. Approximately 2,000 Romans retreated to Aspis; 500, including Regulus, were captured; the rest were killed. Xanthippus, fearful of the envy of the Carthaginian generals he had outdone, took his pay and returned to Greece. The Romans sent a fleet to evacuate their survivors. It was intercepted by a Carthaginian fleet off Cape Bon (in the north east of modern Tunisia) and in the Battle of Cape Hermaeum the Carthaginians were heavily defeated, losing 114 ships captured. The Roman fleet was devastated by a storm while returning to Italy, with 384 ships sunk from their total of 464 and 100,000 men lost, the majority non-Roman Latin allies. It is possible that the presence of the corvus made the Roman ships unusually unseaworthy; there is no record of them being used after this disaster.
Having lost most of their fleet in the storm of 255 BC, the Romans rapidly rebuilt it, adding 220 new ships. In 254 BC the Carthaginians attacked and captured Akragas, but not believing they could hold the city, they burned it, razed its walls and left. Meanwhile, the Romans launched a determined offensive in Sicily. Their entire fleet, under both consuls, attacked Panormus early in the year. The city was surrounded and blockaded, and siege engines set up. These made a breach in the walls which the Romans stormed, capturing the outer town and giving no quarter. The inner town promptly surrendered. The 14,000 inhabitants who could afford it ransomed themselves and the remaining 13,000 were sold into slavery. Much of western inland Sicily now went over to the Romans: Ietas, Solous, Petra, and Tyndaris all came to terms.
In 253 BC the Romans changed their focus to Africa again and carried out several raids. They lost another 150 ships, from a fleet of 220, to a storm while returning from raiding the North African coast east of Carthage. They rebuilt again. The next year the Romans shifted their attention to north-west Sicily. They sent a naval expedition toward Lilybaeum. En route, the Romans seized and burned the Carthaginian hold-out cities of Selinous and Heraclea Minoa, but they failed to take Lilybaeum. In 252 BC they captured Thermae and Lipara, which had been isolated by the fall of Panormus. Otherwise they avoided battle in 252 and 251 BC, according to Polybius because they feared the war elephants which the Carthaginians had shipped to Sicily.
In late summer 251 BC the Carthaginian commander Hasdrubal – who had faced Regulus in Africa – hearing that one consul had left Sicily for the winter with half of the Roman army, advanced on Panormus and devastated the countryside. The Roman army, which had been dispersed to gather the harvest, withdrew into Panormus. Hasdrubal boldly advanced most of his army, including the elephants, towards the city walls. The Roman commander Lucius Caecilius Metellus sent out skirmishers to harass the Carthaginians, keeping them constantly supplied with javelins from the stocks within the city. The ground was covered with earthworks constructed during the Roman siege, making it difficult for the elephants to advance. Peppered with missiles and unable to retaliate, the elephants fled through the Carthaginian infantry behind them. Metellus had opportunistically moved a large force to the Carthaginian's left flank, and they charged into their disordered opponents. The Carthaginians fled; Metellus captured ten elephants but did not permit a pursuit. Contemporary accounts do not report either side's losses, and modern historians consider later claims of 20,000–30,000 Carthaginian casualties improbable.
Encouraged by their victory at Panormus, the Romans moved against the main Carthaginian base on Sicily, Lilybaeum, in 249 BC. A large army commanded by the year's consuls Publius Claudius Pulcher and Lucius Junius Pullus besieged the city. They had rebuilt their fleet, and 200 ships blockaded the harbour. Early in the blockade, 50 Carthaginian quinqueremes gathered off the Aegates Islands, which lie 15–40 km (9–25 mi) to the west of Sicily. Once there was a strong west wind, they sailed into Lilybaeum before the Romans could react and unloaded reinforcements and a large quantity of supplies. They evaded the Romans by leaving at night, evacuating the Carthaginian cavalry. The Romans sealed off the landward approach to Lilybaeum with earth and timber camps and walls. They made repeated attempts to block the harbour entrance with a heavy timber boom, but due to the prevailing sea conditions they were unsuccessful. The Carthaginian garrison was kept supplied by blockade runners, light and manoeuvrable quinqueremes with highly trained crews and experienced pilots.
Pulcher decided to attack the Carthaginian fleet, which was in the harbour of the nearby city of Drepana (modern Trapani). The Roman fleet sailed by night to carry out a surprise attack, but became scattered in the dark. The Carthaginian commander Adherbal was able to lead his fleet out to sea before they were trapped and counter-attacked in the Battle of Drepana. The Romans were pinned against the shore and after a hard day's fighting were heavily defeated by the more manoeuvrable Carthaginian ships with their better-trained crews. It was Carthage's greatest naval victory of the war. Carthage turned to the maritime offensive, inflicting another heavy naval defeat at the Battle of Phintias and all but swept the Romans from the sea. It was to be seven years before Rome again attempted to field a substantial fleet, while Carthage put most of its ships into reserve to save money and free up manpower.
By 248 BC the Carthaginians held only two cities on Sicily: Lilybaeum and Drepana; these were well-fortified and situated on the west coast, where they could be supplied and reinforced without the Romans being able to use their superior army to interfere. When Hamilcar Barca took command of the Carthaginians on Sicily in 247 BC he was only given a small army and the Carthaginian fleet was gradually withdrawn. Hostilities between Roman and Carthaginian forces declined to small-scale land operations, which suited the Carthaginian strategy. Hamilcar employed combined arms tactics in a Fabian strategy from his base at Eryx, north of Drepana. This guerrilla warfare kept the Roman legions pinned down and preserved Carthage's foothold in Sicily.
After more than 20 years of war, both states were financially and demographically exhausted. Evidence of Carthage's financial situation includes their request for a 2,000 talent loan from Ptolemaic Egypt, which was refused. Rome was also close to bankruptcy and the number of adult male citizens, who provided the manpower for the navy and the legions, had declined by 17 percent since the start of the war. Goldsworthy describes Roman manpower losses as "appalling".
In late 243 BC, realizing they would not capture Drepana and Lilybaeum unless they could extend their blockade to the sea, the Senate decided to build a new fleet. With the state's coffers exhausted, the Senate approached Rome's wealthiest citizens for loans to finance the construction of one ship each, repayable from the reparations to be imposed on Carthage once the war was won. The result was a fleet of approximately 200 quinqueremes, built, equipped, and crewed without government expense. The Romans modelled the ships of their new fleet on a captured blockade runner with especially good qualities. By now, the Romans were experienced at shipbuilding, and with a proven vessel as a model produced high-quality quinqueremes. Importantly, the corvus was abandoned, which improved the ships' speed and handling but forced a change in tactics on the Romans; they would need to be superior sailors, rather than superior soldiers, to beat the Carthaginians.
The Carthaginians raised a larger fleet which they intended to use to run supplies into Sicily. It would then embark much of the Carthaginian army stationed there to use as marines. It was intercepted by the Roman fleet under Gaius Lutatius Catulus and Quintus Valerius Falto, and in the hard-fought Battle of the Aegates Islands the better-trained Romans defeated the undermanned and ill-trained Carthaginian fleet. After achieving this decisive victory, the Romans continued their land operations in Sicily against Lilybaeum and Drepana. The Carthaginian Senate was reluctant to allocate the resources necessary to have another fleet built and manned. Instead, it ordered Hamilcar to negotiate a peace treaty with the Romans, which he left up to his subordinate Gisco. The Treaty of Lutatius was signed and brought the First Punic War to its end: Carthage evacuated Sicily, handed over all prisoners taken during the war, and paid an indemnity of 3,200 talents over ten years.
The war lasted 23 years, the longest war in Romano-Greek history and the greatest naval war of the ancient world. In its aftermath Carthage attempted to avoid paying in full the foreign troops who had fought its war. Eventually they rebelled and were joined by many disgruntled local groups. They were put down with great difficulty and considerable savagery. In 237 BC Carthage prepared an expedition to recover the island of Sardinia, which had been lost to the rebels. Cynically, the Romans stated they considered this an act of war. Their peace terms were the ceding of Sardinia and Corsica and the payment of an additional 1,200-talent indemnity. Weakened by 30 years of war, Carthage agreed rather than enter into a conflict with Rome again; the additional payment and the renunciation of Sardinia and Corsica were added to the treaty as a codicil. These actions by Rome fuelled resentment in Carthage, which was not reconciled to Rome's perception of its situation, and are considered contributory factors in the outbreak of the Second Punic War.
The leading role of Hamilcar Barca in the defeat of the mutinous foreign troops and African rebels greatly enhanced the prestige and power of the Barcid family. In 237 BC Hamilcar led many of his veterans on an expedition to expand Carthaginian holdings in southern Iberia (modern Spain). Over the following 20 years this was to become a semi-autonomous Barcid fiefdom and the source of much of the silver used to pay the large indemnity owed to Rome.
For Rome, the end of the First Punic War marked the start of its expansion beyond the Italian Peninsula. Sicily became the first Roman province as Sicilia, governed by a former praetor. Sicily would become important to Rome as a source of grain. Sardinia and Corsica, combined, also became a Roman province and a source of grain, under a praetor, although a strong military presence was required for at least the next seven years, as the Romans struggled to suppress the local inhabitants. Syracuse was granted nominal independence and ally status for the lifetime of Hiero II. Henceforth Rome was the leading military power in the western Mediterranean, and increasingly the Mediterranean region as a whole. The Romans had built more than 1,000 galleys during the war, and this experience of building, manning, training, supplying and maintaining such numbers of ships laid the foundation for Rome's maritime dominance for 600 years. The question of which state was to control the western Mediterranean remained open, and when Carthage besieged the Roman-protected town of Saguntum in eastern Iberia in 218 BC it ignited the Second Punic War with Rome.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The First Punic War (264–241 BC) was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and greatest naval war of antiquity, the two powers struggled for supremacy. The war was fought primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters, and also in North Africa. After immense losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were defeated.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The war began in 264 BC with the Romans gaining a foothold on Sicily at Messana (modern Messina). The Romans then pressed Syracuse, the only significant independent power on the island, into allying with them and laid siege to Carthage's main base at Akragas. A large Carthaginian army attempted to lift the siege in 262 BC but was heavily defeated at the Battle of Akragas. The Romans then built a navy to challenge the Carthaginians', and using novel tactics inflicted several defeats. A Carthaginian base on Corsica was seized, but an attack on Sardinia was repulsed; the base on Corsica was then lost. Taking advantage of their naval victories the Romans launched an invasion of North Africa, which the Carthaginians intercepted. At the Battle of Cape Ecnomus the Carthaginians were again beaten; this was possibly the largest naval battle in history by the number of combatants involved. The invasion initially went well and in 255 BC the Carthaginians sued for peace; the proposed terms were so harsh they fought on, defeating the invaders. The Romans sent a fleet to evacuate their survivors and the Carthaginians opposed it at the Battle of Cape Hermaeum off Africa; the Carthaginians were heavily defeated. The Roman fleet, in turn, was devastated by a storm while returning to Italy, losing most of its ships and over 100,000 men.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The war continued, with neither side able to gain a decisive advantage. The Carthaginians attacked and recaptured Akragas in 255 BC but, not believing they could hold the city, they razed and abandoned it. The Romans rapidly rebuilt their fleet, adding 220 new ships, and captured Panormus (modern Palermo) in 254 BC. The next year they lost 150 ships to a storm. In 251 BC the Carthaginians attempted to recapture Panormus, but were defeated in a battle outside the walls. Slowly the Romans had occupied most of Sicily; in 249 BC they besieged the last two Carthaginian strongholds – in the extreme west. They also launched a surprise attack on the Carthaginian fleet but were defeated at the Battle of Drepana. The Carthaginians followed up their victory and most of the remaining Roman warships were lost at the Battle of Phintias. After several years of stalemate, the Romans rebuilt their fleet again in 243 BC and effectively blockaded the Carthaginian garrisons. Carthage assembled a fleet that attempted to relieve them, but it was destroyed at the Battle of the Aegates Islands in 241 BC, forcing the cut-off Carthaginian troops on Sicily to negotiate for peace.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A treaty was agreed. By its terms Carthage paid large reparations and Sicily was annexed as a Roman province. Henceforth Rome was the leading military power in the western Mediterranean, and increasingly the Mediterranean region as a whole. The immense effort of building 1,000 galleys during the war laid the foundation for Rome's maritime dominance for 600 years. The end of the war sparked a major but unsuccessful revolt within the Carthaginian Empire. The unresolved strategic competition between Rome and Carthage led to the eruption of the Second Punic War in 218 BC.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The term Punic comes from the Latin word Punicus (or Poenicus), meaning \"Phoenician\", and is a reference to the Carthaginians' Phoenician ancestry. The main source for almost every aspect of the First Punic War is the historian Polybius (c. 200 – c. 118 BC), a Greek sent to Rome in 167 BC as a hostage. His works include a now-lost manual on military tactics, but he is known today for The Histories, written sometime after 146 BC or about a century after the end of the war. Polybius's work is considered broadly objective and largely neutral as between Carthaginian and Roman points of view.",
"title": "Primary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Carthaginian written records were destroyed along with their capital, Carthage, in 146 BC and so Polybius's account of the First Punic War is based on several, now-lost, Greek and Latin sources. Polybius was an analytical historian and wherever possible personally interviewed participants in the events he wrote about. Only the first book of the 40 comprising The Histories deals with the First Punic War. The accuracy of Polybius's account has been much debated over the past 150 years, but the modern consensus is to accept it largely at face value, and the details of the war in modern sources are almost entirely based on interpretations of Polybius's account. The modern historian Andrew Curry considers that \"Polybius turns out to [be] fairly reliable\"; while Craige B. Champion describes him as \"a remarkably well-informed, industrious, and insightful historian\". Other, later, histories of the war exist, but in fragmentary or summary form. Modern historians usually take into account the fragmentary writings of various Roman annalists, especially Livy (who relied on Polybius), the Sicilian Greek Diodorus Siculus, and the later Greek writers Appian and Cassius Dio. The classicist Adrian Goldsworthy states that \"Polybius' account is usually to be preferred when it differs with any of our other accounts\". Other sources include inscriptions, terrestrial archaeological evidence, and empirical evidence from reconstructions such as the trireme Olympias.",
"title": "Primary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Since 2010, 19 bronze warship rams have been found by archaeologists in the sea off the west coast of Sicily, a mix of Roman and Carthaginian. Ten bronze helmets and hundreds of amphorae have also been found. The rams, seven of the helmets, and six intact amphorae, along with a large number of fragments, have since been recovered. It is believed the rams were each attached to a sunken warship when they were deposited on the seabed. The archaeologists involved stated that the location of artefacts so far discovered supports Polybius's account of where the Battle of the Aegates Islands took place. Based on the dimensions of the recovered rams, the archaeologists who have studied them believe they all came from triremes, contrary to Polybius's account that all the warships involved were quinqueremes. However, they believe that the many amphorae identified confirm the accuracy of other aspects of Polybius's account of this battle: \"It is the sought-after convergence of the archaeological and historical records.\"",
"title": "Primary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The Roman Republic had been aggressively expanding in the southern Italian mainland for a century before the First Punic War. It had conquered peninsular Italy south of the River Arno by 272 BC when the Greek cities of southern Italy (Magna Graecia) submitted at the conclusion of the Pyrrhic War. During this period Carthage, with its capital in what is now Tunisia, had come to dominate southern Spain, much of the coastal regions of North Africa, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, and the western half of Sicily, in a military and commercial empire. Beginning in 480 BC Carthage had fought a series of inconclusive wars against the Greek city states of Sicily, led by Syracuse. By 264 BC Carthage and Rome were the preeminent powers in the western Mediterranean. The two states had several times asserted their mutual friendship via formal alliances: in 509 BC, 348 BC and around 279 BC. Relationships were good, with strong commercial links. During the Pyrrhic War of 280–275 BC, against a king of Epirus who alternately fought Rome in Italy and Carthage on Sicily, Carthage provided materiel to the Romans and on at least one occasion used its navy to ferry a Roman force.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 289 BC a group of Italian mercenaries known as Mamertines, previously hired by Syracuse, occupied the city of Messana (modern Messina) on the north-eastern tip of Sicily. Hard-pressed by Syracuse, the Mamertines appealed to both Rome and Carthage for assistance in 265 BC. The Carthaginians acted first, pressing Hiero II, king of Syracuse, into taking no further action and convincing the Mamertines to accept a Carthaginian garrison. According to Polybius, a considerable debate then took place in Rome as to whether to accept the Mamertines' appeal for assistance. As the Carthaginians had already garrisoned Messana acceptance could easily lead to war with Carthage. The Romans had not previously displayed any interest in Sicily and did not wish to come to the aid of soldiers who had unjustly stolen a city from its rightful owners. However, many of them saw strategic and monetary advantages in gaining a foothold in Sicily. The deadlocked Roman Senate, possibly at the instigation of Appius Claudius Caudex, put the matter before the popular assembly in 264 BC. Caudex encouraged a vote for action and held out the prospect of plentiful booty; the popular assembly decided to accept the Mamertines' request. Caudex was appointed commander of a military expedition with orders to cross to Sicily and place a Roman garrison in Messana.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The war began with the Romans landing on Sicily in 264 BC. Despite the Carthaginian naval advantage, the Roman crossing of the Strait of Messina was ineffectively opposed. Two legions commanded by Caudex marched to Messana, where the Mamertines had expelled the Carthaginian garrison commanded by Hanno (no relation to Hanno the Great) and were besieged by both the Carthaginians and the Syracusans. The sources are unclear as to why, but first the Syracusans, and then the Carthaginians withdrew from the siege. The Romans marched south and in turn besieged Syracuse, but they had neither a strong enough force nor the secure supply lines to prosecute a successful siege, and soon withdrew. The Carthaginians' experience over the previous two centuries of warfare on Sicily was that decisive action was impossible; military efforts petered out after heavy losses and huge expense. The Carthaginian leaders expected that this war would run a similar course. Meanwhile, their overwhelming maritime superiority would allow the war to be kept at a distance, and even for them to continue to prosper. This would allow them to recruit and pay an army that would operate in the open against the Romans, while their strongly fortified cities could be supplied by sea and provide a defensive base from which to operate.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Adult male Roman citizens were liable for military service; most would serve as infantry with the wealthier minority providing a cavalry component. Traditionally the Romans would raise two legions, each of 4,200 infantry and 300 cavalry. A small number of the infantry served as javelin-armed skirmishers. The balance were equipped as heavy infantry, with body armour, a large shield, and short thrusting swords. They were divided into three ranks, of which the front rank also carried two javelins, while the second and third ranks had a thrusting spear instead. Both legionary sub-units and individual legionaries fought in relatively open order. An army was usually formed by combining a Roman legion with a similarly sized and equipped legion provided by their Latin allies.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Carthaginian citizens served in their army only if there was a direct threat to the city. In most circumstances Carthage recruited foreigners to make up its army. Many would be from North Africa which provided several types of fighters including: close-order infantry equipped with large shields, helmets, short swords and long thrusting spears; javelin-armed light infantry skirmishers; close-order shock cavalry (also known as \"heavy cavalry\") carrying spears; and light cavalry skirmishers who threw javelins from a distance and avoided close combat. Both Spain and Gaul provided experienced infantry; unarmoured troops who would charge ferociously, but had a reputation for breaking off if a combat was protracted. Most of the Carthaginian infantry would fight in a tightly packed formation known as a phalanx, usually forming two or three lines. Specialist slingers were recruited from the Balearic Islands. The Carthaginians also employed war elephants; North Africa had indigenous African forest elephants at the time. The sources are not clear as to whether they carried towers containing fighting men.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Quinqueremes, meaning \"five-oared\", provided the workhorse of the Roman and Carthaginian fleets throughout the Punic Wars. So ubiquitous was the type that Polybius uses it as a shorthand for \"warship\" in general. A quinquereme carried a crew of 300: 280 oarsmen and 20 deck crew and officers. It would also normally carry a complement of 40 marines – usually soldiers assigned to the ship – if battle was thought to be imminent this would be increased to as many as 120.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Getting the oarsmen to row as a unit, let alone to execute more complex battle manoeuvres, required long and arduous training. At least half of the oarsmen would need to have had some experience if the ship was to be handled effectively. As a result, the Romans were initially at a disadvantage against the more experienced Carthaginians. To counter this, the Romans introduced the corvus, a bridge 1.2 metres (4 feet) wide and 11 metres (36 feet) long, with a heavy spike on the underside of the free end, which was designed to pierce and anchor into an enemy ship's deck. This allowed Roman legionaries acting as marines to board enemy ships and capture them, rather than employing the previously traditional tactic of ramming.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "All warships were equipped with rams, a triple set of 60-centimetre-wide (2 ft) bronze blades weighing up to 270 kilograms (600 lb) positioned at the waterline. In the century prior to the Punic Wars, boarding had become increasingly common and ramming had declined, as the larger and heavier vessels adopted in this period lacked the speed and manoeuvrability necessary to ram, while their sturdier construction reduced the ram's effect even in case of a successful attack. The Roman adaptation of the corvus was a continuation of this trend and compensated for their initial disadvantage in ship-manoeuvring skills. The added weight in the prow compromised both the ship's manoeuvrability and its seaworthiness, and in rough sea conditions the corvus became useless.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Much of the war was to be fought on, or in the waters near, Sicily. Away from the coasts, its hilly and rugged terrain made manoeuvring large forces difficult and favoured defence over offence. Land operations were largely confined to raids, sieges, and interdiction; in 23 years of war on Sicily there were only two full-scale pitched battles – Akragas in 262 BC and Panormus in 250 BC. Garrison duty and land blockades were the most common operations for both armies.",
"title": "Sicily 264–256 BC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "It was the long-standing Roman procedure to appoint two men each year, known as consuls, to each lead an army. In 263 BC both consuls were sent to Sicily with a force of 40,000. Syracuse was again besieged, and with no Carthaginian assistance anticipated, Syracuse rapidly made peace with the Romans: it became a Roman ally, paid an indemnity of 100 talents of silver and, perhaps most importantly, agreed to help supply the Roman army in Sicily. Following the defection of Syracuse, several small Carthaginian dependencies switched to the Romans. Akragas (Latin: Agrigentum; modern Agrigento), a port city halfway along the south coast of Sicily, was chosen by the Carthaginians as their strategic centre. The Romans marched on it in 262 BC and besieged it. The Romans had an inadequate supply system, partly because the Carthaginian naval supremacy prevented them from shipping supplies by sea, and they were not in any case accustomed to feeding an army as large as 40,000 men. At harvest time most of the army was dispersed over a wide area to harvest the crops and to forage. The Carthaginians, commanded by Hannibal Gisco, sortied in force, taking the Romans by surprise and penetrating their camp; the Romans rallied and routed the Carthaginians; after this experience both sides were more guarded.",
"title": "Sicily 264–256 BC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Meanwhile, Carthage had recruited an army, which assembled in Africa and was shipped to Sicily. It was composed of 50,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry and 60 elephants, and was commanded by Hanno, son of Hannibal; it was partly made up of Ligurians, Celts and Iberians. Five months after the siege began, Hanno marched to Akragas's relief. When he arrived, he merely camped on high ground, engaged in desultory skirmishing and trained his army. Two months later, in spring 261 BC, he attacked. The Carthaginians were defeated with heavy losses at the Battle of Akragas. The Romans, under both consuls – Lucius Postumius Megellus and Quintus Mamilius Vitulus – pursued, capturing the Carthaginians' elephants and baggage train. That night the Carthaginian garrison escaped while the Romans were distracted. The next day the Romans seized the city and its inhabitants, selling 25,000 of them into slavery.",
"title": "Sicily 264–256 BC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "After this success for the Romans, the war became fragmented for several years, with minor successes for each side, but no clear focus. In part this was because the Romans diverted many of their resources to an ultimately fruitless campaign against Corsica and Sardinia, and then into the equally fruitless expedition to Africa. After taking Akragas the Romans advanced westward to besiege Mytistraton for seven months, without success. In 259 BC they advanced toward Thermae on the north coast. After a quarrel, the Roman troops and their allies set up separate camps. Hamilcar took advantage of this to launch a counter-attack, taking one of the contingents by surprise as it was breaking camp and killing 4,000–6,000. Hamilcar went on to seize Enna, in central Sicily, and Camarina, in the south east, dangerously close to Syracuse. Hamilcar seemed close to overrunning the whole of Sicily. The following year the Romans retook Enna and finally captured Mytistraton. They then moved on Panormus (modern Palermo), but had to withdraw, although they did capture Hippana. In 258 BC they recaptured Camarina after a lengthy siege. For the next few years petty raiding, skirmishing and the occasional defection of a smaller town from one side to the other continued on Sicily.",
"title": "Sicily 264–256 BC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The war in Sicily reached a stalemate, as the Carthaginians focused on defending their well-fortified towns and cities; these were mostly on the coast and so could be supplied and reinforced without the Romans being able to use their superior army to interdict. The focus of the war shifted to the sea, where the Romans had little experience; on the few occasions they had previously felt the need for a naval presence they had usually relied on small squadrons provided by their Latin or Greek allies. In 260 BC Romans set out to construct a fleet and used a shipwrecked Carthaginian quinquereme as a blueprint for their own. As novice shipwrights, the Romans built copies that were heavier than the Carthaginian vessels, making them much slower and less maneuvrable.",
"title": "Rome builds a fleet"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Romans built 120 warships and despatched them to Sicily in 260 BC for their crews to carry out basic training. One of the consuls for the year, Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, sailed with the first 17 ships to arrive to the Lipari Islands, a little way off the north-east coast of Sicily, in an attempt to seize the islands' main port, Lipara. The Carthaginian fleet was commanded by Hannibal Gisco, the general who had commanded the garrison of Akragas, and was based at Panormus, some 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Lipara. When Hannibal heard of the Romans' move he despatched 20 ships under Boodes to the town. The Carthaginians arrived at night and trapped the Romans in the harbour. Boodes' ships attacked and Scipio's inexperienced men offered little resistance. Some Romans panicked and fled inland and the consul himself was taken prisoner. All of the Roman ships were captured, most with little damage. A little later, Hannibal was scouting with 50 Carthaginian ships when he encountered the full Roman fleet. He escaped, but lost most of his ships. It was after this skirmish that the Romans installed the corvus on their ships.",
"title": "Rome builds a fleet"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Scipio's fellow consul, Gaius Duilius, placed the Roman army units under subordinates and took command of the fleet. He promptly sailed, seeking battle. The two fleets met off the coast of Mylae in the Battle of Mylae. Hannibal had 130 ships, and the historian John Lazenby calculates that Duilius had approximately the same number. The Carthaginians anticipated victory, due to the superior experience of their crews, and their faster and more manoeuvrable galleys, and broke formation to close rapidly with the Romans. The first 30 Carthaginian ships were grappled by the corvus and successfully boarded by the Romans, including Hannibal's ship – he escaped in a skiff. Seeing this, the remaining Carthaginians swung wide, attempting to take the Romans in the sides or rear. The Romans successfully countered and captured a further 20 Carthaginian vessels. The surviving Carthaginians broke off the action, and being faster than the Romans were able to escape. Duilius sailed to relieve the Roman-held city of Segesta, which had been under siege.",
"title": "Rome builds a fleet"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "From early 262 BC Carthaginian ships had been raiding the Italian coast from bases on Sardinia and Corsica. The year after Mylae, 259 BC, the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio led part of the fleet against Aléria in Corsica and captured it. He then attacked Ulbia on Sardinia, but was repulsed, and also lost Aléria. In 258 BC a stronger Roman fleet engaged a smaller Carthaginian fleet at the Battle of Sulci off the city of Sulci, in western Sardinia, and inflicted a heavy defeat. The Carthaginian commander Hannibal Gisco, who abandoned his men and fled to Sulci, was later captured by his soldiers and crucified. Despite this victory, the Romans – who were attempting to support simultaneous offensives against both Sardinia and Sicily – were unable to exploit it, and the attack on Carthaginian-held Sardinia petered out.",
"title": "Rome builds a fleet"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 257 BC the Roman fleet happened to be anchored off Tyndaris in north-east Sicily when the Carthaginian fleet, unaware of its presence, sailed past in loose formation. The Roman commander, Gaius Atilius Regulus, ordered an immediate attack, initiating the Battle of Tyndaris. This led to the Roman fleet in turn putting to sea in a disordered manner. The Carthaginians responded rapidly, ramming and sinking nine of the leading ten Roman ships. As the main Roman force came into action they sank eight Carthaginian ships and captured ten. The Carthaginians withdrew, again being faster than the Romans and so able to make off without further loss. The Romans then raided both the Liparis and Malta.",
"title": "Rome builds a fleet"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Rome's naval victories at Mylae and Sulci, and their frustration at the stalemate in Sicily, led them to adopt a sea-based strategy and to develop a plan to invade the Carthaginian heartland in North Africa and threaten Carthage (close to Tunis). Both sides were determined to establish naval supremacy and invested large amounts of money and manpower in maintaining and increasing the size of their navies. The Roman fleet of 330 warships and an unknown number of transports sailed from Ostia, the port of Rome, in early 256 BC, commanded by the consuls for the year, Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus. The Romans embarked approximately 26,000 legionaries from the Roman forces on Sicily shortly before the battle. They planned to cross to Africa and invade what is now Tunisia.",
"title": "Invasion of Africa"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The Carthaginians knew of the Romans' intentions and mustered all their 350 warships under Hanno the Great and Hamilcar, off the south coast of Sicily to intercept them. With a combined total of about 680 warships carrying up to 290,000 crew and marines, the ensuing Battle of Cape Ecnomus was possibly the largest naval battle in history by the number of combatants involved. At the start of the battle the Carthaginians took the initiative, hoping their superior ship handling skills would tell. After a day of prolonged and confused fighting the Carthaginians were defeated, losing 30 ships sunk and 64 captured to Roman losses of 24 ships sunk.",
"title": "Invasion of Africa"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "After the victory the Roman army, commanded by Regulus, landed in Africa near Aspis (modern Kelibia) on the Cape Bon Peninsula and began ravaging the Carthaginian countryside. After a brief siege, Aspis was captured. Most of the Roman ships returned to Sicily, leaving Regulus with 15,000 infantry and 500 cavalry to continue the war in Africa; Regulus laid siege to the city of Adys. The Carthaginians had recalled Hamilcar from Sicily with 5,000 infantry and 500 cavalry. Hamilcar, Hasdrubal and a third general called Bostar were placed in joint command of an army which was strong in cavalry and elephants and was approximately the same size as the Roman force. The Carthaginians established a camp on a hill near Adys. The Romans carried out a night march and launched a surprise dawn attack on the camp from two directions. After confused fighting the Carthaginians broke and fled. Their losses are unknown, although their elephants and cavalry escaped with few casualties.",
"title": "Invasion of Africa"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The Romans followed up and captured Tunis, only 16 km (10 mi) from Carthage. From Tunis the Romans raided and devastated the immediate area around Carthage. In despair, the Carthaginians sued for peace but Regulus offered such harsh terms that the Carthaginians decided to fight on. Charge of the training of their army was given to the Spartan mercenary commander Xanthippus. In 255 BC Xanthippus led an army of 12,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and 100 elephants against the Romans and defeated them at the Battle of Tunis. Approximately 2,000 Romans retreated to Aspis; 500, including Regulus, were captured; the rest were killed. Xanthippus, fearful of the envy of the Carthaginian generals he had outdone, took his pay and returned to Greece. The Romans sent a fleet to evacuate their survivors. It was intercepted by a Carthaginian fleet off Cape Bon (in the north east of modern Tunisia) and in the Battle of Cape Hermaeum the Carthaginians were heavily defeated, losing 114 ships captured. The Roman fleet was devastated by a storm while returning to Italy, with 384 ships sunk from their total of 464 and 100,000 men lost, the majority non-Roman Latin allies. It is possible that the presence of the corvus made the Roman ships unusually unseaworthy; there is no record of them being used after this disaster.",
"title": "Invasion of Africa"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Having lost most of their fleet in the storm of 255 BC, the Romans rapidly rebuilt it, adding 220 new ships. In 254 BC the Carthaginians attacked and captured Akragas, but not believing they could hold the city, they burned it, razed its walls and left. Meanwhile, the Romans launched a determined offensive in Sicily. Their entire fleet, under both consuls, attacked Panormus early in the year. The city was surrounded and blockaded, and siege engines set up. These made a breach in the walls which the Romans stormed, capturing the outer town and giving no quarter. The inner town promptly surrendered. The 14,000 inhabitants who could afford it ransomed themselves and the remaining 13,000 were sold into slavery. Much of western inland Sicily now went over to the Romans: Ietas, Solous, Petra, and Tyndaris all came to terms.",
"title": "Sicily 255–248 BC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In 253 BC the Romans changed their focus to Africa again and carried out several raids. They lost another 150 ships, from a fleet of 220, to a storm while returning from raiding the North African coast east of Carthage. They rebuilt again. The next year the Romans shifted their attention to north-west Sicily. They sent a naval expedition toward Lilybaeum. En route, the Romans seized and burned the Carthaginian hold-out cities of Selinous and Heraclea Minoa, but they failed to take Lilybaeum. In 252 BC they captured Thermae and Lipara, which had been isolated by the fall of Panormus. Otherwise they avoided battle in 252 and 251 BC, according to Polybius because they feared the war elephants which the Carthaginians had shipped to Sicily.",
"title": "Sicily 255–248 BC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In late summer 251 BC the Carthaginian commander Hasdrubal – who had faced Regulus in Africa – hearing that one consul had left Sicily for the winter with half of the Roman army, advanced on Panormus and devastated the countryside. The Roman army, which had been dispersed to gather the harvest, withdrew into Panormus. Hasdrubal boldly advanced most of his army, including the elephants, towards the city walls. The Roman commander Lucius Caecilius Metellus sent out skirmishers to harass the Carthaginians, keeping them constantly supplied with javelins from the stocks within the city. The ground was covered with earthworks constructed during the Roman siege, making it difficult for the elephants to advance. Peppered with missiles and unable to retaliate, the elephants fled through the Carthaginian infantry behind them. Metellus had opportunistically moved a large force to the Carthaginian's left flank, and they charged into their disordered opponents. The Carthaginians fled; Metellus captured ten elephants but did not permit a pursuit. Contemporary accounts do not report either side's losses, and modern historians consider later claims of 20,000–30,000 Carthaginian casualties improbable.",
"title": "Sicily 255–248 BC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Encouraged by their victory at Panormus, the Romans moved against the main Carthaginian base on Sicily, Lilybaeum, in 249 BC. A large army commanded by the year's consuls Publius Claudius Pulcher and Lucius Junius Pullus besieged the city. They had rebuilt their fleet, and 200 ships blockaded the harbour. Early in the blockade, 50 Carthaginian quinqueremes gathered off the Aegates Islands, which lie 15–40 km (9–25 mi) to the west of Sicily. Once there was a strong west wind, they sailed into Lilybaeum before the Romans could react and unloaded reinforcements and a large quantity of supplies. They evaded the Romans by leaving at night, evacuating the Carthaginian cavalry. The Romans sealed off the landward approach to Lilybaeum with earth and timber camps and walls. They made repeated attempts to block the harbour entrance with a heavy timber boom, but due to the prevailing sea conditions they were unsuccessful. The Carthaginian garrison was kept supplied by blockade runners, light and manoeuvrable quinqueremes with highly trained crews and experienced pilots.",
"title": "Sicily 255–248 BC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Pulcher decided to attack the Carthaginian fleet, which was in the harbour of the nearby city of Drepana (modern Trapani). The Roman fleet sailed by night to carry out a surprise attack, but became scattered in the dark. The Carthaginian commander Adherbal was able to lead his fleet out to sea before they were trapped and counter-attacked in the Battle of Drepana. The Romans were pinned against the shore and after a hard day's fighting were heavily defeated by the more manoeuvrable Carthaginian ships with their better-trained crews. It was Carthage's greatest naval victory of the war. Carthage turned to the maritime offensive, inflicting another heavy naval defeat at the Battle of Phintias and all but swept the Romans from the sea. It was to be seven years before Rome again attempted to field a substantial fleet, while Carthage put most of its ships into reserve to save money and free up manpower.",
"title": "Sicily 255–248 BC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "By 248 BC the Carthaginians held only two cities on Sicily: Lilybaeum and Drepana; these were well-fortified and situated on the west coast, where they could be supplied and reinforced without the Romans being able to use their superior army to interfere. When Hamilcar Barca took command of the Carthaginians on Sicily in 247 BC he was only given a small army and the Carthaginian fleet was gradually withdrawn. Hostilities between Roman and Carthaginian forces declined to small-scale land operations, which suited the Carthaginian strategy. Hamilcar employed combined arms tactics in a Fabian strategy from his base at Eryx, north of Drepana. This guerrilla warfare kept the Roman legions pinned down and preserved Carthage's foothold in Sicily.",
"title": "Conclusion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "After more than 20 years of war, both states were financially and demographically exhausted. Evidence of Carthage's financial situation includes their request for a 2,000 talent loan from Ptolemaic Egypt, which was refused. Rome was also close to bankruptcy and the number of adult male citizens, who provided the manpower for the navy and the legions, had declined by 17 percent since the start of the war. Goldsworthy describes Roman manpower losses as \"appalling\".",
"title": "Conclusion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In late 243 BC, realizing they would not capture Drepana and Lilybaeum unless they could extend their blockade to the sea, the Senate decided to build a new fleet. With the state's coffers exhausted, the Senate approached Rome's wealthiest citizens for loans to finance the construction of one ship each, repayable from the reparations to be imposed on Carthage once the war was won. The result was a fleet of approximately 200 quinqueremes, built, equipped, and crewed without government expense. The Romans modelled the ships of their new fleet on a captured blockade runner with especially good qualities. By now, the Romans were experienced at shipbuilding, and with a proven vessel as a model produced high-quality quinqueremes. Importantly, the corvus was abandoned, which improved the ships' speed and handling but forced a change in tactics on the Romans; they would need to be superior sailors, rather than superior soldiers, to beat the Carthaginians.",
"title": "Conclusion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The Carthaginians raised a larger fleet which they intended to use to run supplies into Sicily. It would then embark much of the Carthaginian army stationed there to use as marines. It was intercepted by the Roman fleet under Gaius Lutatius Catulus and Quintus Valerius Falto, and in the hard-fought Battle of the Aegates Islands the better-trained Romans defeated the undermanned and ill-trained Carthaginian fleet. After achieving this decisive victory, the Romans continued their land operations in Sicily against Lilybaeum and Drepana. The Carthaginian Senate was reluctant to allocate the resources necessary to have another fleet built and manned. Instead, it ordered Hamilcar to negotiate a peace treaty with the Romans, which he left up to his subordinate Gisco. The Treaty of Lutatius was signed and brought the First Punic War to its end: Carthage evacuated Sicily, handed over all prisoners taken during the war, and paid an indemnity of 3,200 talents over ten years.",
"title": "Conclusion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The war lasted 23 years, the longest war in Romano-Greek history and the greatest naval war of the ancient world. In its aftermath Carthage attempted to avoid paying in full the foreign troops who had fought its war. Eventually they rebelled and were joined by many disgruntled local groups. They were put down with great difficulty and considerable savagery. In 237 BC Carthage prepared an expedition to recover the island of Sardinia, which had been lost to the rebels. Cynically, the Romans stated they considered this an act of war. Their peace terms were the ceding of Sardinia and Corsica and the payment of an additional 1,200-talent indemnity. Weakened by 30 years of war, Carthage agreed rather than enter into a conflict with Rome again; the additional payment and the renunciation of Sardinia and Corsica were added to the treaty as a codicil. These actions by Rome fuelled resentment in Carthage, which was not reconciled to Rome's perception of its situation, and are considered contributory factors in the outbreak of the Second Punic War.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The leading role of Hamilcar Barca in the defeat of the mutinous foreign troops and African rebels greatly enhanced the prestige and power of the Barcid family. In 237 BC Hamilcar led many of his veterans on an expedition to expand Carthaginian holdings in southern Iberia (modern Spain). Over the following 20 years this was to become a semi-autonomous Barcid fiefdom and the source of much of the silver used to pay the large indemnity owed to Rome.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "For Rome, the end of the First Punic War marked the start of its expansion beyond the Italian Peninsula. Sicily became the first Roman province as Sicilia, governed by a former praetor. Sicily would become important to Rome as a source of grain. Sardinia and Corsica, combined, also became a Roman province and a source of grain, under a praetor, although a strong military presence was required for at least the next seven years, as the Romans struggled to suppress the local inhabitants. Syracuse was granted nominal independence and ally status for the lifetime of Hiero II. Henceforth Rome was the leading military power in the western Mediterranean, and increasingly the Mediterranean region as a whole. The Romans had built more than 1,000 galleys during the war, and this experience of building, manning, training, supplying and maintaining such numbers of ships laid the foundation for Rome's maritime dominance for 600 years. The question of which state was to control the western Mediterranean remained open, and when Carthage besieged the Roman-protected town of Saguntum in eastern Iberia in 218 BC it ignited the Second Punic War with Rome.",
"title": "Aftermath"
}
] |
The First Punic War was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and greatest naval war of antiquity, the two powers struggled for supremacy. The war was fought primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters, and also in North Africa. After immense losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were defeated. The war began in 264 BC with the Romans gaining a foothold on Sicily at Messana. The Romans then pressed Syracuse, the only significant independent power on the island, into allying with them and laid siege to Carthage's main base at Akragas. A large Carthaginian army attempted to lift the siege in 262 BC but was heavily defeated at the Battle of Akragas. The Romans then built a navy to challenge the Carthaginians', and using novel tactics inflicted several defeats. A Carthaginian base on Corsica was seized, but an attack on Sardinia was repulsed; the base on Corsica was then lost. Taking advantage of their naval victories the Romans launched an invasion of North Africa, which the Carthaginians intercepted. At the Battle of Cape Ecnomus the Carthaginians were again beaten; this was possibly the largest naval battle in history by the number of combatants involved. The invasion initially went well and in 255 BC the Carthaginians sued for peace; the proposed terms were so harsh they fought on, defeating the invaders. The Romans sent a fleet to evacuate their survivors and the Carthaginians opposed it at the Battle of Cape Hermaeum off Africa; the Carthaginians were heavily defeated. The Roman fleet, in turn, was devastated by a storm while returning to Italy, losing most of its ships and over 100,000 men. The war continued, with neither side able to gain a decisive advantage. The Carthaginians attacked and recaptured Akragas in 255 BC but, not believing they could hold the city, they razed and abandoned it. The Romans rapidly rebuilt their fleet, adding 220 new ships, and captured Panormus in 254 BC. The next year they lost 150 ships to a storm. In 251 BC the Carthaginians attempted to recapture Panormus, but were defeated in a battle outside the walls. Slowly the Romans had occupied most of Sicily; in 249 BC they besieged the last two Carthaginian strongholds – in the extreme west. They also launched a surprise attack on the Carthaginian fleet but were defeated at the Battle of Drepana. The Carthaginians followed up their victory and most of the remaining Roman warships were lost at the Battle of Phintias. After several years of stalemate, the Romans rebuilt their fleet again in 243 BC and effectively blockaded the Carthaginian garrisons. Carthage assembled a fleet that attempted to relieve them, but it was destroyed at the Battle of the Aegates Islands in 241 BC, forcing the cut-off Carthaginian troops on Sicily to negotiate for peace. A treaty was agreed. By its terms Carthage paid large reparations and Sicily was annexed as a Roman province. Henceforth Rome was the leading military power in the western Mediterranean, and increasingly the Mediterranean region as a whole. The immense effort of building 1,000 galleys during the war laid the foundation for Rome's maritime dominance for 600 years. The end of the war sparked a major but unsuccessful revolt within the Carthaginian Empire. The unresolved strategic competition between Rome and Carthage led to the eruption of the Second Punic War in 218 BC.
|
2001-10-29T23:59:53Z
|
2023-12-14T09:18:38Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Punic_War
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11,429 |
False document
|
A false document is a technique by which an author aims to increase verisimilitude in a work of fiction by inventing and inserting or mentioning documents that appear to be factual. The goal of a false document is to convince an audience that what is being presented is factual.
A forged document, the Zinoviev Letter, helped bring the downfall of the first Labour Government in Britain. Conspiracies within secret intelligence services have occurred more recently, leading Harold Wilson to put in place rules in the 1960s to prevent phone tapping of members of Parliament, for example.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination, was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the 20th century.
Artist JSG Boggs's life and work have been extensively explored by author and journalist Lawrence Weschler. Boggs drew currency with exceptional care and accuracy, but he only ever drew one side. He then attempted to buy things with the piece of paper upon which he has drawn the currency. His goal was to pass each bill for its face value in common transactions. He bought lunch, clothes, and lodging in this manner, and after the transactions were complete, his bills fetched many times their face value on the art market. Boggs did not make any money from the much larger art market value of his work, only from reselling the goods bought, the change and receipts and other such materials. He was arrested in many countries, and there was much controversy surrounding his work.
Orson Welles' F for Fake is a prime example of a film which is both about falsification (art forgery and the journalism surrounding art forgery) as well as having falsified moments within the film. The movie follows the exploits of a famous art forger, his biographer Clifford Irving, and the subsequent fake autobiography of Howard Hughes that Irving tries to publish. The issues of veracity and forgery are explored in the film, while at the same time, Welles tricks the audience by incorporating fake bits of narrative alongside the documentary footage.
There is a long history of producers creating tie-in material to promote and merchandise movies and television shows. Tie-in materials as far-ranging as toys, games, lunch boxes, clothing and so on have all been created and in some cases generate as much or more revenue as the original programming. One big merchandising arena is publishing. In most cases such material is not considered canon within the show's mythology; however, in some instances the books, magazines, etc. are specifically designed by the creators to be canonical. With the rise of the Internet, in-canon online material has become more prominent.
A number of hoaxes have involved false documents:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A false document is a technique by which an author aims to increase verisimilitude in a work of fiction by inventing and inserting or mentioning documents that appear to be factual. The goal of a false document is to convince an audience that what is being presented is factual.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "A forged document, the Zinoviev Letter, helped bring the downfall of the first Labour Government in Britain. Conspiracies within secret intelligence services have occurred more recently, leading Harold Wilson to put in place rules in the 1960s to prevent phone tapping of members of Parliament, for example.",
"title": "In politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination, was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the 20th century.",
"title": "In politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Artist JSG Boggs's life and work have been extensively explored by author and journalist Lawrence Weschler. Boggs drew currency with exceptional care and accuracy, but he only ever drew one side. He then attempted to buy things with the piece of paper upon which he has drawn the currency. His goal was to pass each bill for its face value in common transactions. He bought lunch, clothes, and lodging in this manner, and after the transactions were complete, his bills fetched many times their face value on the art market. Boggs did not make any money from the much larger art market value of his work, only from reselling the goods bought, the change and receipts and other such materials. He was arrested in many countries, and there was much controversy surrounding his work.",
"title": "In art"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Orson Welles' F for Fake is a prime example of a film which is both about falsification (art forgery and the journalism surrounding art forgery) as well as having falsified moments within the film. The movie follows the exploits of a famous art forger, his biographer Clifford Irving, and the subsequent fake autobiography of Howard Hughes that Irving tries to publish. The issues of veracity and forgery are explored in the film, while at the same time, Welles tricks the audience by incorporating fake bits of narrative alongside the documentary footage.",
"title": "In art"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "There is a long history of producers creating tie-in material to promote and merchandise movies and television shows. Tie-in materials as far-ranging as toys, games, lunch boxes, clothing and so on have all been created and in some cases generate as much or more revenue as the original programming. One big merchandising arena is publishing. In most cases such material is not considered canon within the show's mythology; however, in some instances the books, magazines, etc. are specifically designed by the creators to be canonical. With the rise of the Internet, in-canon online material has become more prominent.",
"title": "In cross-marketing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "A number of hoaxes have involved false documents:",
"title": "Hoaxes"
}
] |
A false document is a technique by which an author aims to increase verisimilitude in a work of fiction by inventing and inserting or mentioning documents that appear to be factual. The goal of a false document is to convince an audience that what is being presented is factual.
|
2023-04-22T21:45:24Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_document
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11,431 |
Fernando Pessoa
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Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (Portuguese: [fɨɾˈnɐ̃du pɨˈsoɐ]; 13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935) was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher, and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language. He also wrote in and translated from English and French.
Pessoa was a prolific writer, and not only under his own name, for he created approximately seventy-five others, of which three stand out: Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos, and Ricardo Reis. He did not call them pseudonyms because he felt that this did not capture their true independent intellectual life and instead called them heteronyms. These imaginary figures sometimes held unpopular or extreme views.
Pessoa was born in Lisbon on 13 June 1888. When Pessoa was five, his father, Joaquim de Seabra Pessôa, died of tuberculosis, and less than seven months later his younger brother Jorge, aged one, also died (2 January 1889). After the second marriage of his mother, Maria Magdalena Pinheiro Nogueira, a proxy wedding to João Miguel dos Santos Rosa, Fernando sailed with his mother for South Africa in early 1896 to join his stepfather, a military officer appointed Portuguese consul in Durban, capital of the former British Colony of Natal. In a letter dated 8 February 1918, Pessoa wrote:
There is only one event in the past which has both the definiteness and the importance required for rectification by direction; this is my father's death, which took place on 13 July 1893. My mother's second marriage (which took place on 30 December 1895) is another date which I can give with preciseness and it is important for me, not in itself, but in one of its results – the circumstance that, my stepfather becoming Portuguese Consul in Durban (Natal), I was educated there, this English education being a factor of supreme importance in my life, and, whatever my fate be, indubitably shaping it.
The dates of the voyages related to the above event are (as nearly as possible):
1st. voyage to Africa – left Lisbon beginning January 1896.
Return – left Durban in the afternoon of 1st. August 1901.
2nd. voyage to Africa – left Lisbon about 20th. September 1902.
Return – left Durban about 20th. August 1905.
The young Pessoa received his early education at St. Joseph Convent School, a Roman Catholic grammar school run by Irish and French nuns. He moved to the Durban High School in April 1899, becoming fluent in English and developing an appreciation for English literature. During the Matriculation Examination, held at the time by the University of the Cape of Good Hope (forerunner of the University of Cape Town), in November 1903, he was awarded the recently created Queen Victoria Memorial Prize for best paper in English. While preparing to enter university, he also attended the Durban Commercial High School during one year, taking night classes.
Meanwhile, Pessoa started writing short stories in English, some under the name of David Merrick, many of which he left unfinished. At the age of sixteen, The Natal Mercury (edition of 6 July 1904) published his poem "Hillier did first usurp the realms of rhyme...", under the name of C. R. Anon (anonymous), along with a brief introductory text: "I read with great amusement...". In December, The Durban High School Magazine published his essay "Macaulay". From February to June 1905, in the section "The Man in the Moon", The Natal Mercury also published at least four sonnets by Fernando Pessoa: "Joseph Chamberlain", "To England I", "To England II" and "Liberty". His poems often carried humorous versions of Anon as the author's name. Pessoa started using pen names quite young. The first one, still in his childhood, was Chevalier de Pas, supposedly a French noble. In addition to Charles Robert Anon and David Merrick, the young writer also signed up, among other pen names, as Horace James Faber, Alexander Search [pt], and other meaningful names.
In the preface to The Book of Disquiet, Pessoa wrote about himself:
Nothing had ever obliged him to do anything. He had spent his childhood alone. He never joined any group. He never pursued a course of study. He never belonged to a crowd. The circumstances of his life were marked by that strange but rather common phenomenon – perhaps, in fact, it's true for all lives – of being tailored to the image and likeness of his instincts, which tended towards inertia and withdrawal.
The young Pessoa was described by a schoolfellow as follows:
I cannot tell you exactly how long I knew him, but the period during which I received most of my impressions of him was the whole of the year 1904 when we were at school together. How old he was at this time I don't know, but judge him to have 15 or 16. [...]
He was pale and thin and appeared physically to be very imperfectly developed. He had a narrow and contracted chest and was inclined to stoop. He had a peculiar walk and some defect in his eyesight gave to his eyes also a peculiar appearance, the lids seemed to drop over the eyes. [...]
He was regarded as a brilliant clever boy as, in spite of the fact that he had not spoken English in his early years, he had learned it so rapidly and so well that he had a splendid style in that language. Although younger than his schoolfellows of the same class he appeared to have no difficulty in keeping up with and surpassing them in work. For one of his age, he thought much and deeply and in a letter to me once complained of "spiritual and material encumbrances of most especial adverseness". [...]
He took no part in athletic sports of any kind and I think his spare time was spent on reading. We generally considered that he worked far too much and that he would ruin his health by so doing.
Ten years after his arrival, he sailed for Lisbon by East through the Suez Canal on board the "Herzog", leaving Durban for good at the age of seventeen. This journey inspired the poems "Opiário" (dedicated to his friend, the poet and writer Mário de Sá-Carneiro) published in March 1915, in the literary journal Orpheu nr.1 and "Ode Marítima" (dedicated to the futurist painter Santa-Rita) published in June 1915, in Orpheu nr.2 by his heteronym Álvaro de Campos.
While his family remained in South Africa, Pessoa returned to Lisbon in 1905 to study diplomacy. After a period of illness, and two years of poor results, a student strike against the dictatorship of Prime Minister João Franco put an end to his formal studies. Pessoa became an autodidact, a devoted reader who spent a lot of time at the library. In August 1907, he started working as a practitioner at R.G. Dun & Company, an American mercantile information agency (currently D&B, Dun & Bradstreet). His grandmother died in September and left him a small inheritance, which he spent on setting up his own publishing house, the "Empreza Ibis". The venture was not successful and closed down in 1910, but the name ibis, the sacred bird of Ancient Egypt and inventor of the alphabet in Greek mythology, would remain an important symbolic reference for him.
Pessoa returned to his uncompleted formal studies, complementing his British education with self-directed study of Portuguese culture. The pre-revolutionary atmosphere surrounding the assassination of King Charles I and Crown Prince Luís Filipe in 1908, and the patriotic outburst resulting from the successful republican revolution in 1910, influenced the development of the budding writer; as did his step-uncle, Henrique dos Santos Rosa, a poet and retired soldier, who introduced the young Pessoa to Portuguese poetry, notably the romantics and symbolists of the 19th century. In 1912, Fernando Pessoa entered the literary world with a critical essay, published in the cultural journal A Águia, which triggered one of the most important literary debates in the Portuguese intellectual world of the 20th century: the polemic regarding a super-Camões. In 1915 a group of artists and poets, including Fernando Pessoa, Mário de Sá-Carneiro and Almada Negreiros, created the literary magazine Orpheu, which introduced modernist literature to Portugal. Only two issues were published (Jan–Feb–Mar and Apr–May–Jun 1915), the third failed to appear due to funding difficulties. Lost for many years, this issue was finally recovered and published in 1984. Among other writers and poets, Orpheu published Pessoa, orthonym, and the modernist heteronym, Álvaro de Campos.
Along with the artist Ruy Vaz, Pessoa also founded the art journal Athena (1924–25), in which he published verses under the heteronyms Alberto Caeiro and Ricardo Reis. Along with his profession, as free-lance commercial translator, Fernando Pessoa undertook intense activity as a writer, literary critic and political analyst, contributing to the journals and newspapers A Águia (1912–13), A República (1913), Theatro (1913), A Renascença (1914), O Raio (1914), A Galera (1915), Orpheu (1915), O Jornal (1915), Eh Real! (1915), Exílio (1916), Centauro (1916), A Ideia Nacional (1916), Terra Nossa (1916), O Heraldo (1917), Portugal Futurista (1917), Acção (1919–20), Ressurreição (1920), Contemporânea (1922–26), Athena (1924–25), Diário de Lisboa (1924–35), Revista de Comércio e Contabilidade (1926), Sol (1926), O Imparcial (1927), Presença (1927–34), Revista Solução Editora (1929–1931), Notícias Ilustrado (1928–30), Girassol (1930), Revolução (1932), Descobrimento (1932), Fama (1932–33), Fradique (1934) and Sudoeste (1935).
After his return to Portugal, when he was seventeen, Pessoa barely left his beloved city of Lisbon, which inspired the poems "Lisbon Revisited" (1923 and 1926), written under the heteronym Álvaro de Campos. From 1905 to 1920, when his family returned from Pretoria after the death of his stepfather, he lived in fifteen different locations in the city, moving from one rented room to another depending on his fluctuating finances and personal troubles.
Pessoa adopted the detached perspective of the flâneur Bernardo Soares [pt], one of his heteronyms. This character was supposedly an accountant, working for Vasques, the boss of an office located in Douradores Street. Soares also supposedly lived in the same downtown street, a world that Pessoa knew quite well due to his long career as freelance correspondence translator. Indeed, from 1907 until his death in 1935, Pessoa worked in twenty-one firms located in Lisbon's downtown, sometimes in two or three of them simultaneously. In The Book of Disquiet, Bernardo Soares describes some of these typical places and describes one's "atmosphere". In his daydream soliloquy he also wrote about Lisbon in the first half of the 20th century. Soares describes crowds in the streets, buildings, shops, traffic, the river Tagus, the weather, and even its author, Fernando Pessoa:
Fairly tall and thin, he must have been about thirty years old. He hunched over terribly when sitting down but less so standing up, and he dressed with a carelessness that wasn't entirely careless. In his pale, uninteresting face there was a look of suffering that didn't add any interest, and it was difficult to say just what kind of suffering this look suggested. It seemed to suggest various kinds: hardships, anxieties, and the suffering born of the indifference that comes from having already suffered a lot.
A statue of Pessoa sitting at a table (below) can be seen outside A Brasileira, one of the preferred places of young writers and artists of Orpheu's group during the 1910s. This coffeehouse, in the aristocratic district of Chiado, is quite close to Pessoa's birthplace: 4, São Carlos Square (just in front of Lisbon's Opera House, where stands another statue of the writer), one of the most elegant neighborhoods of Lisbon. Later on, Pessoa was a frequent customer at Martinho da Arcada, a centennial coffeehouse in Comercio Square, surrounded by ministries, almost an "office" for his private business and literary concerns, where he used to meet friends in the 1920s and 1930s.
In 1925, Pessoa wrote in English a guidebook to Lisbon but it remained unpublished until 1992.
Pessoa translated a number of Portuguese books into English, and into Portuguese The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the short stories "The Theory and the Hound", "The Roads We Take" and "Georgia's Ruling" by O. Henry. He has also translated into Portuguese the poems "Godiva" by Alfred Tennyson, "Lucy" by William Wordsworth, "Catarina to Camoens" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Barbara Frietchie" by John Greenleaf Whittier, and "The Raven", "Annabel Lee" and "Ulalume" by Edgar Allan Poe who, along with Walt Whitman, strongly influenced him.
As a translator, Pessoa had his own method:
A poem is an intellectualized impression, an idea made emotion, communicated by others by means of a rhythm. This rhythm is double in one, like the concave and convex aspects of the same arc: it is made up of a verbal or musical rhythm and of a visual or image rhythm which concurs inwardly with it. The translation of a poem should therefore conform absolutely (1) to the idea or emotion which constitutes the poem, (2) to the verbal rhythm in which that idea or emotion is expressed; it should conform relatively to the inner or visual rhythm, keeping to the images themselves when it can, but keeping always to the type of image. It was on this criterion that I based my translation into Portuguese of Poe's "Annabel Lee" and "Ulalume", which I translated, not because of their great intrinsic worth, but because they were a standing challenge to translators.
In addition, Pessoa translated into Portuguese some books by the leading theosophists Helena Blavatsky, Charles Webster Leadbeater, Annie Besant, and Mabel Collins.
In 1912–14, while living with his aunt "Anica" and cousins, Pessoa took part in "semi-spiritualist sessions" that were carried out at home, but he was considered a "delaying element" by the other members of the sessions. Pessoa's interest in spiritualism was truly awakened in the second half of 1915, while translating theosophist books. This was further deepened in the end of March 1916, when he suddenly started having experiences where he believed he became a medium, having experimented with automatic writing. On June 24, 1916, Pessoa wrote an impressive letter to his aunt and godmother, then living in Switzerland with her daughter and son-in-law, in which he describes this "mystery case" that surprised him.
Besides automatic writing, Pessoa stated also that he had "astral" or "etherial visions" and was able to see "magnetic auras" similar to radiographic images. He felt "more curiosity than fear", but was respectful towards this phenomenon and asked secrecy, because "there is no advantage, but many disadvantages" in speaking about this. Mediumship exerted a strong influence in Pessoa's writings, who felt "sometimes suddenly being owned by something else" or having a "very curious sensation" in the right arm, which was "lifted into the air" without his will. Looking in the mirror, Pessoa saw several times what appeared to be the heteronyms: his "face fading out" and being replaced by the one of "a bearded man", or in another instance, four men in total.
Pessoa also developed a strong interest in astrology, becoming a competent astrologer. He elaborated hundreds of horoscopes, including well-known people such as William Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Robespierre, Napoleon I, Benito Mussolini, Wilhelm II, Leopold II of Belgium, Victor Emmanuel III, Alfonso XIII, or the Kings Sebastian and Charles of Portugal, and Salazar. In 1915, he created the heteronym Raphael Baldaya, an astrologer who planned to write "System of Astrology" and "Introduction to the Study of Occultism". Pessoa established the pricing of his astrological services from 500 to 5,000 réis and made horoscopes of relatives, friends, customers, also of himself and astonishingly of the heteronyms and journals as Orpheu.
The characters of the three main heteronyms were designed according to their horoscopes, with special reference to Mercury, the planet of literature. Each was also assigned to one of the four astral elements: air, fire, water and earth. For Pessoa, his heteronyms, taken together with his actual self, embodied the full principles of ancient knowledge. Astrology was part of his everyday life and he actively practiced it until his death.
As a mysticist, Pessoa was an enthusiast of esotericism, occultism, hermetism, numerology and alchemy. Along with spiritualism and astrology, he also paid attention to gnosticism, neopaganism, theosophy, rosicrucianism and freemasonry, which strongly influenced his literary work. He has declared himself a Pagan, in the sense of an "intellectual mystic of the sad race of the Neoplatonists from Alexandria" and a believer in "the Gods, their agency and their real and materially superior existence". His interest in occultism led Pessoa to correspond with Aleister Crowley and later helped him to elaborate a fake suicide, when Crowley visited Portugal in 1930. Pessoa translated Crowley's poem "Hymn To Pan" into Portuguese, and the catalogue of Pessoa's library shows that he possessed Crowley's books Magick in Theory and Practice and Confessions. Pessoa also wrote on Crowley's doctrine of Thelema in several fragments, including Moral.
Pessoa declared about secret societies:
I am also very interested in knowing whether a second edition is shortly to be expected of Athur Edward Waite's The Secret Tradition in Freemasonery. I see that, in a note on page 14 of his Emblematic Freemasonery, published by you in 1925, he says, in respect of the earlier work: "A new and revised edition is in the forefront of my literary schemes." For all I know, you may already have issued such an edition; if so, I have missed the reference in The Times Literary Supplement. Since I am writing on these subjects, I should like to put a question which perhaps you can reply to; but please do not do so if the reply involves any inconvenience. I believe The Occult Review was, or is, issued by yourselves; I have not seen any number for a long time. My question is in what issue of that publication – it was certainly a long while ago – an article was printed relating to the Roman Catholic Church as a Secret Society, or, alternatively, to a Secret Society within the Roman Catholic Church.
Literary critic Martin Lüdke described Pessoa's philosophy as a kind of pandeism, especially those writings under the heteronym Alberto Caeiro.
In his early years, Pessoa was influenced by major English classic poets such as Shakespeare, Milton and Pope, and romantics like Shelley, Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Tennyson. After his return to Lisbon in 1905, Pessoa was influenced by French symbolists and decadents such as Charles Baudelaire, Maurice Rollinat, and Stéphane Mallarmé. He was also importantly influenced by the Portuguese poets as Antero de Quental, Gomes Leal, Cesário Verde, António Nobre, Camilo Pessanha and Teixeira de Pascoaes. Later on, he was also influenced by the modernists W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, among many other writers.
During World War I, Pessoa wrote to a number of British publishers, namely Constable & Co. Ltd. (currently Constable & Robinson), trying to arrange publication of his collection of English verse The Mad Fiddler (unpublished during his lifetime), but it was refused. However, in 1920, the prestigious literary journal Athenaeum included one of those poems. Since the attempt at British publication failed, in 1918 Pessoa published in Lisbon two slim volumes of English verse: Antinous and 35 Sonnets, received by the British literary press without enthusiasm. Along with some friends, he founded another publishing house, Olisipo, which published in 1921 a further two English poetry volumes: English Poems I–II and English Poems III by Fernando Pessoa. In his publishing house, Pessoa also issued some books by his friends: A Invenção do Dia Claro (The Invention of the Clear Day) by José de Almada Negreiros, Canções (Songs) by António Botto, and Sodoma Divinizada (Deified Sodom) by Raul Leal (Henoch). Olisipo closed down in 1923, following the scandal known as "Literatura de Sodoma" (Literature of Sodom), which Pessoa started with his paper "António Botto e o Ideal Estético em Portugal" (António Botto and the Aesthetic Ideal in Portugal), published in the journal Contemporanea.
Politically, Pessoa described himself as "a British-style conservative, that is to say, liberal within conservatism and absolutely anti-reactionary," and adhered closely to the Spencerian individualism of his upbringing. He described his brand of nationalism as "mystic, cosmopolitan, liberal, and anti-Catholic." He was an outspoken elitist and aligned himself against communism, socialism, fascism and Catholicism. He initially rallied to the First Portuguese Republic but the ensuing instability caused him to reluctantly support the military coups of 1917 and 1926 as a means of restoring order and preparing the transition to a new constitutional normality. He wrote a pamphlet in 1928 supportive of the military dictatorship but after the establishment of the New State, in 1933, Pessoa became disenchanted with the regime and wrote critically of Salazar and fascism in general, maintaining a hostile stance towards its corporatist program, illiberalism, and censorship. In the beginning of 1935, Pessoa was banned by the Salazar regime, after he wrote in defense of Freemasonry. The regime also suppressed two articles Pessoa wrote in which he condemned Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia and fascism as a threat to human liberty everywhere.
On 29 November 1935, Pessoa was taken to the Hospital de São Luís, suffering from abdominal pain and a high fever; there he wrote, in English, his last words: "I know not what tomorrow will bring." He died the next day, 30 November 1935, around 8 pm, aged 47. His cause of death is commonly given as cirrhosis of the liver, due to alcoholism, though this is disputed: others attribute his death to pancreatitis (again from alcoholism), or other ailments.
In his lifetime, he published four books in English and one alone in Portuguese: Mensagem (Message). However, he left a lifetime of unpublished, unfinished or just sketchy work in a domed, wooden trunk (25,574 manuscript and typed pages which have been housed in the Portuguese National Library since 1988). The heavy burden of editing this huge work is still in progress. In 1985 (fifty years after his death), Pessoa's remains were moved to the Hieronymites Monastery, in Lisbon, where Vasco da Gama, Luís de Camões, and Alexandre Herculano are also buried. Pessoa's portrait was on the 100-escudo banknote.
[…] on 8 March 1914 – I found myself standing before a tall chest of drawers, took up a piece of paper, began to write, remaining upright all the while since I always stand when I can. I wrote thirty some poems in a row, all in a kind of ecstasy, the nature of which I shall never fathom. It was the triumphant day of my life, and I shall never have another like it. I began with a title, The Keeper of Sheep. And what followed was the appearance of someone within me to whom I promptly assigned the name of Alberto Caeiro. Please excuse the absurdity of what I am about to say, but there had appeared within me, then and there, my own master. It was my immediate sensation. So much so that, with those thirty odd poems written, I immediately took up another sheet of paper and wrote as well, in a row, the six poems that make up "Oblique Rain" by Fernando Pessoa. Immediately and totally... It was the return from Fernando Pessoa/Alberto Caeiro to Fernando Pessoa alone. Or better still, it was Fernando Pessoa's reaction to his own inexistence as Alberto Caeiro.
As the heteronym Coelho Pacheco, over a long period Pessoa's "triumphant day" was taken as real, however, it has been proved that this event was one more fiction created by Pessoa.
Pessoa's earliest heteronym, at the age of six, was Chevalier de Pas. Other childhood heteronyms included Dr. Pancrácio and David Merrick, followed by Charles Robert Anon, a young Englishman who became Pessoa's alter ego. In 1905/7, when Pessoa was a student at the University of Lisbon, Alexander Search took the place of Anon. The main reason for this was that, although Search was English, he was born in Lisbon, as was his author. But Search represents a transition heteronym that Pessoa used while searching to adapt to the Portuguese cultural reality. After the republican revolution, in 1910, and consequent patriotic atmosphere, Pessoa created another alter ego, Álvaro de Campos, supposedly a Portuguese naval and mechanical engineer, who was born in Tavira, hometown of Pessoa's ancestors, and graduated in Glasgow. Translator and literary critic Richard Zenith notes that Pessoa eventually established at least seventy-two heteronyms. According to Pessoa himself, there are three main heteronyms: Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis. Pessoa's heteronyms differ from pen names, because they possess distinct biographies, temperaments, philosophies, appearances, writing styles and even signatures. Thus, heteronyms often disagree on various topics, argue and discuss with each other about literature, aesthetics, philosophy, etc.
Pessoa wrote on the heteronyms:
How do I write in the name of these three? Caeiro, through sheer and unexpected inspiration, without knowing or even suspecting that I'm going to write in his name. Ricardo Reis, after an abstract meditation, which suddenly takes concrete shape in an ode. Campos, when I feel a sudden impulse to write and don't know what. (My semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares, who in many ways resembles Álvaro de Campos, always appears when I'm sleepy or drowsy, so that my qualities of inhibition and rational thought are suspended; his prose is an endless reverie. He's a semi-heteronym because his personality, although not my own, doesn't differ from my own but is a mere mutilation of it. He's me without my rationalism and emotions. His prose is the same as mine, except for certain formal restraint that reason imposes on my own writing, and his Portuguese is exactly the same – whereas Caeiro writes bad Portuguese, Campos writes it reasonably well but with mistakes such as "me myself" instead of "I myself", etc.., and Reis writes better than I, but with a purism I find excessive...).
Alberto Caeiro was Pessoa's first great heteronym; it is summarized by Pessoa as follows: "He sees things with the eyes only, not with the mind. He does not let any thoughts arise when he looks at a flower... the only thing a stone tells him is that it has nothing at all to tell him... this way of looking at a stone may be described as the totally unpoetic way of looking at it. The stupendous fact about Caeiro is that out of this sentiment, or rather, absence of sentiment, he makes poetry."
What this means, and what makes Caeiro such an original poet is the way he apprehends existence. He does not question anything whatsoever; he calmly accepts the world as it is. The recurrent themes to be found in nearly all of Caeiro's poems are wide-eyed childlike wonder at the infinite variety of nature, as noted by a critic. He is free of metaphysical entanglements. Central to his world-view is the idea that in the world around us, all is surface: things are precisely what they seem, there is no hidden meaning anywhere.
He manages thus to free himself from the anxieties that batter his peers; for Caeiro, things simply exist and we have no right to credit them with more than that. Caeiro attains happiness by not questioning, and by thus avoiding doubts and uncertainties. He apprehends reality solely through his eyes, through his senses. Octavio Paz called him the innocent poet. Paz made a shrewd remark on the heteronyms: In each are particles of negation or unreality. Reis believes in form, Campos in sensation, Pessoa in symbols. Caeiro doesn't believe in anything. He exists.
Poetry before Caeiro was essentially interpretative; what poets did was to offer an interpretation of their perceived surroundings; Caeiro does not do this. Instead, he attempts to communicate his senses, and his feelings, without any interpretation whatsoever.
Caeiro attempts to approach Nature from a qualitatively different mode of apprehension; that of simply perceiving (an approach akin to phenomenological approaches to philosophy). Poets before him would make use of intricate metaphors to describe what was before them; not so Caeiro: his self-appointed task is to bring these objects to the reader's attention, as directly and simply as possible. Caeiro sought a direct experience of the objects before him.
As such it is not surprising to find that Caeiro has been called an anti-intellectual, anti-Romantic, anti-subjectivist, anti-metaphysical...an anti-poet, by critics; Caeiro simply-is. He is in this sense very unlike his creator Fernando Pessoa: Pessoa was besieged by metaphysical uncertainties; these were, to a large extent, the cause of his unhappiness; not so Caeiro: his attitude is anti-metaphysical; he avoided uncertainties by adamantly clinging to a certainty: his belief that there is no meaning behind things. Things, for him, simply-are.
Caeiro represents a primal vision of reality, of things. He is the pagan incarnate. Indeed, Caeiro was not simply a pagan but paganism itself.
The critic Jane M. Sheets sees the insurgence of Caeiro — who was Pessoa's first major heteronym — as essential in founding the later poetic personae: By means of this artless yet affirmative anti-poet, Caeiro, a short-lived but vital member of his coterie, Pessoa acquired the base of an experienced and universal poetic vision. After Caeiro's tenets had been established, the avowedly poetic voices of Campos, Reis and Pessoa himself spoke with greater assurance.
In a letter to William Bentley, Pessoa wrote that "a knowledge of the language would be indispensable, for instance, to appraise the 'Odes' of Ricardo Reis, whose Portuguese would draw upon him the blessing of António Vieira, as his stile and diction that of Horace (he has been called, admirably I believe, 'a Greek Horace who writes in Portuguese')".
Reis, both a character and a heteronym of Fernando Pessoa himself, sums up his philosophy of life in his own words, admonishing, "See life from a distance. Never question it. There's nothing it can tell you." Like Caeiro, whom he admires, Reis defers from questioning life. He is a modern pagan who urges one to seize the day and accept fate with tranquility. "Wise is the one who does not seek. The seeker will find in all things the abyss, and doubt in himself." In this sense, Reis shares essential affinities with Caeiro.
Believing in the Greek gods, yet living in a Christian Europe, Reis feels that his spiritual life is limited and true happiness cannot be attained. This, added to his belief in Fate as a driving force for all that exists, as such disregarding freedom, leads to his epicureanist philosophy, which entails the avoidance of pain, defending that man should seek tranquility and calm above all else, avoiding emotional extremes.
Where Caeiro wrote freely and spontaneously, with joviality, of his basic, meaningless connection to the world, Reis writes in an austere, cerebral manner, with premeditated rhythm and structure and a particular attention to the correct use of the language when approaching his subjects of, as characterized by Richard Zenith, "the brevity of life, the vanity of wealth and struggle, the joy of simple pleasures, patience in time of trouble, and avoidance of extremes".
In his detached, intellectual approach, he is closer to Fernando Pessoa's constant rationalization, as such representing the orthonym's wish for measure and sobriety and a world free of troubles and respite, in stark contrast to Caeiro's spirit and style. As such, where Caeiro's predominant attitude is that of joviality, his sadness being accepted as natural ("My sadness is a comfort for it is natural and right."), Reis is marked by melancholy, saddened by the impermanence of all things.
Ricardo Reis is the main character of José Saramago's 1986 novel The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis.
Álvaro de Campos manifests, in a way, as a hyperbolic version of Pessoa himself. Of the three heteronyms he is the one who feels most strongly, his motto being 'to feel everything in every way.' 'The best way to travel,' he wrote, 'is to feel.' As such, his poetry is the most emotionally intense and varied, constantly juggling two fundamental impulses: on the one hand a feverish desire to be and feel everything and everyone, declaring that 'in every corner of my soul stands an altar to a different god' (alluding to Walt Whitman's desire to 'contain multitudes'), on the other, a wish for a state of isolation and a sense of nothingness.
As a result, his mood and principles varied between violent, dynamic exultation, as he fervently wishes to experience the entirety of the universe in himself, in all manners possible (a particularly distinctive trait in this state being his futuristic leanings, including the expression of great enthusiasm as to the meaning of city life and its components) and a state of nostalgic melancholy, where life is viewed as, essentially, empty.
One of the poet's constant preoccupations, as part of his dichotomous character, is that of identity: he does not know who he is, or rather, fails at achieving an ideal identity. Wanting to be everything, and inevitably failing, he despairs. Unlike Caeiro, who asks nothing of life, he asks too much. In his poetic meditation 'Tobacco Shop' he asks:
How should I know what I'll be, I who don't know what I am? To be what I think? But I think of being so many things!
Mensagem, written in Portuguese, is a symbolist epic made up of 44 short poems organized in three parts or Cycles:
The first, called "Brasão" (Coat-of-Arms), relates Portuguese historical protagonists to each of the fields and charges in the Portuguese coat of arms. The first two poems ("The castles" and "The escutcheons") draw inspiration from the material and spiritual natures of Portugal. Each of the remaining poems associates to each charge a historical personality. Ultimately they all lead to the Golden Age of Discovery.
The second Part, called "Mar Português" (Portuguese Sea), references the country's Age of Portuguese Exploration and to its seaborne Empire that ended with the death of King Sebastian at El-Ksar el Kebir (Alcácer-Quibir in Portuguese) in 1578. Pessoa brings the reader to the present as if he had woken up from a dream of the past, to fall in a dream of the future: he sees King Sebastian returning and still bent on accomplishing a Universal Empire.
The third Cycle, called "O Encoberto" ("The Hidden One"), refers to Pessoa's vision of a future world of peace and the Fifth Empire (which, according to Pessoa, is spiritual and not material, because if it were material England would already have achieved it). After the Age of Force (Vis), and Taedium (Otium) will come Science (understanding) through a reawakening of "The Hidden One", or "King Sebastian". The Hidden One represents the fulfillment of the destiny of mankind, designed by God since before Time, and the accomplishment of Portugal.
King Sebastian is very important, indeed he appears in all three parts of Mensagem. He represents the capacity of dreaming, and believing that it's possible to achieve dreams.
One of the most famous quotes from Mensagem is the first line from O Infante (belonging to the second Part), which is Deus quer, o homem sonha, a obra nasce (which translates roughly to "God wishes, man dreams, the work is born"). Another well-known quote from Mensagem is the first line from Ulysses, "O mito é o nada que é tudo" (a possible translation is "The myth is the nothing that is all"). This poem refers to Ulysses, king of Ithaca, as Lisbon's founder (recalling an ancient Greek myth).
In 1912, Fernando Pessoa wrote a set of essays (later collected as The New Portuguese Poetry) for the cultural journal A Águia (The Eagle), founded in Oporto, in December 1910, and run by the republican association Renascença Portuguesa. In the first years of the Portuguese Republic, this cultural association was started by republican intellectuals led by the writer and poet Teixeira de Pascoaes, philosopher Leonardo Coimbra and historian Jaime Cortesão, aiming for the renewal of Portuguese culture through the aesthetic movement called Saudosismo. Pessoa contributed to the journal A Águia with a series of papers: 'The new Portuguese Poetry Sociologically Considered' (nr. 4), 'Relapsing...' (nr. 5) and 'The Psychological Aspect of the new Portuguese Poetry' (nrs. 9,11 and 12). These writings were strongly encomiastic to saudosist literature, namely the poetry of Teixeira de Pascoaes and Mário Beirão. The articles disclose Pessoa as a connoisseur of modern European literature and an expert of recent literary trends. On the other hand, he does not care much for a methodology of analysis or problems in the history of ideas. He states his confidence that Portugal would soon produce a great poet – a super-Camões – pledged to make an important contribution for European culture, and indeed, for humanity.
The philosophical notes of the young Pessoa, mostly written between 1905 and 1912, illustrate his debt to the history of philosophy more through commentators than through a first-hand protracted reading of the Classics, ancient or modern. The issues he engages with pertain to every philosophical discipline and concern a large profusion of concepts, creating a vast semantic spectrum in texts whose length varies between half a dozen lines and half a dozen pages and whose density of analysis is extremely variable; simple paraphrasis, expression of assumptions and original speculation.
Pessoa sorted the philosophical systems thus:
Such pantheist transcendentalism is used by Pessoa to define the project that "encompasses and exceeds all systems"; to characterize the new poetry of Saudosismo where the "typical contradiction of this system" occurs; to inquire of the particular social and political results of its adoption as the leading cultural paradigm; and, at last, he hints that metaphysics and religiosity strive "to find in everything a beyond".
Professor Jacksons research interests focus on Portuguese and Brazilian Literatures; modernist and inter-arts literature; Portuguese culture in Asia; and ethnomusicology. He has written and edited several books and other publications. We talk with Professor Jackson about his forthcoming book, Adverse Genres in Fernando Pessoa.
November 18, 2013, at the Woodberry Poetry Room, Harvard University. As a part of our Omniglot Seminar series, Portuguese translator Richard Zenith read from his translations of Luís de Camões, Fernando Pessoa and Carlos Drummond de Andrade. He compared his experiences translating archaic vs. contemporary linguistic registers, highly formal poetry vs. free verse, and European vs. Brazilian Portuguese. And he discussed the unique challenge of translating (and researching a biography of) a poet such as Pessoa, with alter egos that wrote in radically different styles.
Richard Zenith presented a lecture on Fernando Pessoa, one of Portugal's most important literary figures of the 20th century and a towering figure in modernism.
In this poem, Pessoa creates an inner struggle that the speaker has with trying to figure out whether it was fate or free will that has determined how his life panned out. By making the whole poem essentially one, elongated metaphor, Pessoa is able to give multiple interpretations to his poem. In the titular first line of the first stanza, Pessoa states “I don’t know how many souls I have”. Automatically, Pessoa causes the speaker to question his morality and inner being. Line two of the first stanza has a literal translation of “each time changed.” When put in context, it becomes apparent that the speaker is referring to himself that changes so often. These two lines become the foundation for the rest of the poem, seeing as they set up a questioning within the speaker. The translations of these two lines are also crucial to fully grasp the meaning of the poem as a whole.
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[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (Portuguese: [fɨɾˈnɐ̃du pɨˈsoɐ]; 13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935) was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher, and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language. He also wrote in and translated from English and French.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Pessoa was a prolific writer, and not only under his own name, for he created approximately seventy-five others, of which three stand out: Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos, and Ricardo Reis. He did not call them pseudonyms because he felt that this did not capture their true independent intellectual life and instead called them heteronyms. These imaginary figures sometimes held unpopular or extreme views.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Pessoa was born in Lisbon on 13 June 1888. When Pessoa was five, his father, Joaquim de Seabra Pessôa, died of tuberculosis, and less than seven months later his younger brother Jorge, aged one, also died (2 January 1889). After the second marriage of his mother, Maria Magdalena Pinheiro Nogueira, a proxy wedding to João Miguel dos Santos Rosa, Fernando sailed with his mother for South Africa in early 1896 to join his stepfather, a military officer appointed Portuguese consul in Durban, capital of the former British Colony of Natal. In a letter dated 8 February 1918, Pessoa wrote:",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "There is only one event in the past which has both the definiteness and the importance required for rectification by direction; this is my father's death, which took place on 13 July 1893. My mother's second marriage (which took place on 30 December 1895) is another date which I can give with preciseness and it is important for me, not in itself, but in one of its results – the circumstance that, my stepfather becoming Portuguese Consul in Durban (Natal), I was educated there, this English education being a factor of supreme importance in my life, and, whatever my fate be, indubitably shaping it.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The dates of the voyages related to the above event are (as nearly as possible):",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "1st. voyage to Africa – left Lisbon beginning January 1896.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Return – left Durban in the afternoon of 1st. August 1901.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "2nd. voyage to Africa – left Lisbon about 20th. September 1902.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Return – left Durban about 20th. August 1905.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The young Pessoa received his early education at St. Joseph Convent School, a Roman Catholic grammar school run by Irish and French nuns. He moved to the Durban High School in April 1899, becoming fluent in English and developing an appreciation for English literature. During the Matriculation Examination, held at the time by the University of the Cape of Good Hope (forerunner of the University of Cape Town), in November 1903, he was awarded the recently created Queen Victoria Memorial Prize for best paper in English. While preparing to enter university, he also attended the Durban Commercial High School during one year, taking night classes.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Meanwhile, Pessoa started writing short stories in English, some under the name of David Merrick, many of which he left unfinished. At the age of sixteen, The Natal Mercury (edition of 6 July 1904) published his poem \"Hillier did first usurp the realms of rhyme...\", under the name of C. R. Anon (anonymous), along with a brief introductory text: \"I read with great amusement...\". In December, The Durban High School Magazine published his essay \"Macaulay\". From February to June 1905, in the section \"The Man in the Moon\", The Natal Mercury also published at least four sonnets by Fernando Pessoa: \"Joseph Chamberlain\", \"To England I\", \"To England II\" and \"Liberty\". His poems often carried humorous versions of Anon as the author's name. Pessoa started using pen names quite young. The first one, still in his childhood, was Chevalier de Pas, supposedly a French noble. In addition to Charles Robert Anon and David Merrick, the young writer also signed up, among other pen names, as Horace James Faber, Alexander Search [pt], and other meaningful names.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In the preface to The Book of Disquiet, Pessoa wrote about himself:",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Nothing had ever obliged him to do anything. He had spent his childhood alone. He never joined any group. He never pursued a course of study. He never belonged to a crowd. The circumstances of his life were marked by that strange but rather common phenomenon – perhaps, in fact, it's true for all lives – of being tailored to the image and likeness of his instincts, which tended towards inertia and withdrawal.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The young Pessoa was described by a schoolfellow as follows:",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "I cannot tell you exactly how long I knew him, but the period during which I received most of my impressions of him was the whole of the year 1904 when we were at school together. How old he was at this time I don't know, but judge him to have 15 or 16. [...]",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "He was pale and thin and appeared physically to be very imperfectly developed. He had a narrow and contracted chest and was inclined to stoop. He had a peculiar walk and some defect in his eyesight gave to his eyes also a peculiar appearance, the lids seemed to drop over the eyes. [...]",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "He was regarded as a brilliant clever boy as, in spite of the fact that he had not spoken English in his early years, he had learned it so rapidly and so well that he had a splendid style in that language. Although younger than his schoolfellows of the same class he appeared to have no difficulty in keeping up with and surpassing them in work. For one of his age, he thought much and deeply and in a letter to me once complained of \"spiritual and material encumbrances of most especial adverseness\". [...]",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "He took no part in athletic sports of any kind and I think his spare time was spent on reading. We generally considered that he worked far too much and that he would ruin his health by so doing.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Ten years after his arrival, he sailed for Lisbon by East through the Suez Canal on board the \"Herzog\", leaving Durban for good at the age of seventeen. This journey inspired the poems \"Opiário\" (dedicated to his friend, the poet and writer Mário de Sá-Carneiro) published in March 1915, in the literary journal Orpheu nr.1 and \"Ode Marítima\" (dedicated to the futurist painter Santa-Rita) published in June 1915, in Orpheu nr.2 by his heteronym Álvaro de Campos.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "While his family remained in South Africa, Pessoa returned to Lisbon in 1905 to study diplomacy. After a period of illness, and two years of poor results, a student strike against the dictatorship of Prime Minister João Franco put an end to his formal studies. Pessoa became an autodidact, a devoted reader who spent a lot of time at the library. In August 1907, he started working as a practitioner at R.G. Dun & Company, an American mercantile information agency (currently D&B, Dun & Bradstreet). His grandmother died in September and left him a small inheritance, which he spent on setting up his own publishing house, the \"Empreza Ibis\". The venture was not successful and closed down in 1910, but the name ibis, the sacred bird of Ancient Egypt and inventor of the alphabet in Greek mythology, would remain an important symbolic reference for him.",
"title": "Lisbon revisited"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Pessoa returned to his uncompleted formal studies, complementing his British education with self-directed study of Portuguese culture. The pre-revolutionary atmosphere surrounding the assassination of King Charles I and Crown Prince Luís Filipe in 1908, and the patriotic outburst resulting from the successful republican revolution in 1910, influenced the development of the budding writer; as did his step-uncle, Henrique dos Santos Rosa, a poet and retired soldier, who introduced the young Pessoa to Portuguese poetry, notably the romantics and symbolists of the 19th century. In 1912, Fernando Pessoa entered the literary world with a critical essay, published in the cultural journal A Águia, which triggered one of the most important literary debates in the Portuguese intellectual world of the 20th century: the polemic regarding a super-Camões. In 1915 a group of artists and poets, including Fernando Pessoa, Mário de Sá-Carneiro and Almada Negreiros, created the literary magazine Orpheu, which introduced modernist literature to Portugal. Only two issues were published (Jan–Feb–Mar and Apr–May–Jun 1915), the third failed to appear due to funding difficulties. Lost for many years, this issue was finally recovered and published in 1984. Among other writers and poets, Orpheu published Pessoa, orthonym, and the modernist heteronym, Álvaro de Campos.",
"title": "Lisbon revisited"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Along with the artist Ruy Vaz, Pessoa also founded the art journal Athena (1924–25), in which he published verses under the heteronyms Alberto Caeiro and Ricardo Reis. Along with his profession, as free-lance commercial translator, Fernando Pessoa undertook intense activity as a writer, literary critic and political analyst, contributing to the journals and newspapers A Águia (1912–13), A República (1913), Theatro (1913), A Renascença (1914), O Raio (1914), A Galera (1915), Orpheu (1915), O Jornal (1915), Eh Real! (1915), Exílio (1916), Centauro (1916), A Ideia Nacional (1916), Terra Nossa (1916), O Heraldo (1917), Portugal Futurista (1917), Acção (1919–20), Ressurreição (1920), Contemporânea (1922–26), Athena (1924–25), Diário de Lisboa (1924–35), Revista de Comércio e Contabilidade (1926), Sol (1926), O Imparcial (1927), Presença (1927–34), Revista Solução Editora (1929–1931), Notícias Ilustrado (1928–30), Girassol (1930), Revolução (1932), Descobrimento (1932), Fama (1932–33), Fradique (1934) and Sudoeste (1935).",
"title": "Lisbon revisited"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "After his return to Portugal, when he was seventeen, Pessoa barely left his beloved city of Lisbon, which inspired the poems \"Lisbon Revisited\" (1923 and 1926), written under the heteronym Álvaro de Campos. From 1905 to 1920, when his family returned from Pretoria after the death of his stepfather, he lived in fifteen different locations in the city, moving from one rented room to another depending on his fluctuating finances and personal troubles.",
"title": "Pessoa the flâneur"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Pessoa adopted the detached perspective of the flâneur Bernardo Soares [pt], one of his heteronyms. This character was supposedly an accountant, working for Vasques, the boss of an office located in Douradores Street. Soares also supposedly lived in the same downtown street, a world that Pessoa knew quite well due to his long career as freelance correspondence translator. Indeed, from 1907 until his death in 1935, Pessoa worked in twenty-one firms located in Lisbon's downtown, sometimes in two or three of them simultaneously. In The Book of Disquiet, Bernardo Soares describes some of these typical places and describes one's \"atmosphere\". In his daydream soliloquy he also wrote about Lisbon in the first half of the 20th century. Soares describes crowds in the streets, buildings, shops, traffic, the river Tagus, the weather, and even its author, Fernando Pessoa:",
"title": "Pessoa the flâneur"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Fairly tall and thin, he must have been about thirty years old. He hunched over terribly when sitting down but less so standing up, and he dressed with a carelessness that wasn't entirely careless. In his pale, uninteresting face there was a look of suffering that didn't add any interest, and it was difficult to say just what kind of suffering this look suggested. It seemed to suggest various kinds: hardships, anxieties, and the suffering born of the indifference that comes from having already suffered a lot.",
"title": "Pessoa the flâneur"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "A statue of Pessoa sitting at a table (below) can be seen outside A Brasileira, one of the preferred places of young writers and artists of Orpheu's group during the 1910s. This coffeehouse, in the aristocratic district of Chiado, is quite close to Pessoa's birthplace: 4, São Carlos Square (just in front of Lisbon's Opera House, where stands another statue of the writer), one of the most elegant neighborhoods of Lisbon. Later on, Pessoa was a frequent customer at Martinho da Arcada, a centennial coffeehouse in Comercio Square, surrounded by ministries, almost an \"office\" for his private business and literary concerns, where he used to meet friends in the 1920s and 1930s.",
"title": "Pessoa the flâneur"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In 1925, Pessoa wrote in English a guidebook to Lisbon but it remained unpublished until 1992.",
"title": "Pessoa the flâneur"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Pessoa translated a number of Portuguese books into English, and into Portuguese The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the short stories \"The Theory and the Hound\", \"The Roads We Take\" and \"Georgia's Ruling\" by O. Henry. He has also translated into Portuguese the poems \"Godiva\" by Alfred Tennyson, \"Lucy\" by William Wordsworth, \"Catarina to Camoens\" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, \"Barbara Frietchie\" by John Greenleaf Whittier, and \"The Raven\", \"Annabel Lee\" and \"Ulalume\" by Edgar Allan Poe who, along with Walt Whitman, strongly influenced him.",
"title": "Literature and occultism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "As a translator, Pessoa had his own method:",
"title": "Literature and occultism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "A poem is an intellectualized impression, an idea made emotion, communicated by others by means of a rhythm. This rhythm is double in one, like the concave and convex aspects of the same arc: it is made up of a verbal or musical rhythm and of a visual or image rhythm which concurs inwardly with it. The translation of a poem should therefore conform absolutely (1) to the idea or emotion which constitutes the poem, (2) to the verbal rhythm in which that idea or emotion is expressed; it should conform relatively to the inner or visual rhythm, keeping to the images themselves when it can, but keeping always to the type of image. It was on this criterion that I based my translation into Portuguese of Poe's \"Annabel Lee\" and \"Ulalume\", which I translated, not because of their great intrinsic worth, but because they were a standing challenge to translators.",
"title": "Literature and occultism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In addition, Pessoa translated into Portuguese some books by the leading theosophists Helena Blavatsky, Charles Webster Leadbeater, Annie Besant, and Mabel Collins.",
"title": "Literature and occultism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In 1912–14, while living with his aunt \"Anica\" and cousins, Pessoa took part in \"semi-spiritualist sessions\" that were carried out at home, but he was considered a \"delaying element\" by the other members of the sessions. Pessoa's interest in spiritualism was truly awakened in the second half of 1915, while translating theosophist books. This was further deepened in the end of March 1916, when he suddenly started having experiences where he believed he became a medium, having experimented with automatic writing. On June 24, 1916, Pessoa wrote an impressive letter to his aunt and godmother, then living in Switzerland with her daughter and son-in-law, in which he describes this \"mystery case\" that surprised him.",
"title": "Literature and occultism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Besides automatic writing, Pessoa stated also that he had \"astral\" or \"etherial visions\" and was able to see \"magnetic auras\" similar to radiographic images. He felt \"more curiosity than fear\", but was respectful towards this phenomenon and asked secrecy, because \"there is no advantage, but many disadvantages\" in speaking about this. Mediumship exerted a strong influence in Pessoa's writings, who felt \"sometimes suddenly being owned by something else\" or having a \"very curious sensation\" in the right arm, which was \"lifted into the air\" without his will. Looking in the mirror, Pessoa saw several times what appeared to be the heteronyms: his \"face fading out\" and being replaced by the one of \"a bearded man\", or in another instance, four men in total.",
"title": "Literature and occultism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Pessoa also developed a strong interest in astrology, becoming a competent astrologer. He elaborated hundreds of horoscopes, including well-known people such as William Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Robespierre, Napoleon I, Benito Mussolini, Wilhelm II, Leopold II of Belgium, Victor Emmanuel III, Alfonso XIII, or the Kings Sebastian and Charles of Portugal, and Salazar. In 1915, he created the heteronym Raphael Baldaya, an astrologer who planned to write \"System of Astrology\" and \"Introduction to the Study of Occultism\". Pessoa established the pricing of his astrological services from 500 to 5,000 réis and made horoscopes of relatives, friends, customers, also of himself and astonishingly of the heteronyms and journals as Orpheu.",
"title": "Literature and occultism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The characters of the three main heteronyms were designed according to their horoscopes, with special reference to Mercury, the planet of literature. Each was also assigned to one of the four astral elements: air, fire, water and earth. For Pessoa, his heteronyms, taken together with his actual self, embodied the full principles of ancient knowledge. Astrology was part of his everyday life and he actively practiced it until his death.",
"title": "Literature and occultism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "As a mysticist, Pessoa was an enthusiast of esotericism, occultism, hermetism, numerology and alchemy. Along with spiritualism and astrology, he also paid attention to gnosticism, neopaganism, theosophy, rosicrucianism and freemasonry, which strongly influenced his literary work. He has declared himself a Pagan, in the sense of an \"intellectual mystic of the sad race of the Neoplatonists from Alexandria\" and a believer in \"the Gods, their agency and their real and materially superior existence\". His interest in occultism led Pessoa to correspond with Aleister Crowley and later helped him to elaborate a fake suicide, when Crowley visited Portugal in 1930. Pessoa translated Crowley's poem \"Hymn To Pan\" into Portuguese, and the catalogue of Pessoa's library shows that he possessed Crowley's books Magick in Theory and Practice and Confessions. Pessoa also wrote on Crowley's doctrine of Thelema in several fragments, including Moral.",
"title": "Literature and occultism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Pessoa declared about secret societies:",
"title": "Literature and occultism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "I am also very interested in knowing whether a second edition is shortly to be expected of Athur Edward Waite's The Secret Tradition in Freemasonery. I see that, in a note on page 14 of his Emblematic Freemasonery, published by you in 1925, he says, in respect of the earlier work: \"A new and revised edition is in the forefront of my literary schemes.\" For all I know, you may already have issued such an edition; if so, I have missed the reference in The Times Literary Supplement. Since I am writing on these subjects, I should like to put a question which perhaps you can reply to; but please do not do so if the reply involves any inconvenience. I believe The Occult Review was, or is, issued by yourselves; I have not seen any number for a long time. My question is in what issue of that publication – it was certainly a long while ago – an article was printed relating to the Roman Catholic Church as a Secret Society, or, alternatively, to a Secret Society within the Roman Catholic Church.",
"title": "Literature and occultism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Literary critic Martin Lüdke described Pessoa's philosophy as a kind of pandeism, especially those writings under the heteronym Alberto Caeiro.",
"title": "Literature and occultism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In his early years, Pessoa was influenced by major English classic poets such as Shakespeare, Milton and Pope, and romantics like Shelley, Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Tennyson. After his return to Lisbon in 1905, Pessoa was influenced by French symbolists and decadents such as Charles Baudelaire, Maurice Rollinat, and Stéphane Mallarmé. He was also importantly influenced by the Portuguese poets as Antero de Quental, Gomes Leal, Cesário Verde, António Nobre, Camilo Pessanha and Teixeira de Pascoaes. Later on, he was also influenced by the modernists W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, among many other writers.",
"title": "Writing a lifetime"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "During World War I, Pessoa wrote to a number of British publishers, namely Constable & Co. Ltd. (currently Constable & Robinson), trying to arrange publication of his collection of English verse The Mad Fiddler (unpublished during his lifetime), but it was refused. However, in 1920, the prestigious literary journal Athenaeum included one of those poems. Since the attempt at British publication failed, in 1918 Pessoa published in Lisbon two slim volumes of English verse: Antinous and 35 Sonnets, received by the British literary press without enthusiasm. Along with some friends, he founded another publishing house, Olisipo, which published in 1921 a further two English poetry volumes: English Poems I–II and English Poems III by Fernando Pessoa. In his publishing house, Pessoa also issued some books by his friends: A Invenção do Dia Claro (The Invention of the Clear Day) by José de Almada Negreiros, Canções (Songs) by António Botto, and Sodoma Divinizada (Deified Sodom) by Raul Leal (Henoch). Olisipo closed down in 1923, following the scandal known as \"Literatura de Sodoma\" (Literature of Sodom), which Pessoa started with his paper \"António Botto e o Ideal Estético em Portugal\" (António Botto and the Aesthetic Ideal in Portugal), published in the journal Contemporanea.",
"title": "Writing a lifetime"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Politically, Pessoa described himself as \"a British-style conservative, that is to say, liberal within conservatism and absolutely anti-reactionary,\" and adhered closely to the Spencerian individualism of his upbringing. He described his brand of nationalism as \"mystic, cosmopolitan, liberal, and anti-Catholic.\" He was an outspoken elitist and aligned himself against communism, socialism, fascism and Catholicism. He initially rallied to the First Portuguese Republic but the ensuing instability caused him to reluctantly support the military coups of 1917 and 1926 as a means of restoring order and preparing the transition to a new constitutional normality. He wrote a pamphlet in 1928 supportive of the military dictatorship but after the establishment of the New State, in 1933, Pessoa became disenchanted with the regime and wrote critically of Salazar and fascism in general, maintaining a hostile stance towards its corporatist program, illiberalism, and censorship. In the beginning of 1935, Pessoa was banned by the Salazar regime, after he wrote in defense of Freemasonry. The regime also suppressed two articles Pessoa wrote in which he condemned Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia and fascism as a threat to human liberty everywhere.",
"title": "Writing a lifetime"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "On 29 November 1935, Pessoa was taken to the Hospital de São Luís, suffering from abdominal pain and a high fever; there he wrote, in English, his last words: \"I know not what tomorrow will bring.\" He died the next day, 30 November 1935, around 8 pm, aged 47. His cause of death is commonly given as cirrhosis of the liver, due to alcoholism, though this is disputed: others attribute his death to pancreatitis (again from alcoholism), or other ailments.",
"title": "Writing a lifetime"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In his lifetime, he published four books in English and one alone in Portuguese: Mensagem (Message). However, he left a lifetime of unpublished, unfinished or just sketchy work in a domed, wooden trunk (25,574 manuscript and typed pages which have been housed in the Portuguese National Library since 1988). The heavy burden of editing this huge work is still in progress. In 1985 (fifty years after his death), Pessoa's remains were moved to the Hieronymites Monastery, in Lisbon, where Vasco da Gama, Luís de Camões, and Alexandre Herculano are also buried. Pessoa's portrait was on the 100-escudo banknote.",
"title": "Writing a lifetime"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "[…] on 8 March 1914 – I found myself standing before a tall chest of drawers, took up a piece of paper, began to write, remaining upright all the while since I always stand when I can. I wrote thirty some poems in a row, all in a kind of ecstasy, the nature of which I shall never fathom. It was the triumphant day of my life, and I shall never have another like it. I began with a title, The Keeper of Sheep. And what followed was the appearance of someone within me to whom I promptly assigned the name of Alberto Caeiro. Please excuse the absurdity of what I am about to say, but there had appeared within me, then and there, my own master. It was my immediate sensation. So much so that, with those thirty odd poems written, I immediately took up another sheet of paper and wrote as well, in a row, the six poems that make up \"Oblique Rain\" by Fernando Pessoa. Immediately and totally... It was the return from Fernando Pessoa/Alberto Caeiro to Fernando Pessoa alone. Or better still, it was Fernando Pessoa's reaction to his own inexistence as Alberto Caeiro.",
"title": "The triumphant day"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "As the heteronym Coelho Pacheco, over a long period Pessoa's \"triumphant day\" was taken as real, however, it has been proved that this event was one more fiction created by Pessoa.",
"title": "The triumphant day"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Pessoa's earliest heteronym, at the age of six, was Chevalier de Pas. Other childhood heteronyms included Dr. Pancrácio and David Merrick, followed by Charles Robert Anon, a young Englishman who became Pessoa's alter ego. In 1905/7, when Pessoa was a student at the University of Lisbon, Alexander Search took the place of Anon. The main reason for this was that, although Search was English, he was born in Lisbon, as was his author. But Search represents a transition heteronym that Pessoa used while searching to adapt to the Portuguese cultural reality. After the republican revolution, in 1910, and consequent patriotic atmosphere, Pessoa created another alter ego, Álvaro de Campos, supposedly a Portuguese naval and mechanical engineer, who was born in Tavira, hometown of Pessoa's ancestors, and graduated in Glasgow. Translator and literary critic Richard Zenith notes that Pessoa eventually established at least seventy-two heteronyms. According to Pessoa himself, there are three main heteronyms: Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis. Pessoa's heteronyms differ from pen names, because they possess distinct biographies, temperaments, philosophies, appearances, writing styles and even signatures. Thus, heteronyms often disagree on various topics, argue and discuss with each other about literature, aesthetics, philosophy, etc.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Pessoa wrote on the heteronyms:",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "How do I write in the name of these three? Caeiro, through sheer and unexpected inspiration, without knowing or even suspecting that I'm going to write in his name. Ricardo Reis, after an abstract meditation, which suddenly takes concrete shape in an ode. Campos, when I feel a sudden impulse to write and don't know what. (My semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares, who in many ways resembles Álvaro de Campos, always appears when I'm sleepy or drowsy, so that my qualities of inhibition and rational thought are suspended; his prose is an endless reverie. He's a semi-heteronym because his personality, although not my own, doesn't differ from my own but is a mere mutilation of it. He's me without my rationalism and emotions. His prose is the same as mine, except for certain formal restraint that reason imposes on my own writing, and his Portuguese is exactly the same – whereas Caeiro writes bad Portuguese, Campos writes it reasonably well but with mistakes such as \"me myself\" instead of \"I myself\", etc.., and Reis writes better than I, but with a purism I find excessive...).",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Alberto Caeiro was Pessoa's first great heteronym; it is summarized by Pessoa as follows: \"He sees things with the eyes only, not with the mind. He does not let any thoughts arise when he looks at a flower... the only thing a stone tells him is that it has nothing at all to tell him... this way of looking at a stone may be described as the totally unpoetic way of looking at it. The stupendous fact about Caeiro is that out of this sentiment, or rather, absence of sentiment, he makes poetry.\"",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "What this means, and what makes Caeiro such an original poet is the way he apprehends existence. He does not question anything whatsoever; he calmly accepts the world as it is. The recurrent themes to be found in nearly all of Caeiro's poems are wide-eyed childlike wonder at the infinite variety of nature, as noted by a critic. He is free of metaphysical entanglements. Central to his world-view is the idea that in the world around us, all is surface: things are precisely what they seem, there is no hidden meaning anywhere.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "He manages thus to free himself from the anxieties that batter his peers; for Caeiro, things simply exist and we have no right to credit them with more than that. Caeiro attains happiness by not questioning, and by thus avoiding doubts and uncertainties. He apprehends reality solely through his eyes, through his senses. Octavio Paz called him the innocent poet. Paz made a shrewd remark on the heteronyms: In each are particles of negation or unreality. Reis believes in form, Campos in sensation, Pessoa in symbols. Caeiro doesn't believe in anything. He exists.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Poetry before Caeiro was essentially interpretative; what poets did was to offer an interpretation of their perceived surroundings; Caeiro does not do this. Instead, he attempts to communicate his senses, and his feelings, without any interpretation whatsoever.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Caeiro attempts to approach Nature from a qualitatively different mode of apprehension; that of simply perceiving (an approach akin to phenomenological approaches to philosophy). Poets before him would make use of intricate metaphors to describe what was before them; not so Caeiro: his self-appointed task is to bring these objects to the reader's attention, as directly and simply as possible. Caeiro sought a direct experience of the objects before him.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "As such it is not surprising to find that Caeiro has been called an anti-intellectual, anti-Romantic, anti-subjectivist, anti-metaphysical...an anti-poet, by critics; Caeiro simply-is. He is in this sense very unlike his creator Fernando Pessoa: Pessoa was besieged by metaphysical uncertainties; these were, to a large extent, the cause of his unhappiness; not so Caeiro: his attitude is anti-metaphysical; he avoided uncertainties by adamantly clinging to a certainty: his belief that there is no meaning behind things. Things, for him, simply-are.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Caeiro represents a primal vision of reality, of things. He is the pagan incarnate. Indeed, Caeiro was not simply a pagan but paganism itself.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The critic Jane M. Sheets sees the insurgence of Caeiro — who was Pessoa's first major heteronym — as essential in founding the later poetic personae: By means of this artless yet affirmative anti-poet, Caeiro, a short-lived but vital member of his coterie, Pessoa acquired the base of an experienced and universal poetic vision. After Caeiro's tenets had been established, the avowedly poetic voices of Campos, Reis and Pessoa himself spoke with greater assurance.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In a letter to William Bentley, Pessoa wrote that \"a knowledge of the language would be indispensable, for instance, to appraise the 'Odes' of Ricardo Reis, whose Portuguese would draw upon him the blessing of António Vieira, as his stile and diction that of Horace (he has been called, admirably I believe, 'a Greek Horace who writes in Portuguese')\".",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Reis, both a character and a heteronym of Fernando Pessoa himself, sums up his philosophy of life in his own words, admonishing, \"See life from a distance. Never question it. There's nothing it can tell you.\" Like Caeiro, whom he admires, Reis defers from questioning life. He is a modern pagan who urges one to seize the day and accept fate with tranquility. \"Wise is the one who does not seek. The seeker will find in all things the abyss, and doubt in himself.\" In this sense, Reis shares essential affinities with Caeiro.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Believing in the Greek gods, yet living in a Christian Europe, Reis feels that his spiritual life is limited and true happiness cannot be attained. This, added to his belief in Fate as a driving force for all that exists, as such disregarding freedom, leads to his epicureanist philosophy, which entails the avoidance of pain, defending that man should seek tranquility and calm above all else, avoiding emotional extremes.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Where Caeiro wrote freely and spontaneously, with joviality, of his basic, meaningless connection to the world, Reis writes in an austere, cerebral manner, with premeditated rhythm and structure and a particular attention to the correct use of the language when approaching his subjects of, as characterized by Richard Zenith, \"the brevity of life, the vanity of wealth and struggle, the joy of simple pleasures, patience in time of trouble, and avoidance of extremes\".",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "In his detached, intellectual approach, he is closer to Fernando Pessoa's constant rationalization, as such representing the orthonym's wish for measure and sobriety and a world free of troubles and respite, in stark contrast to Caeiro's spirit and style. As such, where Caeiro's predominant attitude is that of joviality, his sadness being accepted as natural (\"My sadness is a comfort for it is natural and right.\"), Reis is marked by melancholy, saddened by the impermanence of all things.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Ricardo Reis is the main character of José Saramago's 1986 novel The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Álvaro de Campos manifests, in a way, as a hyperbolic version of Pessoa himself. Of the three heteronyms he is the one who feels most strongly, his motto being 'to feel everything in every way.' 'The best way to travel,' he wrote, 'is to feel.' As such, his poetry is the most emotionally intense and varied, constantly juggling two fundamental impulses: on the one hand a feverish desire to be and feel everything and everyone, declaring that 'in every corner of my soul stands an altar to a different god' (alluding to Walt Whitman's desire to 'contain multitudes'), on the other, a wish for a state of isolation and a sense of nothingness.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "As a result, his mood and principles varied between violent, dynamic exultation, as he fervently wishes to experience the entirety of the universe in himself, in all manners possible (a particularly distinctive trait in this state being his futuristic leanings, including the expression of great enthusiasm as to the meaning of city life and its components) and a state of nostalgic melancholy, where life is viewed as, essentially, empty.",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "One of the poet's constant preoccupations, as part of his dichotomous character, is that of identity: he does not know who he is, or rather, fails at achieving an ideal identity. Wanting to be everything, and inevitably failing, he despairs. Unlike Caeiro, who asks nothing of life, he asks too much. In his poetic meditation 'Tobacco Shop' he asks:",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "How should I know what I'll be, I who don't know what I am? To be what I think? But I think of being so many things!",
"title": "Heteronyms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Mensagem, written in Portuguese, is a symbolist epic made up of 44 short poems organized in three parts or Cycles:",
"title": "Summaries of selected works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "The first, called \"Brasão\" (Coat-of-Arms), relates Portuguese historical protagonists to each of the fields and charges in the Portuguese coat of arms. The first two poems (\"The castles\" and \"The escutcheons\") draw inspiration from the material and spiritual natures of Portugal. Each of the remaining poems associates to each charge a historical personality. Ultimately they all lead to the Golden Age of Discovery.",
"title": "Summaries of selected works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "The second Part, called \"Mar Português\" (Portuguese Sea), references the country's Age of Portuguese Exploration and to its seaborne Empire that ended with the death of King Sebastian at El-Ksar el Kebir (Alcácer-Quibir in Portuguese) in 1578. Pessoa brings the reader to the present as if he had woken up from a dream of the past, to fall in a dream of the future: he sees King Sebastian returning and still bent on accomplishing a Universal Empire.",
"title": "Summaries of selected works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "The third Cycle, called \"O Encoberto\" (\"The Hidden One\"), refers to Pessoa's vision of a future world of peace and the Fifth Empire (which, according to Pessoa, is spiritual and not material, because if it were material England would already have achieved it). After the Age of Force (Vis), and Taedium (Otium) will come Science (understanding) through a reawakening of \"The Hidden One\", or \"King Sebastian\". The Hidden One represents the fulfillment of the destiny of mankind, designed by God since before Time, and the accomplishment of Portugal.",
"title": "Summaries of selected works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "King Sebastian is very important, indeed he appears in all three parts of Mensagem. He represents the capacity of dreaming, and believing that it's possible to achieve dreams.",
"title": "Summaries of selected works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "One of the most famous quotes from Mensagem is the first line from O Infante (belonging to the second Part), which is Deus quer, o homem sonha, a obra nasce (which translates roughly to \"God wishes, man dreams, the work is born\"). Another well-known quote from Mensagem is the first line from Ulysses, \"O mito é o nada que é tudo\" (a possible translation is \"The myth is the nothing that is all\"). This poem refers to Ulysses, king of Ithaca, as Lisbon's founder (recalling an ancient Greek myth).",
"title": "Summaries of selected works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In 1912, Fernando Pessoa wrote a set of essays (later collected as The New Portuguese Poetry) for the cultural journal A Águia (The Eagle), founded in Oporto, in December 1910, and run by the republican association Renascença Portuguesa. In the first years of the Portuguese Republic, this cultural association was started by republican intellectuals led by the writer and poet Teixeira de Pascoaes, philosopher Leonardo Coimbra and historian Jaime Cortesão, aiming for the renewal of Portuguese culture through the aesthetic movement called Saudosismo. Pessoa contributed to the journal A Águia with a series of papers: 'The new Portuguese Poetry Sociologically Considered' (nr. 4), 'Relapsing...' (nr. 5) and 'The Psychological Aspect of the new Portuguese Poetry' (nrs. 9,11 and 12). These writings were strongly encomiastic to saudosist literature, namely the poetry of Teixeira de Pascoaes and Mário Beirão. The articles disclose Pessoa as a connoisseur of modern European literature and an expert of recent literary trends. On the other hand, he does not care much for a methodology of analysis or problems in the history of ideas. He states his confidence that Portugal would soon produce a great poet – a super-Camões – pledged to make an important contribution for European culture, and indeed, for humanity.",
"title": "Summaries of selected works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "The philosophical notes of the young Pessoa, mostly written between 1905 and 1912, illustrate his debt to the history of philosophy more through commentators than through a first-hand protracted reading of the Classics, ancient or modern. The issues he engages with pertain to every philosophical discipline and concern a large profusion of concepts, creating a vast semantic spectrum in texts whose length varies between half a dozen lines and half a dozen pages and whose density of analysis is extremely variable; simple paraphrasis, expression of assumptions and original speculation.",
"title": "Summaries of selected works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Pessoa sorted the philosophical systems thus:",
"title": "Summaries of selected works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Such pantheist transcendentalism is used by Pessoa to define the project that \"encompasses and exceeds all systems\"; to characterize the new poetry of Saudosismo where the \"typical contradiction of this system\" occurs; to inquire of the particular social and political results of its adoption as the leading cultural paradigm; and, at last, he hints that metaphysics and religiosity strive \"to find in everything a beyond\".",
"title": "Summaries of selected works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Professor Jacksons research interests focus on Portuguese and Brazilian Literatures; modernist and inter-arts literature; Portuguese culture in Asia; and ethnomusicology. He has written and edited several books and other publications. We talk with Professor Jackson about his forthcoming book, Adverse Genres in Fernando Pessoa.",
"title": "Further reading"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "November 18, 2013, at the Woodberry Poetry Room, Harvard University. As a part of our Omniglot Seminar series, Portuguese translator Richard Zenith read from his translations of Luís de Camões, Fernando Pessoa and Carlos Drummond de Andrade. He compared his experiences translating archaic vs. contemporary linguistic registers, highly formal poetry vs. free verse, and European vs. Brazilian Portuguese. And he discussed the unique challenge of translating (and researching a biography of) a poet such as Pessoa, with alter egos that wrote in radically different styles.",
"title": "Further reading"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Richard Zenith presented a lecture on Fernando Pessoa, one of Portugal's most important literary figures of the 20th century and a towering figure in modernism.",
"title": "Further reading"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "In this poem, Pessoa creates an inner struggle that the speaker has with trying to figure out whether it was fate or free will that has determined how his life panned out. By making the whole poem essentially one, elongated metaphor, Pessoa is able to give multiple interpretations to his poem. In the titular first line of the first stanza, Pessoa states “I don’t know how many souls I have”. Automatically, Pessoa causes the speaker to question his morality and inner being. Line two of the first stanza has a literal translation of “each time changed.” When put in context, it becomes apparent that the speaker is referring to himself that changes so often. These two lines become the foundation for the rest of the poem, seeing as they set up a questioning within the speaker. The translations of these two lines are also crucial to fully grasp the meaning of the poem as a whole.",
"title": "Further reading"
}
] |
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher, and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language. He also wrote in and translated from English and French. Pessoa was a prolific writer, and not only under his own name, for he created approximately seventy-five others, of which three stand out: Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos, and Ricardo Reis. He did not call them pseudonyms because he felt that this did not capture their true independent intellectual life and instead called them heteronyms. These imaginary figures sometimes held unpopular or extreme views.
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2001-10-30T20:06:56Z
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2023-12-30T20:27:46Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa
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Full moon
|
The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180°). This means that the lunar hemisphere facing Earth—the near side—is completely sunlit and appears as an approximately circular disk. The full moon occurs roughly once a month.
The time interval between a full moon and the next repetition of the same phase, a synodic month, averages about 29.53 days. Therefore, in those lunar calendars in which each month begins on the day of the new moon, the full moon falls on either the 14th or 15th day of the lunar month. Because a calendar month consists of a whole number of days, a month in a lunar calendar may be either 29 or 30 days long.
A full moon is often thought of as an event of a full night's duration, although its phase seen from Earth continuously waxes or wanes, and is full only at the instant when waxing ends and waning begins. For any given location, about half of these maximum full moons may be visible, while the other half occurs during the day, when the full moon is below the horizon. As the Moon's orbit is inclined by 5.145° from the ecliptic, it is not generally perfectly opposite from the Sun during full phase, therefore a full moon is in general not perfectly full except on nights with a lunar eclipse as the Moon crosses the ecliptic at opposition from the Sun.
Many almanacs list full moons not only by date, but also by their exact time, usually in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Typical monthly calendars that include lunar phases may be offset by one day when prepared for a different time zone.
The full moon is generally a suboptimal time for astronomical observation of the Moon because shadows vanish. It is a poor time for other observations because the bright sunlight reflected by the Moon, amplified by the opposition surge, then outshines many stars.
There are eight phases of the moon, which vary from partial to full illumination. The moon phases are also called lunar phases. These stages have different names that come from its shape and size at each phase. For example, the crescent moon, which is banana the quarter moon, which is D-shaped. When the moon phases are almost complete, the moon is called the gibbous moon. The crescent and gibbous Moons each last approximately a week.
Each phases is also described in accordance to its position on the full 29.5 day cycle.
The eight phases of the moon in order include:
The date and approximate time of a specific full moon (assuming a circular orbit) can be calculated from the following equation:
where d is the number of days since 1 January 2000 00:00:00 in the Terrestrial Time scale used in astronomical ephemerides; for Universal Time (UT) add the following approximate correction to d:
where N is the number of full moons since the first full moon of 2000. The true time of a full moon may differ from this approximation by up to about 14.5 hours as a result of the non-circularity of the Moon's orbit. See New moon for an explanation of the formula and its parameters.
The age and apparent size of the full moon vary in a cycle of just under 14 synodic months, which has been referred to as a full moon cycle.
When the Moon moves into Earth's shadow, a lunar eclipse occurs, during which all or part of the Moon's face may appear reddish due to the Rayleigh scattering of blue wavelengths and the refraction of sunlight through Earth's atmosphere. Lunar eclipses happen only during a full moon and around points on its orbit where the satellite may pass through the planet's shadow. A lunar eclipse does not occur every month because the Moon's orbit is inclined 5.145° with respect to the ecliptic plane of Earth; thus, the Moon usually passes north or south of Earth's shadow, which is mostly restricted to this plane of reference. Lunar eclipses happen only when the full moon occurs around either node of its orbit (ascending or descending). Therefore, a lunar eclipse occurs about every six months, and often two weeks before or after a solar eclipse, which occurs during a new moon around the opposite node.
In Buddhism, Vesak is celebrated on the full moon day of the Vaisakha month, marking the birth, enlightenment, and the death of the Buddha.
In Arabic, badr (بدر ) means 'full moon', but it is often translated as 'white moon', referring to The White Days, the three days when the full moon is celebrated.
Full moons are traditionally associated with insomnia (inability to sleep), insanity (hence the terms lunacy and lunatic) and various "magical phenomena" such as lycanthropy. Psychologists, however, have found that there is no strong evidence for effects on human behavior around the time of a full moon. They find that studies are generally not consistent, with some showing a positive effect and others showing a negative effect. In one instance, the 23 December 2000 issue of the British Medical Journal published two studies on dog bite admission to hospitals in England and Australia. The study of the Bradford Royal Infirmary found that dog bites were twice as common during a full moon, whereas the study conducted by the public hospitals in Australia found that they were less likely.
The symbol of the Triple Goddess is drawn with the circular image of the full moon in the center flanked by a left facing crescent and right facing crescent, on either side, representing a maiden, mother and crone archetype.
Historically, month names are names of moons (lunations, not necessarily full moons) in lunisolar calendars. Since the introduction of the solar Julian calendar in the Roman Empire, and later the Gregorian calendar worldwide, people no longer perceive month names as "moon" names. The traditional Old English month names were equated with the names of the Julian calendar from an early time, soon after Christianization, according to the testimony of Bede around AD 700.
Some full moons have developed new names in modern times, such as "blue moon", as well as "harvest moon" and "hunter's moon" for the full moons of autumn.
Lunar eclipses occur only at a full moon and often cause a reddish hue on the near side of the Moon. This full moon has been called a blood moon in popular culture.
The "harvest moon" and the "hunter's moon" are traditional names for the full moons in late summer and in the autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, usually in September and October, respectively. People may celebrate these occurrences in festivities such as the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, which is as important as the Chinese New Year.
The "harvest moon" (also known as the "barley moon" or "full corn moon") is the full moon nearest to the autumnal equinox (22 or 23 September), occurring anytime within two weeks before or after that date. The "hunter's moon" is the full moon following it. The names are recorded from the early 18th century. The Oxford English Dictionary entry for "harvest moon" cites a 1706 reference, and for "hunter's moon" a 1710 edition of The British Apollo, which attributes the term to "the country people" ("The Country People call this the Hunters-Moon.") The names became traditional in American folklore, where they are now often popularly attributed to Native Americans. The Feast of the Hunters' Moon is a yearly festival in West Lafayette, Indiana, held in late September or early October each year since 1968. In 2010 the harvest moon occurred on the night of the equinox itself (some 51⁄2 hours after the moment of equinox) for the first time since 1991, after a period known as the Metonic cycle.
All full moons rise around the time of sunset. Since the Moon moves eastward among the stars faster than the Sun, lunar culmination is delayed by about 50.47 minutes (on average) each day, thus causing moonrise to occur later each day.
Due to the high lunar standstill, the harvest and hunter's moons of 2007 were special because the time difference between moonrises on successive evenings was much shorter than average. The moon rose about 30 minutes later from one night to the next, as seen from about 40° N or S latitude (because the full moon of September 2007 rose in the northeast rather than in the east). Hence, no long period of darkness occurred between sunset and moonrise for several days after the full moon, thus lengthening the time in the evening when there is enough twilight and moonlight to work to get the harvest in.
The Maine Farmers' Almanac from around the 1930s began to publish Native American "Indian" full moon names, some of which had been adopted by colonial Americans. The Farmers' Almanac (since 1955 published in Maine, but not the same publication as the Maine Farmers' Almanac) continues to do so.
An early list of "Indian month names" was published in 1918 by Daniel Carter Beard in his The American Boy's Book of Signs, Signals and Symbols for use by the boy scouts.
Such names have gained currency in American folklore. They appear in print more widely outside of the almanac tradition from the 1990s in popular publications about the Moon. Mysteries of the Moon by Patricia Haddock ("Great Mysteries Series", Greenhaven Press, 1992) gave an extensive list of such names along with the individual tribal groups they were supposedly associated with. Haddock supposes that certain "Colonial American" moon names were adopted from Algonquian languages (which were formerly spoken in the territory of New England), while others are based in European tradition (e.g. the Colonial American names for the May moon, "Milk Moon", "Mother's Moon", "Hare Moon" have no parallels in the supposed native names, while the name of November, "Beaver Moon" is supposedly based in an Algonquian language).
The Long Night's Moon is the last full moon of the year and the one nearest the winter solstice.
"Ice Moon" is also used to refer to the first full moon of January or February.
In Hinduism, most festivals are celebrated on auspicious days. Many Hindu festivals are celebrated on days with a full moon night, called the purnima. Different parts of India celebrate the same festival with different names, as listed below:
Most pre-modern calendars the world over were lunisolar, combining the solar year with the lunation by means of intercalary months. The Julian calendar abandoned this method in favour of a purely solar reckoning while conversely the 7th-century Islamic calendar opted for a purely lunar one.
A continuing lunisolar calendar is the Hebrew calendar. Evidence of this is noted in the dates of Passover and Easter in Judaism and Christianity, respectively. Passover falls on the full moon on 15 Nisan of the Hebrew calendar. The date of the Jewish Rosh Hashana and Sukkot festivals along with all other Jewish holidays are dependent on the dates of the new moons.
In lunisolar calendars, an intercalary month occurs seven times in the 19 years of the Metonic cycle, or on average every 2.7 years (19/7). In the Hebrew calendar this is noted with a periodic extra month of Adar in the early spring.
In the modern system of "traditional" American full moon names tied to the solstice and equinox points, a supernumerary full moon in such a period is called a blue moon. The term "blue moon" used in this sense may date to as early as the 16th century, but it became well known in the United States due to the Farmers' Almanac (published since 1818).
According to the pattern of use in the Farmers' Almanac, a "blue moon" is the third full moon in any period between either a solstice and an equinox, or between an equinox and a solstice, (calculated using the mean tropical year), which contains four full moons. These seasons are equal in length, unlike the astronomical ones, which vary in length depending on the Earth's speed in its elliptical orbit round the Sun. To compare, in 1983 the equal-length mean-solar solar points and the actual astronomical (observed) dates are shown in the table below (all dates and times in GMT):
As a consequence of checking an inadequate number of old issues of the Farmers' Almanac, the author of an article in the March 1946 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine wrongly concluded that the Farmers' Almanac had used "blue moon" to denote "the second full moon in any month which contains two full moons".
The mistaken rule was retracted and declared "erroneous" in a 1999 Sky & Telescope article, which gave the corrected rule, based on order in seasons.
Using the original meaning, "blue moons" occur with the same average frequency of intercalary months, 7 times in 19 years; the Farmers' Almanac system of full moon names effectively defines a functioning luni-solar calendar. Because the Sky & Telescope definition depends on calendar months and because February is shorter than a lunar month, there will be a higher frequency of blue moons under that definition (in years in which February squeezes in between two full moons), so that blue moons occur on average about 8 times in 19 years.
It is a rare phenomenon to see an unusual blue color of the moon (not necessarily a full moon) when viewing the Moon. This phenomenon is caused by dust particles or smoke in the atmosphere, and was seen after the forest fires in Sweden and Canada in 1950 and 1951. In 1883, after the eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia, the Moon was blue for almost two years. Other less violent volcanic explosions have been followed by blue moons. The blue Moon was also seen after the eruption of El Chichon in Mexico in 1983, Mount St. Helens in 1980, and Mount Pinatubo in 1991.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180°). This means that the lunar hemisphere facing Earth—the near side—is completely sunlit and appears as an approximately circular disk. The full moon occurs roughly once a month.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The time interval between a full moon and the next repetition of the same phase, a synodic month, averages about 29.53 days. Therefore, in those lunar calendars in which each month begins on the day of the new moon, the full moon falls on either the 14th or 15th day of the lunar month. Because a calendar month consists of a whole number of days, a month in a lunar calendar may be either 29 or 30 days long.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "A full moon is often thought of as an event of a full night's duration, although its phase seen from Earth continuously waxes or wanes, and is full only at the instant when waxing ends and waning begins. For any given location, about half of these maximum full moons may be visible, while the other half occurs during the day, when the full moon is below the horizon. As the Moon's orbit is inclined by 5.145° from the ecliptic, it is not generally perfectly opposite from the Sun during full phase, therefore a full moon is in general not perfectly full except on nights with a lunar eclipse as the Moon crosses the ecliptic at opposition from the Sun.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Many almanacs list full moons not only by date, but also by their exact time, usually in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Typical monthly calendars that include lunar phases may be offset by one day when prepared for a different time zone.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The full moon is generally a suboptimal time for astronomical observation of the Moon because shadows vanish. It is a poor time for other observations because the bright sunlight reflected by the Moon, amplified by the opposition surge, then outshines many stars.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "There are eight phases of the moon, which vary from partial to full illumination. The moon phases are also called lunar phases. These stages have different names that come from its shape and size at each phase. For example, the crescent moon, which is banana the quarter moon, which is D-shaped. When the moon phases are almost complete, the moon is called the gibbous moon. The crescent and gibbous Moons each last approximately a week.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Each phases is also described in accordance to its position on the full 29.5 day cycle.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The eight phases of the moon in order include:",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The date and approximate time of a specific full moon (assuming a circular orbit) can be calculated from the following equation:",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "where d is the number of days since 1 January 2000 00:00:00 in the Terrestrial Time scale used in astronomical ephemerides; for Universal Time (UT) add the following approximate correction to d:",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "where N is the number of full moons since the first full moon of 2000. The true time of a full moon may differ from this approximation by up to about 14.5 hours as a result of the non-circularity of the Moon's orbit. See New moon for an explanation of the formula and its parameters.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The age and apparent size of the full moon vary in a cycle of just under 14 synodic months, which has been referred to as a full moon cycle.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "When the Moon moves into Earth's shadow, a lunar eclipse occurs, during which all or part of the Moon's face may appear reddish due to the Rayleigh scattering of blue wavelengths and the refraction of sunlight through Earth's atmosphere. Lunar eclipses happen only during a full moon and around points on its orbit where the satellite may pass through the planet's shadow. A lunar eclipse does not occur every month because the Moon's orbit is inclined 5.145° with respect to the ecliptic plane of Earth; thus, the Moon usually passes north or south of Earth's shadow, which is mostly restricted to this plane of reference. Lunar eclipses happen only when the full moon occurs around either node of its orbit (ascending or descending). Therefore, a lunar eclipse occurs about every six months, and often two weeks before or after a solar eclipse, which occurs during a new moon around the opposite node.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In Buddhism, Vesak is celebrated on the full moon day of the Vaisakha month, marking the birth, enlightenment, and the death of the Buddha.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In Arabic, badr (بدر ) means 'full moon', but it is often translated as 'white moon', referring to The White Days, the three days when the full moon is celebrated.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Full moons are traditionally associated with insomnia (inability to sleep), insanity (hence the terms lunacy and lunatic) and various \"magical phenomena\" such as lycanthropy. Psychologists, however, have found that there is no strong evidence for effects on human behavior around the time of a full moon. They find that studies are generally not consistent, with some showing a positive effect and others showing a negative effect. In one instance, the 23 December 2000 issue of the British Medical Journal published two studies on dog bite admission to hospitals in England and Australia. The study of the Bradford Royal Infirmary found that dog bites were twice as common during a full moon, whereas the study conducted by the public hospitals in Australia found that they were less likely.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The symbol of the Triple Goddess is drawn with the circular image of the full moon in the center flanked by a left facing crescent and right facing crescent, on either side, representing a maiden, mother and crone archetype.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Historically, month names are names of moons (lunations, not necessarily full moons) in lunisolar calendars. Since the introduction of the solar Julian calendar in the Roman Empire, and later the Gregorian calendar worldwide, people no longer perceive month names as \"moon\" names. The traditional Old English month names were equated with the names of the Julian calendar from an early time, soon after Christianization, according to the testimony of Bede around AD 700.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Some full moons have developed new names in modern times, such as \"blue moon\", as well as \"harvest moon\" and \"hunter's moon\" for the full moons of autumn.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Lunar eclipses occur only at a full moon and often cause a reddish hue on the near side of the Moon. This full moon has been called a blood moon in popular culture.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The \"harvest moon\" and the \"hunter's moon\" are traditional names for the full moons in late summer and in the autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, usually in September and October, respectively. People may celebrate these occurrences in festivities such as the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, which is as important as the Chinese New Year.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The \"harvest moon\" (also known as the \"barley moon\" or \"full corn moon\") is the full moon nearest to the autumnal equinox (22 or 23 September), occurring anytime within two weeks before or after that date. The \"hunter's moon\" is the full moon following it. The names are recorded from the early 18th century. The Oxford English Dictionary entry for \"harvest moon\" cites a 1706 reference, and for \"hunter's moon\" a 1710 edition of The British Apollo, which attributes the term to \"the country people\" (\"The Country People call this the Hunters-Moon.\") The names became traditional in American folklore, where they are now often popularly attributed to Native Americans. The Feast of the Hunters' Moon is a yearly festival in West Lafayette, Indiana, held in late September or early October each year since 1968. In 2010 the harvest moon occurred on the night of the equinox itself (some 51⁄2 hours after the moment of equinox) for the first time since 1991, after a period known as the Metonic cycle.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "All full moons rise around the time of sunset. Since the Moon moves eastward among the stars faster than the Sun, lunar culmination is delayed by about 50.47 minutes (on average) each day, thus causing moonrise to occur later each day.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Due to the high lunar standstill, the harvest and hunter's moons of 2007 were special because the time difference between moonrises on successive evenings was much shorter than average. The moon rose about 30 minutes later from one night to the next, as seen from about 40° N or S latitude (because the full moon of September 2007 rose in the northeast rather than in the east). Hence, no long period of darkness occurred between sunset and moonrise for several days after the full moon, thus lengthening the time in the evening when there is enough twilight and moonlight to work to get the harvest in.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Maine Farmers' Almanac from around the 1930s began to publish Native American \"Indian\" full moon names, some of which had been adopted by colonial Americans. The Farmers' Almanac (since 1955 published in Maine, but not the same publication as the Maine Farmers' Almanac) continues to do so.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "An early list of \"Indian month names\" was published in 1918 by Daniel Carter Beard in his The American Boy's Book of Signs, Signals and Symbols for use by the boy scouts.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Such names have gained currency in American folklore. They appear in print more widely outside of the almanac tradition from the 1990s in popular publications about the Moon. Mysteries of the Moon by Patricia Haddock (\"Great Mysteries Series\", Greenhaven Press, 1992) gave an extensive list of such names along with the individual tribal groups they were supposedly associated with. Haddock supposes that certain \"Colonial American\" moon names were adopted from Algonquian languages (which were formerly spoken in the territory of New England), while others are based in European tradition (e.g. the Colonial American names for the May moon, \"Milk Moon\", \"Mother's Moon\", \"Hare Moon\" have no parallels in the supposed native names, while the name of November, \"Beaver Moon\" is supposedly based in an Algonquian language).",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The Long Night's Moon is the last full moon of the year and the one nearest the winter solstice.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "\"Ice Moon\" is also used to refer to the first full moon of January or February.",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In Hinduism, most festivals are celebrated on auspicious days. Many Hindu festivals are celebrated on days with a full moon night, called the purnima. Different parts of India celebrate the same festival with different names, as listed below:",
"title": "In folklore and tradition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Most pre-modern calendars the world over were lunisolar, combining the solar year with the lunation by means of intercalary months. The Julian calendar abandoned this method in favour of a purely solar reckoning while conversely the 7th-century Islamic calendar opted for a purely lunar one.",
"title": "Lunar and lunisolar calendars"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "A continuing lunisolar calendar is the Hebrew calendar. Evidence of this is noted in the dates of Passover and Easter in Judaism and Christianity, respectively. Passover falls on the full moon on 15 Nisan of the Hebrew calendar. The date of the Jewish Rosh Hashana and Sukkot festivals along with all other Jewish holidays are dependent on the dates of the new moons.",
"title": "Lunar and lunisolar calendars"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In lunisolar calendars, an intercalary month occurs seven times in the 19 years of the Metonic cycle, or on average every 2.7 years (19/7). In the Hebrew calendar this is noted with a periodic extra month of Adar in the early spring.",
"title": "Lunar and lunisolar calendars"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In the modern system of \"traditional\" American full moon names tied to the solstice and equinox points, a supernumerary full moon in such a period is called a blue moon. The term \"blue moon\" used in this sense may date to as early as the 16th century, but it became well known in the United States due to the Farmers' Almanac (published since 1818).",
"title": "Lunar and lunisolar calendars"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "According to the pattern of use in the Farmers' Almanac, a \"blue moon\" is the third full moon in any period between either a solstice and an equinox, or between an equinox and a solstice, (calculated using the mean tropical year), which contains four full moons. These seasons are equal in length, unlike the astronomical ones, which vary in length depending on the Earth's speed in its elliptical orbit round the Sun. To compare, in 1983 the equal-length mean-solar solar points and the actual astronomical (observed) dates are shown in the table below (all dates and times in GMT):",
"title": "Lunar and lunisolar calendars"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "As a consequence of checking an inadequate number of old issues of the Farmers' Almanac, the author of an article in the March 1946 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine wrongly concluded that the Farmers' Almanac had used \"blue moon\" to denote \"the second full moon in any month which contains two full moons\".",
"title": "Lunar and lunisolar calendars"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The mistaken rule was retracted and declared \"erroneous\" in a 1999 Sky & Telescope article, which gave the corrected rule, based on order in seasons.",
"title": "Lunar and lunisolar calendars"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Using the original meaning, \"blue moons\" occur with the same average frequency of intercalary months, 7 times in 19 years; the Farmers' Almanac system of full moon names effectively defines a functioning luni-solar calendar. Because the Sky & Telescope definition depends on calendar months and because February is shorter than a lunar month, there will be a higher frequency of blue moons under that definition (in years in which February squeezes in between two full moons), so that blue moons occur on average about 8 times in 19 years.",
"title": "Lunar and lunisolar calendars"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "It is a rare phenomenon to see an unusual blue color of the moon (not necessarily a full moon) when viewing the Moon. This phenomenon is caused by dust particles or smoke in the atmosphere, and was seen after the forest fires in Sweden and Canada in 1950 and 1951. In 1883, after the eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia, the Moon was blue for almost two years. Other less violent volcanic explosions have been followed by blue moons. The blue Moon was also seen after the eruption of El Chichon in Mexico in 1983, Mount St. Helens in 1980, and Mount Pinatubo in 1991.",
"title": "Lunar and lunisolar calendars"
}
] |
The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon. This means that the lunar hemisphere facing Earth—the near side—is completely sunlit and appears as an approximately circular disk. The full moon occurs roughly once a month. The time interval between a full moon and the next repetition of the same phase, a synodic month, averages about 29.53 days. Therefore, in those lunar calendars in which each month begins on the day of the new moon, the full moon falls on either the 14th or 15th day of the lunar month. Because a calendar month consists of a whole number of days, a month in a lunar calendar may be either 29 or 30 days long.
|
2001-11-02T21:55:15Z
|
2023-12-14T20:15:31Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_moon
|
11,433 |
Film format
|
A film format is a technical definition of a set of standard characteristics regarding image capture on photographic film for still images or film stock for filmmaking. It can also apply to projected film, either slides or movies. The primary characteristic of a film format is its size and shape.
In the case of motion picture film, the format sometimes includes audio parameters. Other characteristics usually include the film gauge, pulldown method, lens anamorphosis (or lack thereof), and film gate or projector aperture dimensions, all of which need to be defined for photography as well as projection, as they may differ.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A film format is a technical definition of a set of standard characteristics regarding image capture on photographic film for still images or film stock for filmmaking. It can also apply to projected film, either slides or movies. The primary characteristic of a film format is its size and shape.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In the case of motion picture film, the format sometimes includes audio parameters. Other characteristics usually include the film gauge, pulldown method, lens anamorphosis (or lack thereof), and film gate or projector aperture dimensions, all of which need to be defined for photography as well as projection, as they may differ.",
"title": ""
}
] |
A film format is a technical definition of a set of standard characteristics regarding image capture on photographic film for still images or film stock for filmmaking. It can also apply to projected film, either slides or movies. The primary characteristic of a film format is its size and shape. In the case of motion picture film, the format sometimes includes audio parameters. Other characteristics usually include the film gauge, pulldown method, lens anamorphosis, and film gate or projector aperture dimensions, all of which need to be defined for photography as well as projection, as they may differ.
|
2023-03-31T05:26:06Z
|
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"Template:Unsourced"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_format
|
|
11,439 |
Faster-than-light
|
Faster-than-light (also FTL, superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light (c). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero rest mass (i.e., photons) may travel at the speed of light, and that nothing may travel faster.
Particles whose speed exceeds that of light (tachyons) have been hypothesized, but their existence would violate causality and would imply time travel. The scientific consensus is that they do not exist. "Apparent" or "effective" FTL, on the other hand, depends on the hypothesis that unusually distorted regions of spacetime might permit matter to reach distant locations in less time than light could in normal ("undistorted") spacetime.
As of the 21st century, according to current scientific theories, matter is required to travel at slower-than-light (also STL or subluminal) speed with respect to the locally distorted spacetime region. Apparent FTL is not excluded by general relativity; however, any apparent FTL physical plausibility is currently speculative. Examples of apparent FTL proposals are the Alcubierre drive, Krasnikov tubes, traversable wormholes, and quantum tunneling. Mostly, FTL proposals find loopholes around general relativity, such as by expanding or contracting space to make the object appear to be travelling greater than c. Such proposals are still widely believed to be impossible as they still violate current understandings of causality, and they all require fanciful mechanisms to work (such as requiring exotic matter). However, given how little is known about the limits of causality and other speculative concepts related to FTL proposals, physicists continue to research and consider these proposals.
In the context of this article, FTL is the transmission of information or matter faster than c, a constant equal to the speed of light in vacuum, which is 299,792,458 m/s (by definition of the metre) or about 186,282.397 miles per second. This is not quite the same as traveling faster than light, since:
Neither of these phenomena violates special relativity or creates problems with causality, and thus neither qualifies as FTL as described here.
In the following examples, certain influences may appear to travel faster than light, but they do not convey energy or information faster than light, so they do not violate special relativity.
For an earth-bound observer, objects in the sky complete one revolution around the Earth in one day. Proxima Centauri, the nearest star outside the Solar System, is about four and a half light-years away. In this frame of reference, in which Proxima Centauri is perceived to be moving in a circular trajectory with a radius of four light years, it could be described as having a speed many times greater than c as the rim speed of an object moving in a circle is a product of the radius and angular speed. It is also possible on a geostatic view, for objects such as comets to vary their speed from subluminal to superluminal and vice versa simply because the distance from the Earth varies. Comets may have orbits which take them out to more than 1000 AU. The circumference of a circle with a radius of 1000 AU is greater than one light day. In other words, a comet at such a distance is superluminal in a geostatic, and therefore non-inertial, frame.
If a laser beam is swept across a distant object, the spot of laser light can easily be made to move across the object at a speed greater than c. Similarly, a shadow projected onto a distant object can be made to move across the object faster than c. In neither case does the light travel from the source to the object faster than c, nor does any information travel faster than light.
The rate at which two objects in motion in a single frame of reference get closer together is called the mutual or closing speed. This may approach twice the speed of light, as in the case of two particles travelling at close to the speed of light in opposite directions with respect to the reference frame.
Imagine two fast-moving particles approaching each other from opposite sides of a particle accelerator of the collider type. The closing speed would be the rate at which the distance between the two particles is decreasing. From the point of view of an observer standing at rest relative to the accelerator, this rate will be slightly less than twice the speed of light.
Special relativity does not prohibit this. It tells us that it is wrong to use Galilean relativity to compute the velocity of one of the particles, as would be measured by an observer traveling alongside the other particle. That is, special relativity gives the correct velocity-addition formula for computing such relative velocity.
It is instructive to compute the relative velocity of particles moving at v and −v in accelerator frame, which corresponds to the closing speed of 2v > c. Expressing the speeds in units of c, β = v/c:
If a spaceship travels to a planet one light-year (as measured in the Earth's rest frame) away from Earth at high speed, the time taken to reach that planet could be less than one year as measured by the traveller's clock (although it will always be more than one year as measured by a clock on Earth). The value obtained by dividing the distance traveled, as determined in the Earth's frame, by the time taken, measured by the traveller's clock, is known as a proper speed or a proper velocity. There is no limit on the value of a proper speed as a proper speed does not represent a speed measured in a single inertial frame. A light signal that left the Earth at the same time as the traveller would always get to the destination before the traveller.
The phase velocity of an electromagnetic wave, when traveling through a medium, can routinely exceed c, the vacuum velocity of light. For example, this occurs in most glasses at X-ray frequencies. However, the phase velocity of a wave corresponds to the propagation speed of a theoretical single-frequency (purely monochromatic) component of the wave at that frequency. Such a wave component must be infinite in extent and of constant amplitude (otherwise it is not truly monochromatic), and so cannot convey any information. Thus a phase velocity above c does not imply the propagation of signals with a velocity above c.
The group velocity of a wave may also exceed c in some circumstances. In such cases, which typically at the same time involve rapid attenuation of the intensity, the maximum of the envelope of a pulse may travel with a velocity above c. However, even this situation does not imply the propagation of signals with a velocity above c, even though one may be tempted to associate pulse maxima with signals. The latter association has been shown to be misleading, because the information on the arrival of a pulse can be obtained before the pulse maximum arrives. For example, if some mechanism allows the full transmission of the leading part of a pulse while strongly attenuating the pulse maximum and everything behind (distortion), the pulse maximum is effectively shifted forward in time, while the information on the pulse does not come faster than c without this effect. However, group velocity can exceed c in some parts of a Gaussian beam in vacuum (without attenuation). The diffraction causes the peak of the pulse to propagate faster, while overall power does not.
According to Hubble's law, the expansion of the universe causes distant galaxies to recede from us faster than the speed of light. However, the recession speed associated with Hubble's law, defined as the rate of increase in proper distance per interval of cosmological time, is not a velocity in a relativistic sense. Moreover, in general relativity, velocity is a local notion, and there is not even a unique definition for the relative velocity of a cosmologically distant object. Faster-than-light cosmological recession speeds are entirely a coordinate effect.
There are many galaxies visible in telescopes with redshift numbers of 1.4 or higher. All of these have cosmological recession speeds greater than the speed of light. Because the Hubble parameter is decreasing with time, there can actually be cases where a galaxy that is receding from us faster than light does manage to emit a signal which reaches us eventually.
However, because the expansion of the universe is accelerating, it is projected that most galaxies will eventually cross a type of cosmological event horizon where any light they emit past that point will never be able to reach us at any time in the infinite future, because the light never reaches a point where its "peculiar velocity" towards us exceeds the expansion velocity away from us (these two notions of velocity are also discussed in Comoving and proper distances#Uses of the proper distance). The current distance to this cosmological event horizon is about 16 billion light-years, meaning that a signal from an event happening at present would eventually be able to reach us in the future if the event was less than 16 billion light-years away, but the signal would never reach us if the event was more than 16 billion light-years away.
Apparent superluminal motion is observed in many radio galaxies, blazars, quasars, and recently also in microquasars. The effect was predicted before it was observed by Martin Rees and can be explained as an optical illusion caused by the object partly moving in the direction of the observer, when the speed calculations assume it does not. The phenomenon does not contradict the theory of special relativity. Corrected calculations show these objects have velocities close to the speed of light (relative to our reference frame). They are the first examples of large amounts of mass moving at close to the speed of light. Earth-bound laboratories have only been able to accelerate small numbers of elementary particles to such speeds.
Certain phenomena in quantum mechanics, such as quantum entanglement, might give the superficial impression of allowing communication of information faster than light. According to the no-communication theorem these phenomena do not allow true communication; they only let two observers in different locations see the same system simultaneously, without any way of controlling what either sees. Wavefunction collapse can be viewed as an epiphenomenon of quantum decoherence, which in turn is nothing more than an effect of the underlying local time evolution of the wavefunction of a system and all of its environment. Since the underlying behavior does not violate local causality or allow FTL communication, it follows that neither does the additional effect of wavefunction collapse, whether real or apparent.
The uncertainty principle implies that individual photons may travel for short distances at speeds somewhat faster (or slower) than c, even in vacuum; this possibility must be taken into account when enumerating Feynman diagrams for a particle interaction. However, it was shown in 2011 that a single photon may not travel faster than c. In quantum mechanics, virtual particles may travel faster than light, and this phenomenon is related to the fact that static field effects (which are mediated by virtual particles in quantum terms) may travel faster than light (see section on static fields above). However, macroscopically these fluctuations average out, so that photons do travel in straight lines over long (i.e., non-quantum) distances, and they do travel at the speed of light on average. Therefore, this does not imply the possibility of superluminal information transmission.
There have been various reports in the popular press of experiments on faster-than-light transmission in optics — most often in the context of a kind of quantum tunnelling phenomenon. Usually, such reports deal with a phase velocity or group velocity faster than the vacuum velocity of light. However, as stated above, a superluminal phase velocity cannot be used for faster-than-light transmission of information.
The Hartman effect is the tunneling effect through a barrier where the tunneling time tends to a constant for large barriers. This could, for instance, be the gap between two prisms. When the prisms are in contact, the light passes straight through, but when there is a gap, the light is refracted. There is a non-zero probability that the photon will tunnel across the gap rather than follow the refracted path. For large gaps between the prisms the tunnelling time approaches a constant and thus the photons appear to have crossed with a superluminal speed.
However, the Hartman effect cannot actually be used to violate relativity by transmitting signals faster than c, because the tunnelling time "should not be linked to a velocity since evanescent waves do not propagate". The evanescent waves in the Hartman effect are due to virtual particles and a non-propagating static field, as mentioned in the sections above for gravity and electromagnetism.
In physics, the Casimir–Polder force is a physical force exerted between separate objects due to resonance of vacuum energy in the intervening space between the objects. This is sometimes described in terms of virtual particles interacting with the objects, owing to the mathematical form of one possible way of calculating the strength of the effect. Because the strength of the force falls off rapidly with distance, it is only measurable when the distance between the objects is extremely small. Because the effect is due to virtual particles mediating a static field effect, it is subject to the comments about static fields discussed above.
The EPR paradox refers to a famous thought experiment of Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen that was realized experimentally for the first time by Alain Aspect in 1981 and 1982 in the Aspect experiment. In this experiment, the measurement of the state of one of the quantum systems of an entangled pair apparently instantaneously forces the other system (which may be distant) to be measured in the complementary state. However, no information can be transmitted this way; the answer to whether or not the measurement actually affects the other quantum system comes down to which interpretation of quantum mechanics one subscribes to.
An experiment performed in 1997 by Nicolas Gisin has demonstrated non-local quantum correlations between particles separated by over 10 kilometers. But as noted earlier, the non-local correlations seen in entanglement cannot actually be used to transmit classical information faster than light, so that relativistic causality is preserved. The situation is akin to sharing a synchronized coin flip, where the second person to flip their coin will always see the opposite of what the first person sees, but neither has any way of knowing whether they were the first or second flipper, without communicating classically. See No-communication theorem for further information. A 2008 quantum physics experiment also performed by Nicolas Gisin and his colleagues has determined that in any hypothetical non-local hidden-variable theory, the speed of the quantum non-local connection (what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance") is at least 10,000 times the speed of light.
The delayed-choice quantum eraser is a version of the EPR paradox in which the observation (or not) of interference after the passage of a photon through a double slit experiment depends on the conditions of observation of a second photon entangled with the first. The characteristic of this experiment is that the observation of the second photon can take place at a later time than the observation of the first photon, which may give the impression that the measurement of the later photons "retroactively" determines whether the earlier photons show interference or not, although the interference pattern can only be seen by correlating the measurements of both members of every pair and so it cannot be observed until both photons have been measured, ensuring that an experimenter watching only the photons going through the slit does not obtain information about the other photons in an FTL or backwards-in-time manner.
Faster-than-light communication is, according to relativity, equivalent to time travel. What we measure as the speed of light in vacuum (or near vacuum) is actually the fundamental physical constant c. This means that all inertial and, for the coordinate speed of light, non-inertial observers, regardless of their relative velocity, will always measure zero-mass particles such as photons traveling at c in vacuum. This result means that measurements of time and velocity in different frames are no longer related simply by constant shifts, but are instead related by Poincaré transformations. These transformations have important implications:
Special relativity postulates that the speed of light in vacuum is invariant in inertial frames. That is, it will be the same from any frame of reference moving at a constant speed. The equations do not specify any particular value for the speed of light, which is an experimentally determined quantity for a fixed unit of length. Since 1983, the SI unit of length (the meter) has been defined using the speed of light.
The experimental determination has been made in vacuum. However, the vacuum we know is not the only possible vacuum which can exist. The vacuum has energy associated with it, called simply the vacuum energy, which could perhaps be altered in certain cases. When vacuum energy is lowered, light itself has been predicted to go faster than the standard value c. This is known as the Scharnhorst effect. Such a vacuum can be produced by bringing two perfectly smooth metal plates together at near atomic diameter spacing. It is called a Casimir vacuum. Calculations imply that light will go faster in such a vacuum by a minuscule amount: a photon traveling between two plates that are 1 micrometer apart would increase the photon's speed by only about one part in 10. Accordingly, there has as yet been no experimental verification of the prediction. A recent analysis argued that the Scharnhorst effect cannot be used to send information backwards in time with a single set of plates since the plates' rest frame would define a "preferred frame" for FTL signaling. However, with multiple pairs of plates in motion relative to one another the authors noted that they had no arguments that could "guarantee the total absence of causality violations", and invoked Hawking's speculative chronology protection conjecture which suggests that feedback loops of virtual particles would create "uncontrollable singularities in the renormalized quantum stress-energy" on the boundary of any potential time machine, and thus would require a theory of quantum gravity to fully analyze. Other authors argue that Scharnhorst's original analysis, which seemed to show the possibility of faster-than-c signals, involved approximations which may be incorrect, so that it is not clear whether this effect could actually increase signal speed at all.
It was later claimed by Eckle et al. that particle tunneling does indeed occur in zero real time. Their tests involved tunneling electrons, where the group argued a relativistic prediction for tunneling time should be 500–600 attoseconds (an attosecond is one quintillionth (10) of a second). All that could be measured was 24 attoseconds, which is the limit of the test accuracy. Again, though, other physicists believe that tunneling experiments in which particles appear to spend anomalously short times inside the barrier are in fact fully compatible with relativity, although there is disagreement about whether the explanation involves reshaping of the wave packet or other effects.
Because of the strong empirical support for special relativity, any modifications to it must necessarily be quite subtle and difficult to measure. The best-known attempt is doubly special relativity, which posits that the Planck length is also the same in all reference frames, and is associated with the work of Giovanni Amelino-Camelia and João Magueijo. There are speculative theories that claim inertia is produced by the combined mass of the universe (e.g., Mach's principle), which implies that the rest frame of the universe might be preferred by conventional measurements of natural law. If confirmed, this would imply special relativity is an approximation to a more general theory, but since the relevant comparison would (by definition) be outside the observable universe, it is difficult to imagine (much less construct) experiments to test this hypothesis. Despite this difficulty, such experiments have been proposed.
Although the theory of special relativity forbids objects to have a relative velocity greater than light speed, and general relativity reduces to special relativity in a local sense (in small regions of spacetime where curvature is negligible), general relativity does allow the space between distant objects to expand in such a way that they have a "recession velocity" which exceeds the speed of light, and it is thought that galaxies which are at a distance of more than about 14 billion light-years from us today have a recession velocity which is faster than light. Miguel Alcubierre theorized that it would be possible to create a warp drive, in which a ship would be enclosed in a "warp bubble" where the space at the front of the bubble is rapidly contracting and the space at the back is rapidly expanding, with the result that the bubble can reach a distant destination much faster than a light beam moving outside the bubble, but without objects inside the bubble locally traveling faster than light. However, several objections raised against the Alcubierre drive appear to rule out the possibility of actually using it in any practical fashion. Another possibility predicted by general relativity is the traversable wormhole, which could create a shortcut between arbitrarily distant points in space. As with the Alcubierre drive, travelers moving through the wormhole would not locally move faster than light travelling through the wormhole alongside them, but they would be able to reach their destination (and return to their starting location) faster than light traveling outside the wormhole.
Gerald Cleaver and Richard Obousy, a professor and student of Baylor University, theorized that manipulating the extra spatial dimensions of string theory around a spaceship with an extremely large amount of energy would create a "bubble" that could cause the ship to travel faster than the speed of light. To create this bubble, the physicists believe manipulating the 10th spatial dimension would alter the dark energy in three large spatial dimensions: height, width and length. Cleaver said positive dark energy is currently responsible for speeding up the expansion rate of our universe as time moves on.
The possibility that Lorentz symmetry may be violated has been seriously considered in the last two decades, particularly after the development of a realistic effective field theory that describes this possible violation, the so-called Standard-Model Extension. This general framework has allowed experimental searches by ultra-high energy cosmic-ray experiments and a wide variety of experiments in gravity, electrons, protons, neutrons, neutrinos, mesons, and photons. The breaking of rotation and boost invariance causes direction dependence in the theory as well as unconventional energy dependence that introduces novel effects, including Lorentz-violating neutrino oscillations and modifications to the dispersion relations of different particle species, which naturally could make particles move faster than light.
In some models of broken Lorentz symmetry, it is postulated that the symmetry is still built into the most fundamental laws of physics, but that spontaneous symmetry breaking of Lorentz invariance shortly after the Big Bang could have left a "relic field" throughout the universe which causes particles to behave differently depending on their velocity relative to the field; however, there are also some models where Lorentz symmetry is broken in a more fundamental way. If Lorentz symmetry can cease to be a fundamental symmetry at the Planck scale or at some other fundamental scale, it is conceivable that particles with a critical speed different from the speed of light be the ultimate constituents of matter.
In current models of Lorentz symmetry violation, the phenomenological parameters are expected to be energy-dependent. Therefore, as widely recognized, existing low-energy bounds cannot be applied to high-energy phenomena; however, many searches for Lorentz violation at high energies have been carried out using the Standard-Model Extension. Lorentz symmetry violation is expected to become stronger as one gets closer to the fundamental scale.
In this approach, the physical vacuum is viewed as a quantum superfluid which is essentially non-relativistic, whereas Lorentz symmetry is not an exact symmetry of nature but rather the approximate description valid only for the small fluctuations of the superfluid background. Within the framework of the approach, a theory was proposed in which the physical vacuum is conjectured to be a quantum Bose liquid whose ground-state wavefunction is described by the logarithmic Schrödinger equation. It was shown that the relativistic gravitational interaction arises as the small-amplitude collective excitation mode whereas relativistic elementary particles can be described by the particle-like modes in the limit of low momenta. The important fact is that at very high velocities the behavior of the particle-like modes becomes distinct from the relativistic one – they can reach the speed of light limit at finite energy; also, faster-than-light propagation is possible without requiring moving objects to have imaginary mass.
In 2007 the MINOS collaboration reported results measuring the flight-time of 3 GeV neutrinos yielding a speed exceeding that of light by 1.8-sigma significance. However, those measurements were considered to be statistically consistent with neutrinos traveling at the speed of light. After the detectors for the project were upgraded in 2012, MINOS corrected their initial result and found agreement with the speed of light. Further measurements are going to be conducted.
On September 22, 2011, a preprint from the OPERA Collaboration indicated detection of 17 and 28 GeV muon neutrinos, sent 730 kilometers (454 miles) from CERN near Geneva, Switzerland to the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy, traveling faster than light by a relative amount of 2.48×10 (approximately 1 in 40,000), a statistic with 6.0-sigma significance. On 17 November 2011, a second follow-up experiment by OPERA scientists confirmed their initial results. However, scientists were skeptical about the results of these experiments, the significance of which was disputed. In March 2012, the ICARUS collaboration failed to reproduce the OPERA results with their equipment, detecting neutrino travel time from CERN to the Gran Sasso National Laboratory indistinguishable from the speed of light. Later the OPERA team reported two flaws in their equipment set-up that had caused errors far outside their original confidence interval: a fiber-optic cable attached improperly, which caused the apparently faster-than-light measurements, and a clock oscillator ticking too fast.
In special relativity, it is impossible to accelerate an object to the speed of light, or for a massive object to move at the speed of light. However, it might be possible for an object to exist which always moves faster than light. The hypothetical elementary particles with this property are called tachyons or tachyonic particles. Attempts to quantize them failed to produce faster-than-light particles, and instead illustrated that their presence leads to an instability.
Various theorists have suggested that the neutrino might have a tachyonic nature, while others have disputed the possibility.
General relativity was developed after special relativity to include concepts like gravity. It maintains the principle that no object can accelerate to the speed of light in the reference frame of any coincident observer. However, it permits distortions in spacetime that allow an object to move faster than light from the point of view of a distant observer. One such distortion is the Alcubierre drive, which can be thought of as producing a ripple in spacetime that carries an object along with it. Another possible system is the wormhole, which connects two distant locations as though by a shortcut. Both distortions would need to create a very strong curvature in a highly localized region of space-time and their gravity fields would be immense. To counteract the unstable nature, and prevent the distortions from collapsing under their own 'weight', one would need to introduce hypothetical exotic matter or negative energy.
General relativity also recognizes that any means of faster-than-light travel could also be used for time travel. This raises problems with causality. Many physicists believe that the above phenomena are impossible and that future theories of gravity will prohibit them. One theory states that stable wormholes are possible, but that any attempt to use a network of wormholes to violate causality would result in their decay. In string theory, Eric G. Gimon and Petr Hořava have argued that in a supersymmetric five-dimensional Gödel universe, quantum corrections to general relativity effectively cut off regions of spacetime with causality-violating closed timelike curves. In particular, in the quantum theory a smeared supertube is present that cuts the spacetime in such a way that, although in the full spacetime a closed timelike curve passed through every point, no complete curves exist on the interior region bounded by the tube.
FTL travel is a common trope in science fiction.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Faster-than-light (also FTL, superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light (c). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero rest mass (i.e., photons) may travel at the speed of light, and that nothing may travel faster.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Particles whose speed exceeds that of light (tachyons) have been hypothesized, but their existence would violate causality and would imply time travel. The scientific consensus is that they do not exist. \"Apparent\" or \"effective\" FTL, on the other hand, depends on the hypothesis that unusually distorted regions of spacetime might permit matter to reach distant locations in less time than light could in normal (\"undistorted\") spacetime.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "As of the 21st century, according to current scientific theories, matter is required to travel at slower-than-light (also STL or subluminal) speed with respect to the locally distorted spacetime region. Apparent FTL is not excluded by general relativity; however, any apparent FTL physical plausibility is currently speculative. Examples of apparent FTL proposals are the Alcubierre drive, Krasnikov tubes, traversable wormholes, and quantum tunneling. Mostly, FTL proposals find loopholes around general relativity, such as by expanding or contracting space to make the object appear to be travelling greater than c. Such proposals are still widely believed to be impossible as they still violate current understandings of causality, and they all require fanciful mechanisms to work (such as requiring exotic matter). However, given how little is known about the limits of causality and other speculative concepts related to FTL proposals, physicists continue to research and consider these proposals.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In the context of this article, FTL is the transmission of information or matter faster than c, a constant equal to the speed of light in vacuum, which is 299,792,458 m/s (by definition of the metre) or about 186,282.397 miles per second. This is not quite the same as traveling faster than light, since:",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Neither of these phenomena violates special relativity or creates problems with causality, and thus neither qualifies as FTL as described here.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In the following examples, certain influences may appear to travel faster than light, but they do not convey energy or information faster than light, so they do not violate special relativity.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "For an earth-bound observer, objects in the sky complete one revolution around the Earth in one day. Proxima Centauri, the nearest star outside the Solar System, is about four and a half light-years away. In this frame of reference, in which Proxima Centauri is perceived to be moving in a circular trajectory with a radius of four light years, it could be described as having a speed many times greater than c as the rim speed of an object moving in a circle is a product of the radius and angular speed. It is also possible on a geostatic view, for objects such as comets to vary their speed from subluminal to superluminal and vice versa simply because the distance from the Earth varies. Comets may have orbits which take them out to more than 1000 AU. The circumference of a circle with a radius of 1000 AU is greater than one light day. In other words, a comet at such a distance is superluminal in a geostatic, and therefore non-inertial, frame.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "If a laser beam is swept across a distant object, the spot of laser light can easily be made to move across the object at a speed greater than c. Similarly, a shadow projected onto a distant object can be made to move across the object faster than c. In neither case does the light travel from the source to the object faster than c, nor does any information travel faster than light.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The rate at which two objects in motion in a single frame of reference get closer together is called the mutual or closing speed. This may approach twice the speed of light, as in the case of two particles travelling at close to the speed of light in opposite directions with respect to the reference frame.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Imagine two fast-moving particles approaching each other from opposite sides of a particle accelerator of the collider type. The closing speed would be the rate at which the distance between the two particles is decreasing. From the point of view of an observer standing at rest relative to the accelerator, this rate will be slightly less than twice the speed of light.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Special relativity does not prohibit this. It tells us that it is wrong to use Galilean relativity to compute the velocity of one of the particles, as would be measured by an observer traveling alongside the other particle. That is, special relativity gives the correct velocity-addition formula for computing such relative velocity.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "It is instructive to compute the relative velocity of particles moving at v and −v in accelerator frame, which corresponds to the closing speed of 2v > c. Expressing the speeds in units of c, β = v/c:",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "If a spaceship travels to a planet one light-year (as measured in the Earth's rest frame) away from Earth at high speed, the time taken to reach that planet could be less than one year as measured by the traveller's clock (although it will always be more than one year as measured by a clock on Earth). The value obtained by dividing the distance traveled, as determined in the Earth's frame, by the time taken, measured by the traveller's clock, is known as a proper speed or a proper velocity. There is no limit on the value of a proper speed as a proper speed does not represent a speed measured in a single inertial frame. A light signal that left the Earth at the same time as the traveller would always get to the destination before the traveller.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The phase velocity of an electromagnetic wave, when traveling through a medium, can routinely exceed c, the vacuum velocity of light. For example, this occurs in most glasses at X-ray frequencies. However, the phase velocity of a wave corresponds to the propagation speed of a theoretical single-frequency (purely monochromatic) component of the wave at that frequency. Such a wave component must be infinite in extent and of constant amplitude (otherwise it is not truly monochromatic), and so cannot convey any information. Thus a phase velocity above c does not imply the propagation of signals with a velocity above c.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The group velocity of a wave may also exceed c in some circumstances. In such cases, which typically at the same time involve rapid attenuation of the intensity, the maximum of the envelope of a pulse may travel with a velocity above c. However, even this situation does not imply the propagation of signals with a velocity above c, even though one may be tempted to associate pulse maxima with signals. The latter association has been shown to be misleading, because the information on the arrival of a pulse can be obtained before the pulse maximum arrives. For example, if some mechanism allows the full transmission of the leading part of a pulse while strongly attenuating the pulse maximum and everything behind (distortion), the pulse maximum is effectively shifted forward in time, while the information on the pulse does not come faster than c without this effect. However, group velocity can exceed c in some parts of a Gaussian beam in vacuum (without attenuation). The diffraction causes the peak of the pulse to propagate faster, while overall power does not.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "According to Hubble's law, the expansion of the universe causes distant galaxies to recede from us faster than the speed of light. However, the recession speed associated with Hubble's law, defined as the rate of increase in proper distance per interval of cosmological time, is not a velocity in a relativistic sense. Moreover, in general relativity, velocity is a local notion, and there is not even a unique definition for the relative velocity of a cosmologically distant object. Faster-than-light cosmological recession speeds are entirely a coordinate effect.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "There are many galaxies visible in telescopes with redshift numbers of 1.4 or higher. All of these have cosmological recession speeds greater than the speed of light. Because the Hubble parameter is decreasing with time, there can actually be cases where a galaxy that is receding from us faster than light does manage to emit a signal which reaches us eventually.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "However, because the expansion of the universe is accelerating, it is projected that most galaxies will eventually cross a type of cosmological event horizon where any light they emit past that point will never be able to reach us at any time in the infinite future, because the light never reaches a point where its \"peculiar velocity\" towards us exceeds the expansion velocity away from us (these two notions of velocity are also discussed in Comoving and proper distances#Uses of the proper distance). The current distance to this cosmological event horizon is about 16 billion light-years, meaning that a signal from an event happening at present would eventually be able to reach us in the future if the event was less than 16 billion light-years away, but the signal would never reach us if the event was more than 16 billion light-years away.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Apparent superluminal motion is observed in many radio galaxies, blazars, quasars, and recently also in microquasars. The effect was predicted before it was observed by Martin Rees and can be explained as an optical illusion caused by the object partly moving in the direction of the observer, when the speed calculations assume it does not. The phenomenon does not contradict the theory of special relativity. Corrected calculations show these objects have velocities close to the speed of light (relative to our reference frame). They are the first examples of large amounts of mass moving at close to the speed of light. Earth-bound laboratories have only been able to accelerate small numbers of elementary particles to such speeds.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Certain phenomena in quantum mechanics, such as quantum entanglement, might give the superficial impression of allowing communication of information faster than light. According to the no-communication theorem these phenomena do not allow true communication; they only let two observers in different locations see the same system simultaneously, without any way of controlling what either sees. Wavefunction collapse can be viewed as an epiphenomenon of quantum decoherence, which in turn is nothing more than an effect of the underlying local time evolution of the wavefunction of a system and all of its environment. Since the underlying behavior does not violate local causality or allow FTL communication, it follows that neither does the additional effect of wavefunction collapse, whether real or apparent.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The uncertainty principle implies that individual photons may travel for short distances at speeds somewhat faster (or slower) than c, even in vacuum; this possibility must be taken into account when enumerating Feynman diagrams for a particle interaction. However, it was shown in 2011 that a single photon may not travel faster than c. In quantum mechanics, virtual particles may travel faster than light, and this phenomenon is related to the fact that static field effects (which are mediated by virtual particles in quantum terms) may travel faster than light (see section on static fields above). However, macroscopically these fluctuations average out, so that photons do travel in straight lines over long (i.e., non-quantum) distances, and they do travel at the speed of light on average. Therefore, this does not imply the possibility of superluminal information transmission.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "There have been various reports in the popular press of experiments on faster-than-light transmission in optics — most often in the context of a kind of quantum tunnelling phenomenon. Usually, such reports deal with a phase velocity or group velocity faster than the vacuum velocity of light. However, as stated above, a superluminal phase velocity cannot be used for faster-than-light transmission of information.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The Hartman effect is the tunneling effect through a barrier where the tunneling time tends to a constant for large barriers. This could, for instance, be the gap between two prisms. When the prisms are in contact, the light passes straight through, but when there is a gap, the light is refracted. There is a non-zero probability that the photon will tunnel across the gap rather than follow the refracted path. For large gaps between the prisms the tunnelling time approaches a constant and thus the photons appear to have crossed with a superluminal speed.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "However, the Hartman effect cannot actually be used to violate relativity by transmitting signals faster than c, because the tunnelling time \"should not be linked to a velocity since evanescent waves do not propagate\". The evanescent waves in the Hartman effect are due to virtual particles and a non-propagating static field, as mentioned in the sections above for gravity and electromagnetism.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In physics, the Casimir–Polder force is a physical force exerted between separate objects due to resonance of vacuum energy in the intervening space between the objects. This is sometimes described in terms of virtual particles interacting with the objects, owing to the mathematical form of one possible way of calculating the strength of the effect. Because the strength of the force falls off rapidly with distance, it is only measurable when the distance between the objects is extremely small. Because the effect is due to virtual particles mediating a static field effect, it is subject to the comments about static fields discussed above.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The EPR paradox refers to a famous thought experiment of Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen that was realized experimentally for the first time by Alain Aspect in 1981 and 1982 in the Aspect experiment. In this experiment, the measurement of the state of one of the quantum systems of an entangled pair apparently instantaneously forces the other system (which may be distant) to be measured in the complementary state. However, no information can be transmitted this way; the answer to whether or not the measurement actually affects the other quantum system comes down to which interpretation of quantum mechanics one subscribes to.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "An experiment performed in 1997 by Nicolas Gisin has demonstrated non-local quantum correlations between particles separated by over 10 kilometers. But as noted earlier, the non-local correlations seen in entanglement cannot actually be used to transmit classical information faster than light, so that relativistic causality is preserved. The situation is akin to sharing a synchronized coin flip, where the second person to flip their coin will always see the opposite of what the first person sees, but neither has any way of knowing whether they were the first or second flipper, without communicating classically. See No-communication theorem for further information. A 2008 quantum physics experiment also performed by Nicolas Gisin and his colleagues has determined that in any hypothetical non-local hidden-variable theory, the speed of the quantum non-local connection (what Einstein called \"spooky action at a distance\") is at least 10,000 times the speed of light.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The delayed-choice quantum eraser is a version of the EPR paradox in which the observation (or not) of interference after the passage of a photon through a double slit experiment depends on the conditions of observation of a second photon entangled with the first. The characteristic of this experiment is that the observation of the second photon can take place at a later time than the observation of the first photon, which may give the impression that the measurement of the later photons \"retroactively\" determines whether the earlier photons show interference or not, although the interference pattern can only be seen by correlating the measurements of both members of every pair and so it cannot be observed until both photons have been measured, ensuring that an experimenter watching only the photons going through the slit does not obtain information about the other photons in an FTL or backwards-in-time manner.",
"title": "Superluminal travel of non-information"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Faster-than-light communication is, according to relativity, equivalent to time travel. What we measure as the speed of light in vacuum (or near vacuum) is actually the fundamental physical constant c. This means that all inertial and, for the coordinate speed of light, non-inertial observers, regardless of their relative velocity, will always measure zero-mass particles such as photons traveling at c in vacuum. This result means that measurements of time and velocity in different frames are no longer related simply by constant shifts, but are instead related by Poincaré transformations. These transformations have important implications:",
"title": "Superluminal communication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Special relativity postulates that the speed of light in vacuum is invariant in inertial frames. That is, it will be the same from any frame of reference moving at a constant speed. The equations do not specify any particular value for the speed of light, which is an experimentally determined quantity for a fixed unit of length. Since 1983, the SI unit of length (the meter) has been defined using the speed of light.",
"title": "Justifications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The experimental determination has been made in vacuum. However, the vacuum we know is not the only possible vacuum which can exist. The vacuum has energy associated with it, called simply the vacuum energy, which could perhaps be altered in certain cases. When vacuum energy is lowered, light itself has been predicted to go faster than the standard value c. This is known as the Scharnhorst effect. Such a vacuum can be produced by bringing two perfectly smooth metal plates together at near atomic diameter spacing. It is called a Casimir vacuum. Calculations imply that light will go faster in such a vacuum by a minuscule amount: a photon traveling between two plates that are 1 micrometer apart would increase the photon's speed by only about one part in 10. Accordingly, there has as yet been no experimental verification of the prediction. A recent analysis argued that the Scharnhorst effect cannot be used to send information backwards in time with a single set of plates since the plates' rest frame would define a \"preferred frame\" for FTL signaling. However, with multiple pairs of plates in motion relative to one another the authors noted that they had no arguments that could \"guarantee the total absence of causality violations\", and invoked Hawking's speculative chronology protection conjecture which suggests that feedback loops of virtual particles would create \"uncontrollable singularities in the renormalized quantum stress-energy\" on the boundary of any potential time machine, and thus would require a theory of quantum gravity to fully analyze. Other authors argue that Scharnhorst's original analysis, which seemed to show the possibility of faster-than-c signals, involved approximations which may be incorrect, so that it is not clear whether this effect could actually increase signal speed at all.",
"title": "Justifications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "It was later claimed by Eckle et al. that particle tunneling does indeed occur in zero real time. Their tests involved tunneling electrons, where the group argued a relativistic prediction for tunneling time should be 500–600 attoseconds (an attosecond is one quintillionth (10) of a second). All that could be measured was 24 attoseconds, which is the limit of the test accuracy. Again, though, other physicists believe that tunneling experiments in which particles appear to spend anomalously short times inside the barrier are in fact fully compatible with relativity, although there is disagreement about whether the explanation involves reshaping of the wave packet or other effects.",
"title": "Justifications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Because of the strong empirical support for special relativity, any modifications to it must necessarily be quite subtle and difficult to measure. The best-known attempt is doubly special relativity, which posits that the Planck length is also the same in all reference frames, and is associated with the work of Giovanni Amelino-Camelia and João Magueijo. There are speculative theories that claim inertia is produced by the combined mass of the universe (e.g., Mach's principle), which implies that the rest frame of the universe might be preferred by conventional measurements of natural law. If confirmed, this would imply special relativity is an approximation to a more general theory, but since the relevant comparison would (by definition) be outside the observable universe, it is difficult to imagine (much less construct) experiments to test this hypothesis. Despite this difficulty, such experiments have been proposed.",
"title": "Justifications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Although the theory of special relativity forbids objects to have a relative velocity greater than light speed, and general relativity reduces to special relativity in a local sense (in small regions of spacetime where curvature is negligible), general relativity does allow the space between distant objects to expand in such a way that they have a \"recession velocity\" which exceeds the speed of light, and it is thought that galaxies which are at a distance of more than about 14 billion light-years from us today have a recession velocity which is faster than light. Miguel Alcubierre theorized that it would be possible to create a warp drive, in which a ship would be enclosed in a \"warp bubble\" where the space at the front of the bubble is rapidly contracting and the space at the back is rapidly expanding, with the result that the bubble can reach a distant destination much faster than a light beam moving outside the bubble, but without objects inside the bubble locally traveling faster than light. However, several objections raised against the Alcubierre drive appear to rule out the possibility of actually using it in any practical fashion. Another possibility predicted by general relativity is the traversable wormhole, which could create a shortcut between arbitrarily distant points in space. As with the Alcubierre drive, travelers moving through the wormhole would not locally move faster than light travelling through the wormhole alongside them, but they would be able to reach their destination (and return to their starting location) faster than light traveling outside the wormhole.",
"title": "Justifications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Gerald Cleaver and Richard Obousy, a professor and student of Baylor University, theorized that manipulating the extra spatial dimensions of string theory around a spaceship with an extremely large amount of energy would create a \"bubble\" that could cause the ship to travel faster than the speed of light. To create this bubble, the physicists believe manipulating the 10th spatial dimension would alter the dark energy in three large spatial dimensions: height, width and length. Cleaver said positive dark energy is currently responsible for speeding up the expansion rate of our universe as time moves on.",
"title": "Justifications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The possibility that Lorentz symmetry may be violated has been seriously considered in the last two decades, particularly after the development of a realistic effective field theory that describes this possible violation, the so-called Standard-Model Extension. This general framework has allowed experimental searches by ultra-high energy cosmic-ray experiments and a wide variety of experiments in gravity, electrons, protons, neutrons, neutrinos, mesons, and photons. The breaking of rotation and boost invariance causes direction dependence in the theory as well as unconventional energy dependence that introduces novel effects, including Lorentz-violating neutrino oscillations and modifications to the dispersion relations of different particle species, which naturally could make particles move faster than light.",
"title": "Justifications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In some models of broken Lorentz symmetry, it is postulated that the symmetry is still built into the most fundamental laws of physics, but that spontaneous symmetry breaking of Lorentz invariance shortly after the Big Bang could have left a \"relic field\" throughout the universe which causes particles to behave differently depending on their velocity relative to the field; however, there are also some models where Lorentz symmetry is broken in a more fundamental way. If Lorentz symmetry can cease to be a fundamental symmetry at the Planck scale or at some other fundamental scale, it is conceivable that particles with a critical speed different from the speed of light be the ultimate constituents of matter.",
"title": "Justifications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In current models of Lorentz symmetry violation, the phenomenological parameters are expected to be energy-dependent. Therefore, as widely recognized, existing low-energy bounds cannot be applied to high-energy phenomena; however, many searches for Lorentz violation at high energies have been carried out using the Standard-Model Extension. Lorentz symmetry violation is expected to become stronger as one gets closer to the fundamental scale.",
"title": "Justifications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In this approach, the physical vacuum is viewed as a quantum superfluid which is essentially non-relativistic, whereas Lorentz symmetry is not an exact symmetry of nature but rather the approximate description valid only for the small fluctuations of the superfluid background. Within the framework of the approach, a theory was proposed in which the physical vacuum is conjectured to be a quantum Bose liquid whose ground-state wavefunction is described by the logarithmic Schrödinger equation. It was shown that the relativistic gravitational interaction arises as the small-amplitude collective excitation mode whereas relativistic elementary particles can be described by the particle-like modes in the limit of low momenta. The important fact is that at very high velocities the behavior of the particle-like modes becomes distinct from the relativistic one – they can reach the speed of light limit at finite energy; also, faster-than-light propagation is possible without requiring moving objects to have imaginary mass.",
"title": "Justifications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In 2007 the MINOS collaboration reported results measuring the flight-time of 3 GeV neutrinos yielding a speed exceeding that of light by 1.8-sigma significance. However, those measurements were considered to be statistically consistent with neutrinos traveling at the speed of light. After the detectors for the project were upgraded in 2012, MINOS corrected their initial result and found agreement with the speed of light. Further measurements are going to be conducted.",
"title": "FTL neutrino flight results"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "On September 22, 2011, a preprint from the OPERA Collaboration indicated detection of 17 and 28 GeV muon neutrinos, sent 730 kilometers (454 miles) from CERN near Geneva, Switzerland to the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy, traveling faster than light by a relative amount of 2.48×10 (approximately 1 in 40,000), a statistic with 6.0-sigma significance. On 17 November 2011, a second follow-up experiment by OPERA scientists confirmed their initial results. However, scientists were skeptical about the results of these experiments, the significance of which was disputed. In March 2012, the ICARUS collaboration failed to reproduce the OPERA results with their equipment, detecting neutrino travel time from CERN to the Gran Sasso National Laboratory indistinguishable from the speed of light. Later the OPERA team reported two flaws in their equipment set-up that had caused errors far outside their original confidence interval: a fiber-optic cable attached improperly, which caused the apparently faster-than-light measurements, and a clock oscillator ticking too fast.",
"title": "FTL neutrino flight results"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In special relativity, it is impossible to accelerate an object to the speed of light, or for a massive object to move at the speed of light. However, it might be possible for an object to exist which always moves faster than light. The hypothetical elementary particles with this property are called tachyons or tachyonic particles. Attempts to quantize them failed to produce faster-than-light particles, and instead illustrated that their presence leads to an instability.",
"title": "Tachyons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Various theorists have suggested that the neutrino might have a tachyonic nature, while others have disputed the possibility.",
"title": "Tachyons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "General relativity was developed after special relativity to include concepts like gravity. It maintains the principle that no object can accelerate to the speed of light in the reference frame of any coincident observer. However, it permits distortions in spacetime that allow an object to move faster than light from the point of view of a distant observer. One such distortion is the Alcubierre drive, which can be thought of as producing a ripple in spacetime that carries an object along with it. Another possible system is the wormhole, which connects two distant locations as though by a shortcut. Both distortions would need to create a very strong curvature in a highly localized region of space-time and their gravity fields would be immense. To counteract the unstable nature, and prevent the distortions from collapsing under their own 'weight', one would need to introduce hypothetical exotic matter or negative energy.",
"title": "General relativity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "General relativity also recognizes that any means of faster-than-light travel could also be used for time travel. This raises problems with causality. Many physicists believe that the above phenomena are impossible and that future theories of gravity will prohibit them. One theory states that stable wormholes are possible, but that any attempt to use a network of wormholes to violate causality would result in their decay. In string theory, Eric G. Gimon and Petr Hořava have argued that in a supersymmetric five-dimensional Gödel universe, quantum corrections to general relativity effectively cut off regions of spacetime with causality-violating closed timelike curves. In particular, in the quantum theory a smeared supertube is present that cuts the spacetime in such a way that, although in the full spacetime a closed timelike curve passed through every point, no complete curves exist on the interior region bounded by the tube.",
"title": "General relativity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "FTL travel is a common trope in science fiction.",
"title": "In fiction and popular culture"
}
] |
Faster-than-light travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light (c). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero rest mass may travel at the speed of light, and that nothing may travel faster. Particles whose speed exceeds that of light (tachyons) have been hypothesized, but their existence would violate causality and would imply time travel. The scientific consensus is that they do not exist. "Apparent" or "effective" FTL, on the other hand, depends on the hypothesis that unusually distorted regions of spacetime might permit matter to reach distant locations in less time than light could in normal ("undistorted") spacetime. As of the 21st century, according to current scientific theories, matter is required to travel at slower-than-light speed with respect to the locally distorted spacetime region. Apparent FTL is not excluded by general relativity; however, any apparent FTL physical plausibility is currently speculative. Examples of apparent FTL proposals are the Alcubierre drive, Krasnikov tubes, traversable wormholes, and quantum tunneling. Mostly, FTL proposals find loopholes around general relativity, such as by expanding or contracting space to make the object appear to be travelling greater than c. Such proposals are still widely believed to be impossible as they still violate current understandings of causality, and they all require fanciful mechanisms to work. However, given how little is known about the limits of causality and other speculative concepts related to FTL proposals, physicists continue to research and consider these proposals.
|
2001-11-01T20:29:41Z
|
2023-12-23T11:01:47Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light
|
11,440 |
FTL
|
FTL may stand for:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "FTL may stand for:",
"title": ""
}
] |
FTL may stand for:
|
2021-12-08T23:50:52Z
|
[
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"Template:Disambiguation",
"Template:Wiktionary"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTL
|
|
11,442 |
FidoNet
|
FidoNet is a worldwide computer network that is used for communication between bulletin board systems (BBSes). It uses a store-and-forward system to exchange private (email) and public (forum) messages between the BBSes in the network, as well as other files and protocols in some cases.
The FidoNet system was based on several small interacting programs, only one of which needed to be ported to support other BBS software. FidoNet was one of the few networks that was supported by almost all BBS software, as well as a number of non-BBS online services. This modular construction also allowed FidoNet to easily upgrade to new data compression systems, which was important in an era using modem-based communications over telephone links with high long-distance calling charges.
The rapid improvement in modem speeds during the early 1990s, combined with the rapid decrease in price of computer systems and storage, made BBSes increasingly popular. By the mid-1990s there were almost 40,000 FidoNet systems in operation, and it was possible to communicate with millions of users around the world. Only UUCPNET came close in terms of breadth or numbers; FidoNet's user base far surpassed other networks like BITNET.
The broad availability of low-cost Internet connections starting in the mid-1990s lessened the need for FidoNet's store-and-forward system, as any system in the world could be reached for equal cost. Direct dialing into local BBS systems rapidly declined. Although FidoNet has shrunk considerably since the late 1990s, it has remained in use even today despite internet connectivity becoming more widespread.
There are two major accounts of the development of the FidoNet, differing only in small details.
Around Christmas 1983, Tom Jennings started work on a new bulletin board system that would emerge as Fido BBS. It was called "Fido" because the assorted hardware together was "a real mongrel". Jennings set up the system in San Francisco sometime in early 1984. Another early user was John Madill, who was trying to set up a similar system in Baltimore on his Rainbow 100. Fido started spreading to new systems, and Jennings eventually started keeping an informal list of their phone numbers, with Jennings becoming #1 and Madill #2.
Jennings released the first version of the FidoNet software in June 1984. In early 1985 he wrote a document explaining the operations of the FidoNet, along with a short portion on the history of the system. In this version, FidoNet was developed as a way to exchange mail between the first two Fido BBS systems, Jennings' and Madill's, to "see if it could be done, merely for the fun of it". This was first supported in Fido V7, "sometime in June 84 or so".
In early 1984, Ben Baker was planning on starting a BBS for the newly forming computer club at the McDonnell Douglas automotive division in St. Louis. Baker was part of the CP/M special interest group within the club. He intended to use the seminal, CP/M-hosted, CBBS system, and went looking for a machine to run it on. The club's president told Baker that DEC would be giving them a Rainbow 100 computer on indefinite loan, so he made plans to move the CBBS onto this machine. The Rainbow contained two processors, an Intel 8088 and a Zilog Z80, allowing it to run both MS-DOS and CP/M, with the BBS running on the latter. When the machine arrived, they learned that the Z80 side had no access to the I/O ports, so CBBS could not communicate with a modem. While searching for software that would run on the MS-DOS side of the system, Baker learned of Fido through Madill.
The Fido software required changes to the serial drivers to work properly on the Rainbow. A porting effort started, involving Jennings, Madill and Baker. This caused all involved to rack up considerable long distance charges as they all called each other during development, or called into each other's BBSes to leave email. During one such call "in May or early June", Baker and Jennings discussed how great it would be if the BBS systems could call each other automatically, exchanging mail and files between them. This would allow them to compose mail on their local machines, and then deliver it quickly, as opposed to calling in and typing the message in while on a long-distance telephone connection.
Jennings responded by calling into Baker's system that night and uploading a new version of the software consisting of three files: FIDO_DECV6, a new version of the BBS program itself, FIDONET, a new program, and NODELIST.BBS, a text file. The new version of FIDO BBS had a timer that caused it to exit at a specified time, normally at night. As it exited it would run the separate FIDONET program. NODELIST was the list of Fido BBS systems, which Jennings had already been compiling.
The FIDONET program was what later became known as a mailer. The FIDO BBS software was modified to use a previously unused numeric field in the message headers to store a node number for the machine to which the message should be delivered to. When FIDONET ran, it would search through the email database for any messages with a number in this field. FIDONET collected all of the messages for a particular node number into a file known as a message packet. After all the packets were generated, one for each node, the FIDONET program would look up the destination node's phone number in NODELIST.BBS, and call the remote system. Provided that FIDONET was running on that system, the two systems would handshake and, if this succeeded, the calling system would upload its packet, download a return packet if there was one, and disconnect. FIDONET would then unpack the return packet, place the received messages into the local system's database, and move onto the next packet. When there were no remaining packets, FIDONET would exit, and run the FIDO BBS program.
In order to lower long-distance charges, the mail exchanges were timed to run late at night, normally 4 AM. This would later be known as national mail hour, and, later still, as Zone Mail Hour.
By June 1984, Version 7 of the system was being run in production, and nodes were rapidly being added to the network. By August there were almost 30 systems in the nodelist, 50 by September, and over 160 by January 1985. As the network grew, the maintenance of the nodelist became prohibitive, and errors were common. In these cases, people would start receiving phone calls at 4 AM, from a caller that would say nothing and then hang up. In other cases the system would be listed before it was up and running, resulting in long-distance calls that accomplished nothing.
In August 1984, Jennings handed off control of the nodelist to the group in St. Louis, mostly Ken Kaplan and Ben Baker. Kaplan had come across Fido as part of finding a BBS solution for his company, which worked with DEC computers and had been given a Rainbow computer and a USRobotics 1200bit/s modem. From then on, joining FidoNet required one to set up their system and use it to deliver a netmail message to a special system, Node 51. The message contained various required contact information. If this message was transmitted successfully, it ensured that at least some of the system was working properly. The nodelist team would then reply with another netmail message back to the system in question, containing the assigned node number. If delivery succeeded, the system was considered to be working properly, and it was added to the nodelist. The first new nodelist was published on 21 September 1984.
Growth continued to accelerate, and by the spring of 1985, the system was already reaching its limit of 250 nodes. In addition to the limits on the growth of what was clearly a popular system, nodelist maintenance continued to grow more and more time-consuming.
It was also realized that Fido systems were generally clustered – of the 15 systems running by the start of June 1984, 5 of them were in St. Louis. A user on Jennings's system in San Francisco that addressed emails to different systems in St. Louis would cause calls to be made to each of those BBSes in turn. In the United States, local calls were normally free, and in most other countries were charged at a low rate. Additionally, the initial call setup, generally the first minute of the call, was normally billed at a higher rate than continuing an existing connection. Therefore, it would be less expensive to deliver all the messages from all the users in San Francisco to all of the users in St. Louis in a single call. Packets were generally small enough to be delivered within a minute or two, so delivering all the messages in a single call could greatly reduce costs by avoiding multiple first-minute charges. Once delivered, the packet would be broken out into separate packets for local systems, and delivered using multiple local free calls.
The team settled on the concept of adding a new network number patterned on the idea of area codes. A complete network address would now consist of the network and node number pair, which would be written with a slash between them. All mail travelling between networks would first be sent to their local network host, someone who volunteered to pay for any long distance charges. That single site would collect up all the netmail from all of the systems in their network, then re-package it into single packets destined to each network. They would then call any required network admin sites and deliver the packet to them. That site would then process the mail as normal, although all of the messages in the packet would be guaranteed to be local calls.
The network address was placed in an unused field in the Fido message database, which formerly always held a zero. Systems running existing versions of the software already ignored the fields containing the new addressing, so they would continue to work as before; when noticing a message addressed to another node they would look it up and call that system. Newer systems would recognize the network number and instead deliver that message to the network host. To ensure backward compatibility, existing systems retained their original node numbers through this period.
A huge advantage of the new scheme was that node numbers were now unique only within their network, not globally. This meant the previous 250 node limit was gone, but for a variety of reasons this was initially limited to about 1,200. This change also devolved the maintenance of the nodelists down to the network hosts, who then sent updated lists back to Node 51 to be collected into the master list. The St. Louis group now had to only maintain their own local network, and do basic work to compile the global list.
At a meeting held in Kaplan's living room in St. Louis on 11 April 1985 the various parties hammered out all of the details of the new concept. As part of this meeting, they also added the concept of a region, a purely administrative level that was not part of the addressing scheme. Regional hosts would handle any stragglers in the network maps, remote systems that had no local network hosts. They then divided up the US into ten regions that they felt would have roughly equal populations.
By May, Jennings had early versions of the new software running. These early versions specified the routing manually through a new ROUTE.BBS file that listed network hosts for each node. For instance, an operator might want to forward all mail to St. Louis through a single node, node 10. ROUTE.BBS would then include a list of all the known systems in that area, with instructions to forward mail to each of those nodes through node 10. This process was later semi-automated by John Warren's NODELIST program. Over time, this information was folded into updated versions of the nodelist format, and the ROUTES file is no longer used.
A new version of FIDO and FIDONET, 10C, was released containing all of these features. On 12 June 1985 the core group brought up 10C, and most Fido systems had upgraded within a few months. The process went much smoother than anyone imagined, and very few nodes had any problems.
Sometime during the evolution of Fido, file attachments were added to the system, allowing a file to be referenced from an email message. During the normal exchange between two instances of FIDONET, any files attached to the messages in the packets were delivered after the packet itself had been up or downloaded. It is not clear when this was added, but it was already a feature of the basic system when the 8 February 1985 version of the FidoNet standards document was released, so this was added very early in Fido's history.
At a sysop meeting in Dallas, the idea was raised that it would be nice if there was some way for the sysops to post messages that would be shared among the systems. In February 1986 Jeff Rush, one of the group members, introduced a new mailer that extracted messages from public forums that the sysop selected, like the way the original mailer handled private messages. The new program was known as a tosser/scanner. The tosser produced a file that was similar (or identical) to the output from the normal netmail scan, but these files were then compressed and attached to a normal netmail message as an attachment. This message was then sent to a special address on the remote system. After receiving netmail as normal, the scanner on the remote system looked for these messages, unpacked them, and put them into the same public forum on the original system.
In this fashion, Rush's system implemented a store and forward public message system similar to Usenet, but based on, and hosted by, the FidoNet system. The first such echomail forum was one created by the Dallas area sysops to discuss business, known as SYSOP. Another called TECH soon followed. Several public echos soon followed, including GAYNET and CLANG. These spawned hundreds of new echos, and led to the creation of the Echomail Conference List (Echolist) by Thomas Kenny in January 1987. Echomail produced world-spanning shared forums, and its traffic volume quickly surpassed the original netmail system. By the early 1990s, echo mail was carrying over 8 MB of compressed message traffic a day, many times that when uncompressed.
Echomail did not necessarily use the same distribution pathways as normal netmail, and the distribution routing was stored in a separate setup file not unlike the original ROUTES.BBS. At the originating site a header line was added to the message indicating the origin system's name and address. After that, each system that the message traveled through added itself to a growing PATH header, as well as a SEENBY header. SEENBY prevented the message from looping around the network in the case of misconfigured routing information.
Echomail was not the only system to use the file attachment feature of netmail to implement store-and-forward capabilities. Similar concepts were used by online games and other systems as well.
The evolution towards the net/node addressing scheme was also useful for reducing communications costs between continents, where time zone differences on either end of the connection might also come into play. For instance, the best time to forward mail in the US was at night, but that might not be the best time for European hosts to exchange. Efforts towards introducing a continental level to the addressing system started in 1986.
At the same time, it was noted that some power users were interested in using FidoNet protocols as a way of delivering the large quantities of echomail to their local machines where it could be read offline. These users did not want their systems to appear in the nodelist - they did not (necessarily) run a bulletin board system and were not publicly accessible. A mechanism allowing netmail delivery to these systems without the overhead of nodelist maintenance was desirable.
In October 1986 the last major change to the FidoNet network was released, adding zones and points. Zones represented major geographical areas roughly corresponding to continents. There were six zones in total, North America, South America, Europe, Oceania, Asia, and Africa. Points represented non-public nodes, which were created privately on a BBS system. Point mail was delivered to a selected host BBS as normal, but then re-packaged into a packet for the point to pick up on-demand. The complete addressing format was now zone:net/node.point, so a real example might be Bob Smith@1:250/250.10. Points were widely used only for a short time, the introduction of offline reader systems filled this role with systems that were much easier to use. Points remain in use to this day but are less popular than when they were introduced.
Although FidoNet supported file attachments from even the earliest standards, this feature tended to be rarely used and was often turned off. File attachments followed the normal mail routing through multiple systems and could back up transfers all along the line as the files were copied. A solution was offered in the form of file requests, which made file transfers driven by the calling system and used one-time point-to-point connections instead of the traditional routing. Two such standards became common, "WaZOO" and "Bark", which saw varying support among different mailers. Both worked similarly, with the mailer calling the remote system and sending a new handshake packet to request the files.
Although FidoNet was, by far, the best known BBS-based network, it was by no means the only one. From 1988 on, PCBoard systems were able to host similar functionality known as RelayNet, while other popular networks included RBBSNet from the Commodore 64 world, and AlterNet. Late in the evolution of the FidoNet system, there was a proposal to allow mail (but not forum messages) from these systems to switch into the FidoNet structure. This was not adopted, and the rapid rise of the internet made this superfluous as these networks rapidly added internet exchange, which acted as a lingua franca.
FidoNet started in 1984 and listed 100 nodes by the end of that year. Steady growth continued through the 1980s, but a combination of factors led to rapid growth after 1988. These included faster and less expensive modems and rapidly declining costs of hard drives and computer systems in general. By April 1993, the FidoNet nodelist contained over 20,000 systems. At that time it was estimated that each node had, on average, about 200 active users. Of these 4 million users in total, 2 million users commonly used echomail, the shared public forums, while about 200,000 used the private netmail system. At its peak, FidoNet listed approximately 39,000 systems.
Throughout its lifetime, FidoNet was beset with management problems and infighting. Much of this can be traced to the fact that the inter-net delivery cost real money, and the traffic grew more rapidly than decreases caused by improving modem speeds and downward trending long-distance rates. As they increased, various methods of recouping the costs were attempted, all of which caused friction in the groups. The problems were so bad that Jennings came to refer to the system as the "fight-o-net".
As modems reached speeds of 28.8 kbit/s, dial-up Internet became increasingly common. By 1995, the bulletin board market was reeling as users abandoned local BBS systems in favour of larger sites and web pages, which could be accessed worldwide for the same cost as accessing a local BBS system. This also made FidoNet less expensive to implement, because inter-net transfers could be delivered over the Internet as well, at little or no marginal cost. But this seriously diluted the entire purpose of the store-and-forward model, which had been built up specifically to address a long-distance problem that no longer existed.
The FidoNet nodelist started shrinking, especially in areas with a widespread availability of internet connections. This downward trend continues but has levelled out at approximately 2,500 nodes. FidoNet remains popular in areas where Internet access is difficult to come by, or expensive.
Around 2014, a retro movement led to a slow increase in internet-connected BBS and nodes. Telnet, rlogin, and SSH are being used between systems. This means the user can telnet to any BBS worldwide as cheaply as ones next door. Also, Usenet and internet mail has been added, along with long file names to many newer versions of BBS software, some being freeware, resulting in increasing use. Nodelists are no longer declining in all cases.
FidoNet is governed in a hierarchical structure according to FidoNet policy, with designated coordinators at each level to manage the administration of FidoNet nodes and resolve disputes between members. Network coordinators are responsible for managing the individual nodes within their area, usually a city or similar sized area. Regional coordinators are responsible for managing the administration of the network coordinators within their region, typically the size of a state, or small country. Zone coordinators are responsible for managing the administration of all of the regions within their zone. The world is divided into six zones, the coordinators of which elect one of themselves to be the International Coordinator of FidoNet.
FidoNet was historically designed to use modem-based dial-up access between bulletin board systems, and much of its policy and structure reflected this.
The FidoNet system officially referred only to the transfer of Netmail—the individual private messages between people using bulletin boards—including the protocols and standards with which to support it. A netmail message would contain the name of the person sending, the name of the intended recipient, and the respective FidoNet addresses of each. The FidoNet system was responsible for routing the message from one system to the other (details below), with the bulletin board software on each end being responsible for ensuring that only the intended recipient could read it. Due to the hobbyist nature of the network, any privacy between the sender and recipient was only the result of politeness from the owners of the FidoNet systems involved in the mail's transfer. It was common, however, for system operators to reserve the right to review the content of mail that passed through their system.
Netmail allowed for the attachment of a single file to every message. This led to a series of piggyback protocols that built additional features onto FidoNet by passing information back and forth as file attachments. These included the automated distribution of files and transmission of data for inter-BBS games.
By far the most commonly used of these piggyback protocols was Echomail, public discussions similar to Usenet newsgroups in nature. Echomail was supported by a variety of software that collected up new messages from the local BBSes' public forums (the scanner), compressed it using ARC or ZIP, attached the resulting archive to a Netmail message, and sent that message to a selected system. On receiving such a message, identified because it was addressed to a particular user, the reverse process was used to extract the messages, and a tosser put them back into the new system's forums.
Echomail was so popular that for many users, Echomail was the FidoNet. Private person-to-person Netmail was relatively rare.
FidoNet is politically organized into a tree structure, with different parts of the tree electing their respective coordinators. The FidoNet hierarchy consists of zones, regions, networks, nodes and points broken down more-or-less geographically.
The highest level is the zone, which is largely continent-based:
Each zone is broken down into regions, which are broken down into nets, which consist of individual nodes. Zones 7-4095 are used for othernets; groupings of nodes that use Fido-compatible software to carry their own independent message areas without being in any way controlled by FidoNet's political structure. Using un-used zone numbers would ensure that each network would have a unique set of addresses, avoiding potential routing conflicts and ambiguities for systems that belonged to more than one network.
FidoNet addresses explicitly consist of a zone number, a network number (or region number), and a node number. They are written in the form Zone:Network/Node. The FidoNet structure also allows for semantic designation of region, host, and hub status for particular nodes, but this status is not directly indicated by the main address.
For example, consider a node located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States with an assigned node number is 918, located in Zone 1 (North America), Region 19, and Network 170. The full FidoNet address for this system would be 1:170/918. The region was used for administrative purposes, and was only part of the address if the node was listed directly underneath the Regional Coordinator, rather than one of the networks that were used to divide the region further.
FidoNet policy requires that each FidoNet system maintain a nodelist of every other member system. Information on each node includes the name of the system or BBS, the name of the node operator, the geographic location, the telephone number, and software capabilities. The nodelist is updated weekly, to avoid unwanted calls to nodes that had shut down, with their phone numbers possibly having been reassigned for voice use by the respective telephone company.
To accomplish regular updates, coordinators of each network maintain the list of systems in their local areas. The lists are forwarded back to the International Coordinator via automated systems on a regular basis. The International Coordinator would then compile a new nodelist, and generate the list of changes (nodediff) to be distributed for node operators to apply to their existing nodelist.
In a theoretical situation, a node would normally forward messages to a hub. The hub, acting as a distribution point for mail, might then send the message to the Net Coordinator. From there it may be sent through a Regional Coordinator, or to some other system specifically set up for the function. Mail to other zones might be sent through a Zone Gate.
For example, a FidoNet message might follow the path:
Originally there was no specific relationship between network numbers and the regions they reside in. In some areas of FidoNet, most notably in Zone 2, the relationship between region number and network number are entwined. For example, 2:201/329 is in Net 201 which is in Region 20 while 2:2410/330 is in Net 2410 which is in Region 24. Zone 2 also relates the node number to the hub number if the network is large enough to contain any hubs. This effect may be seen in the nodelist by looking at the structure of Net 2410 where node 2:2410/330 is listed under Hub 300. This is not the case in other zones.
In Zone 1, things are much different. Zone 1 was the starting point and when Zones and Regions were formed, the existing nets were divided up regionally with no set formula. The only consideration taken was where they were located geographically with respect to the region's mapped outline. As net numbers got added, the following formula was used.
Region number × 20
Then when some regions started running out of network numbers, the following was also used.
Region number × 200
Region 19, for instance, contains nets 380-399 and 3800-3999 in addition to those that were in Region 19 when it was formed.
Part of the objective behind the formation of local nets was to implement cost reduction plans by which all messages would be sent to one or more hubs or hosts in compressed form (ARC was nominally standard, but PKZIP is universally supported); one toll call could then be made during off-peak hours to exchange entire message-filled archives with an out-of-town uplink for further redistribution.
In practice, the FidoNet structure allows for any node to connect directly to any other, and node operators would sometimes form their own toll-calling arrangements on an ad-hoc basis, allowing for a balance between collective cost saving and timely delivery. For instance, if one node operator in a network offered to make regular toll calls to a particular system elsewhere, other operators might arrange to forward all of their mail destined for the remote system, and those near it, to the local volunteer. Operators within individual networks would sometimes have cost-sharing arrangements, but it was also common for people to volunteer to pay for regular toll calls either out of generosity or to build their status in the community.
This ad-hoc system was particularly popular with networks that were built on top of FidoNet. Echomail, for instance, often involved relatively large file transfers due to its popularity. If official FidoNet distributors refused to transfer Echomail due to additional toll charges, other node operators would sometimes volunteer. In such cases, Echomail messages would be routed to the volunteers' systems instead.
The FidoNet system was best adapted to an environment in which local telephone service was inexpensive and long-distance calls (or intercity data transfer via packet-switched networks) costly. Therefore, it fared somewhat poorly in Japan, where even local lines are expensive, or in France, where tolls on local calls and competition with Minitel or other data networks limited its growth.
As the number of messages in Echomail grew over time, it became very difficult for users to keep up with the volume while logged into their local BBS. Points were introduced to address this, allowing technically-savvy users to receive the already compressed and batched Echomail (and Netmail) and read it locally on their own machines.
To do this, the FidoNet addressing scheme was extended with the addition of a final address segment, the point number. For instance, a user on the example system above might be given point number 10, and thus could be sent mail at the address 1:170/918.10.
In real-world use, points are fairly difficult to set up. The FidoNet software typically consisted of a number of small utility programs run by manually edited scripts that required some level of technical ability. Reading and editing the mail required either a "sysop editor" program or a BBS program to be run locally.
In North America (Zone 1), where local calls are generally free, the benefits of the system were offset by its complexity. Points were used only briefly, and even then only to a limited degree. Dedicated offline mail reader programs such as Blue Wave, Squiggy and Silver Xpress (OPX) were introduced in the mid-1990s and quickly rendered the point system obsolete. Many of these packages supported the QWK offline mail standard.
In other parts of the world, especially Europe, this was different. In Europe, even local calls are generally metered, so there was a strong incentive to keep the duration of the calls as short as possible. Point software employs standard compression (ZIP, ARJ, etc.) and so keeps the calls down to a few minutes a day at most. In contrast to North America, pointing saw rapid and fairly widespread uptake in Europe.
Many regions distribute a pointlist in parallel with the nodelist. The pointlist segments are maintained by Net- and Region Pointlist Keepers and the Zone Point List Keeper assembles them into the Zone pointlist. At the peak of FidoNet there were over 120,000 points listed in the Zone 2 pointlist. Listing points is on a voluntary basis and not every point is listed, so how many points there really were is anybody's guess. As of June 2006, there are still some 50,000 listed points. Most of them are in Russia and Ukraine.
FidoNet contained several technical specifications for compatibility between systems. The most basic of all is FTS-0001, with which all FidoNet systems are required to comply as a minimum requirement. FTS-0001 defined:
Other specifications that were commonly used provided for echomail, different transfer protocols and handshake methods (e.g.: Yoohoo/Yoohoo2u2, EMSI), file compression, nodelist format, transfer over reliable connections such as the Internet (Binkp), and other aspects.
Since computer bulletin boards historically used the same telephone lines for transferring mail as were used for dial-in human users of the BBS, FidoNet policy dictates that at least one designated line of each FidoNet node must be available for accepting mail from other FidoNet nodes during a particular hour of each day.
Zone Mail Hour, as it was named, varies depending on the geographic location of the node, and was designated to occur during the early morning. The exact hour varies depending on the time zone, and any node with only one telephone line is required to reject human callers. In practice, particularly in later times, most FidoNet systems tend to accept mail at any time of day when the phone line is not busy, usually during night.
Most FidoNet deployments were designed in a modular fashion. A typical deployment would involve several applications that would communicate through shared files and directories, and switch between each other through carefully designed scripts or batch files. However, monolithic software that encompassed all required functions in one package is available, such as D'Bridge. Such software eliminated the need for custom batch files and is tightly integrated in operation. The preference for deployment was that of the operator and there were both pros and cons of running in either fashion.
Arguably the most important piece of software on a DOS-based Fido system was the FOSSIL driver, which was a small device driver which provided a standard way for the Fido software to talk to the modem. This driver needed to be loaded before any Fido software would work. An efficient FOSSIL driver meant faster, more reliable connections.
Mailer software was responsible for transferring files and messages between systems, as well as passing control to other applications, such as the BBS software, at appropriate times. The mailer would initially answer the phone and, if necessary, deal with incoming mail via FidoNet transfer protocols. If the mailer answered the phone and a human caller was detected rather than other mailer software, the mailer would exit, and pass control to the BBS software, which would then initialise for interaction with the user. When outgoing mail was waiting on the local system, the mailer software would attempt to send it from time to time by dialing and connecting to other systems who would accept and route the mail further. Due to the costs of toll calls which often varied between peak and off-peak times, mailer software would usually allow its operator to configure the optimal times in which to attempt to send mail to other systems.
BBS software was used to interact with human callers to the system. BBS software would allow dial-in users to use the system's message bases and write mail to others, locally or on other BBSes. Mail directed to other BBSes would later be routed and sent by the mailer, usually after the user had finished using the system. Many BBSes also allowed users to exchange files, play games, and interact with other users in a variety of ways (i.e.: node to node chat).
A scanner/tosser application, such as FastEcho, FMail, TosScan and Squish, would normally be invoked when a BBS user had entered a new FidoNet message that needed to be sent, or when a mailer had received new mail to be imported into the local messages bases. This application would be responsible for handling the packaging of incoming and outgoing mail, moving it between the local system's message bases and the mailer's inbound and outbound directories. The scanner/tosser application would generally be responsible for basic routing information, determining which systems to forward mail to.
In later times, message readers or editors that were independent of BBS software were also developed. Often the System Operator of a particular BBS would use a devoted message reader, rather than the BBS software itself, to read and write FidoNet and related messages. One of the most popular editors in 2008 was GoldED+. In some cases, FidoNet nodes, or more often FidoNet points, had no public bulletin board attached and existed only for the transfer of mail for the benefit of the node's operator. Most nodes in 2009 had no BBS access, but only points, if anything.
The original Fido BBS software, and some other FidoNet-supporting software from the 1980s, is no longer functional on modern systems. This is for several reasons, including problems related to the Y2K bug. In some cases, the original authors have left the BBS or shareware community, and the software, much of which was closed source, has been rendered abandonware.
Several DOS-based legacy FidoNet Mailers such as FrontDoor, Intermail, MainDoor and D'Bridge from the early 1990s can still be run today under Windows without a modem, by using the freeware NetFoss Telnet FOSSIL driver, and by using a Virtual Modem such as NetSerial. This allows the mailer to dial an IP address or hostname via Telnet, rather than dialing a real POTS phone number. There are similar solutions for Linux such as MODEMU (modem emulator) which has limited success when combined with DOSEMU (DOS emulator). Mail Tossers such as FastEcho and FMail are still used today under both Windows and Linux/DOSEMU.
There are several modern Windows based FidoNet Mailers available today with source code, including Argus, Radius, and Taurus. MainDoor is another Windows based Fidonet mailer, which also can be run using either a modem or directly over TCP/IP. Two popular free and open source software FidoNet mailers for Unix-like systems are the binkd (cross-platform, IP-only, uses the binkp protocol) and qico (supports modem communication as well as the IP protocol of ifcico and binkp).
On the hardware side, Fido systems were usually well-equipped machines, for their day, with quick CPUs, high-speed modems and 16550 UARTs, which were at the time an upgrade. As a Fidonet system was usually a BBS, it needed to quickly process any new mail events before returning to its 'waiting for call' state. In addition, the BBS itself usually necessitated lots of storage space. Finally, a FidoNet system usually had at least one dedicated phone line. Consequently, operating a Fidonet system often required significant financial investment, a cost usually met by the owner of the system.
While the use of FidoNet has dropped dramatically compared with its use up to the mid-1990s, it is still used in many countries and especially Russia and former republics of the USSR. Some BBSes, including those that are now available for users with Internet connections via telnet, also retain their FidoNet netmail and echomail feeds.
Some of FidoNet's echomail conferences are available via gateways with the Usenet news hierarchy using software like UFGate. There are also mail gates for exchanging messages between Internet and FidoNet. Widespread net abuse and e-mail spam on the Internet side has caused some gateways (such as the former 1:1/31 IEEE fidonet.org gateway) to become unusable or cease operation entirely.
FidoNews is the newsletter of the FidoNet community. Affectionately nicknamed The Snooze, it is published weekly. It was first published in 1984. Throughout its history, it has been published by various people and entities, including the short-lived International FidoNet Association.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "FidoNet is a worldwide computer network that is used for communication between bulletin board systems (BBSes). It uses a store-and-forward system to exchange private (email) and public (forum) messages between the BBSes in the network, as well as other files and protocols in some cases.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The FidoNet system was based on several small interacting programs, only one of which needed to be ported to support other BBS software. FidoNet was one of the few networks that was supported by almost all BBS software, as well as a number of non-BBS online services. This modular construction also allowed FidoNet to easily upgrade to new data compression systems, which was important in an era using modem-based communications over telephone links with high long-distance calling charges.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The rapid improvement in modem speeds during the early 1990s, combined with the rapid decrease in price of computer systems and storage, made BBSes increasingly popular. By the mid-1990s there were almost 40,000 FidoNet systems in operation, and it was possible to communicate with millions of users around the world. Only UUCPNET came close in terms of breadth or numbers; FidoNet's user base far surpassed other networks like BITNET.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The broad availability of low-cost Internet connections starting in the mid-1990s lessened the need for FidoNet's store-and-forward system, as any system in the world could be reached for equal cost. Direct dialing into local BBS systems rapidly declined. Although FidoNet has shrunk considerably since the late 1990s, it has remained in use even today despite internet connectivity becoming more widespread.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "There are two major accounts of the development of the FidoNet, differing only in small details.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Around Christmas 1983, Tom Jennings started work on a new bulletin board system that would emerge as Fido BBS. It was called \"Fido\" because the assorted hardware together was \"a real mongrel\". Jennings set up the system in San Francisco sometime in early 1984. Another early user was John Madill, who was trying to set up a similar system in Baltimore on his Rainbow 100. Fido started spreading to new systems, and Jennings eventually started keeping an informal list of their phone numbers, with Jennings becoming #1 and Madill #2.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Jennings released the first version of the FidoNet software in June 1984. In early 1985 he wrote a document explaining the operations of the FidoNet, along with a short portion on the history of the system. In this version, FidoNet was developed as a way to exchange mail between the first two Fido BBS systems, Jennings' and Madill's, to \"see if it could be done, merely for the fun of it\". This was first supported in Fido V7, \"sometime in June 84 or so\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In early 1984, Ben Baker was planning on starting a BBS for the newly forming computer club at the McDonnell Douglas automotive division in St. Louis. Baker was part of the CP/M special interest group within the club. He intended to use the seminal, CP/M-hosted, CBBS system, and went looking for a machine to run it on. The club's president told Baker that DEC would be giving them a Rainbow 100 computer on indefinite loan, so he made plans to move the CBBS onto this machine. The Rainbow contained two processors, an Intel 8088 and a Zilog Z80, allowing it to run both MS-DOS and CP/M, with the BBS running on the latter. When the machine arrived, they learned that the Z80 side had no access to the I/O ports, so CBBS could not communicate with a modem. While searching for software that would run on the MS-DOS side of the system, Baker learned of Fido through Madill.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Fido software required changes to the serial drivers to work properly on the Rainbow. A porting effort started, involving Jennings, Madill and Baker. This caused all involved to rack up considerable long distance charges as they all called each other during development, or called into each other's BBSes to leave email. During one such call \"in May or early June\", Baker and Jennings discussed how great it would be if the BBS systems could call each other automatically, exchanging mail and files between them. This would allow them to compose mail on their local machines, and then deliver it quickly, as opposed to calling in and typing the message in while on a long-distance telephone connection.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Jennings responded by calling into Baker's system that night and uploading a new version of the software consisting of three files: FIDO_DECV6, a new version of the BBS program itself, FIDONET, a new program, and NODELIST.BBS, a text file. The new version of FIDO BBS had a timer that caused it to exit at a specified time, normally at night. As it exited it would run the separate FIDONET program. NODELIST was the list of Fido BBS systems, which Jennings had already been compiling.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The FIDONET program was what later became known as a mailer. The FIDO BBS software was modified to use a previously unused numeric field in the message headers to store a node number for the machine to which the message should be delivered to. When FIDONET ran, it would search through the email database for any messages with a number in this field. FIDONET collected all of the messages for a particular node number into a file known as a message packet. After all the packets were generated, one for each node, the FIDONET program would look up the destination node's phone number in NODELIST.BBS, and call the remote system. Provided that FIDONET was running on that system, the two systems would handshake and, if this succeeded, the calling system would upload its packet, download a return packet if there was one, and disconnect. FIDONET would then unpack the return packet, place the received messages into the local system's database, and move onto the next packet. When there were no remaining packets, FIDONET would exit, and run the FIDO BBS program.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In order to lower long-distance charges, the mail exchanges were timed to run late at night, normally 4 AM. This would later be known as national mail hour, and, later still, as Zone Mail Hour.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "By June 1984, Version 7 of the system was being run in production, and nodes were rapidly being added to the network. By August there were almost 30 systems in the nodelist, 50 by September, and over 160 by January 1985. As the network grew, the maintenance of the nodelist became prohibitive, and errors were common. In these cases, people would start receiving phone calls at 4 AM, from a caller that would say nothing and then hang up. In other cases the system would be listed before it was up and running, resulting in long-distance calls that accomplished nothing.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In August 1984, Jennings handed off control of the nodelist to the group in St. Louis, mostly Ken Kaplan and Ben Baker. Kaplan had come across Fido as part of finding a BBS solution for his company, which worked with DEC computers and had been given a Rainbow computer and a USRobotics 1200bit/s modem. From then on, joining FidoNet required one to set up their system and use it to deliver a netmail message to a special system, Node 51. The message contained various required contact information. If this message was transmitted successfully, it ensured that at least some of the system was working properly. The nodelist team would then reply with another netmail message back to the system in question, containing the assigned node number. If delivery succeeded, the system was considered to be working properly, and it was added to the nodelist. The first new nodelist was published on 21 September 1984.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Growth continued to accelerate, and by the spring of 1985, the system was already reaching its limit of 250 nodes. In addition to the limits on the growth of what was clearly a popular system, nodelist maintenance continued to grow more and more time-consuming.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "It was also realized that Fido systems were generally clustered – of the 15 systems running by the start of June 1984, 5 of them were in St. Louis. A user on Jennings's system in San Francisco that addressed emails to different systems in St. Louis would cause calls to be made to each of those BBSes in turn. In the United States, local calls were normally free, and in most other countries were charged at a low rate. Additionally, the initial call setup, generally the first minute of the call, was normally billed at a higher rate than continuing an existing connection. Therefore, it would be less expensive to deliver all the messages from all the users in San Francisco to all of the users in St. Louis in a single call. Packets were generally small enough to be delivered within a minute or two, so delivering all the messages in a single call could greatly reduce costs by avoiding multiple first-minute charges. Once delivered, the packet would be broken out into separate packets for local systems, and delivered using multiple local free calls.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The team settled on the concept of adding a new network number patterned on the idea of area codes. A complete network address would now consist of the network and node number pair, which would be written with a slash between them. All mail travelling between networks would first be sent to their local network host, someone who volunteered to pay for any long distance charges. That single site would collect up all the netmail from all of the systems in their network, then re-package it into single packets destined to each network. They would then call any required network admin sites and deliver the packet to them. That site would then process the mail as normal, although all of the messages in the packet would be guaranteed to be local calls.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The network address was placed in an unused field in the Fido message database, which formerly always held a zero. Systems running existing versions of the software already ignored the fields containing the new addressing, so they would continue to work as before; when noticing a message addressed to another node they would look it up and call that system. Newer systems would recognize the network number and instead deliver that message to the network host. To ensure backward compatibility, existing systems retained their original node numbers through this period.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "A huge advantage of the new scheme was that node numbers were now unique only within their network, not globally. This meant the previous 250 node limit was gone, but for a variety of reasons this was initially limited to about 1,200. This change also devolved the maintenance of the nodelists down to the network hosts, who then sent updated lists back to Node 51 to be collected into the master list. The St. Louis group now had to only maintain their own local network, and do basic work to compile the global list.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "At a meeting held in Kaplan's living room in St. Louis on 11 April 1985 the various parties hammered out all of the details of the new concept. As part of this meeting, they also added the concept of a region, a purely administrative level that was not part of the addressing scheme. Regional hosts would handle any stragglers in the network maps, remote systems that had no local network hosts. They then divided up the US into ten regions that they felt would have roughly equal populations.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "By May, Jennings had early versions of the new software running. These early versions specified the routing manually through a new ROUTE.BBS file that listed network hosts for each node. For instance, an operator might want to forward all mail to St. Louis through a single node, node 10. ROUTE.BBS would then include a list of all the known systems in that area, with instructions to forward mail to each of those nodes through node 10. This process was later semi-automated by John Warren's NODELIST program. Over time, this information was folded into updated versions of the nodelist format, and the ROUTES file is no longer used.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "A new version of FIDO and FIDONET, 10C, was released containing all of these features. On 12 June 1985 the core group brought up 10C, and most Fido systems had upgraded within a few months. The process went much smoother than anyone imagined, and very few nodes had any problems.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Sometime during the evolution of Fido, file attachments were added to the system, allowing a file to be referenced from an email message. During the normal exchange between two instances of FIDONET, any files attached to the messages in the packets were delivered after the packet itself had been up or downloaded. It is not clear when this was added, but it was already a feature of the basic system when the 8 February 1985 version of the FidoNet standards document was released, so this was added very early in Fido's history.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "At a sysop meeting in Dallas, the idea was raised that it would be nice if there was some way for the sysops to post messages that would be shared among the systems. In February 1986 Jeff Rush, one of the group members, introduced a new mailer that extracted messages from public forums that the sysop selected, like the way the original mailer handled private messages. The new program was known as a tosser/scanner. The tosser produced a file that was similar (or identical) to the output from the normal netmail scan, but these files were then compressed and attached to a normal netmail message as an attachment. This message was then sent to a special address on the remote system. After receiving netmail as normal, the scanner on the remote system looked for these messages, unpacked them, and put them into the same public forum on the original system.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In this fashion, Rush's system implemented a store and forward public message system similar to Usenet, but based on, and hosted by, the FidoNet system. The first such echomail forum was one created by the Dallas area sysops to discuss business, known as SYSOP. Another called TECH soon followed. Several public echos soon followed, including GAYNET and CLANG. These spawned hundreds of new echos, and led to the creation of the Echomail Conference List (Echolist) by Thomas Kenny in January 1987. Echomail produced world-spanning shared forums, and its traffic volume quickly surpassed the original netmail system. By the early 1990s, echo mail was carrying over 8 MB of compressed message traffic a day, many times that when uncompressed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Echomail did not necessarily use the same distribution pathways as normal netmail, and the distribution routing was stored in a separate setup file not unlike the original ROUTES.BBS. At the originating site a header line was added to the message indicating the origin system's name and address. After that, each system that the message traveled through added itself to a growing PATH header, as well as a SEENBY header. SEENBY prevented the message from looping around the network in the case of misconfigured routing information.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Echomail was not the only system to use the file attachment feature of netmail to implement store-and-forward capabilities. Similar concepts were used by online games and other systems as well.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The evolution towards the net/node addressing scheme was also useful for reducing communications costs between continents, where time zone differences on either end of the connection might also come into play. For instance, the best time to forward mail in the US was at night, but that might not be the best time for European hosts to exchange. Efforts towards introducing a continental level to the addressing system started in 1986.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "At the same time, it was noted that some power users were interested in using FidoNet protocols as a way of delivering the large quantities of echomail to their local machines where it could be read offline. These users did not want their systems to appear in the nodelist - they did not (necessarily) run a bulletin board system and were not publicly accessible. A mechanism allowing netmail delivery to these systems without the overhead of nodelist maintenance was desirable.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In October 1986 the last major change to the FidoNet network was released, adding zones and points. Zones represented major geographical areas roughly corresponding to continents. There were six zones in total, North America, South America, Europe, Oceania, Asia, and Africa. Points represented non-public nodes, which were created privately on a BBS system. Point mail was delivered to a selected host BBS as normal, but then re-packaged into a packet for the point to pick up on-demand. The complete addressing format was now zone:net/node.point, so a real example might be Bob Smith@1:250/250.10. Points were widely used only for a short time, the introduction of offline reader systems filled this role with systems that were much easier to use. Points remain in use to this day but are less popular than when they were introduced.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Although FidoNet supported file attachments from even the earliest standards, this feature tended to be rarely used and was often turned off. File attachments followed the normal mail routing through multiple systems and could back up transfers all along the line as the files were copied. A solution was offered in the form of file requests, which made file transfers driven by the calling system and used one-time point-to-point connections instead of the traditional routing. Two such standards became common, \"WaZOO\" and \"Bark\", which saw varying support among different mailers. Both worked similarly, with the mailer calling the remote system and sending a new handshake packet to request the files.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Although FidoNet was, by far, the best known BBS-based network, it was by no means the only one. From 1988 on, PCBoard systems were able to host similar functionality known as RelayNet, while other popular networks included RBBSNet from the Commodore 64 world, and AlterNet. Late in the evolution of the FidoNet system, there was a proposal to allow mail (but not forum messages) from these systems to switch into the FidoNet structure. This was not adopted, and the rapid rise of the internet made this superfluous as these networks rapidly added internet exchange, which acted as a lingua franca.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "FidoNet started in 1984 and listed 100 nodes by the end of that year. Steady growth continued through the 1980s, but a combination of factors led to rapid growth after 1988. These included faster and less expensive modems and rapidly declining costs of hard drives and computer systems in general. By April 1993, the FidoNet nodelist contained over 20,000 systems. At that time it was estimated that each node had, on average, about 200 active users. Of these 4 million users in total, 2 million users commonly used echomail, the shared public forums, while about 200,000 used the private netmail system. At its peak, FidoNet listed approximately 39,000 systems.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Throughout its lifetime, FidoNet was beset with management problems and infighting. Much of this can be traced to the fact that the inter-net delivery cost real money, and the traffic grew more rapidly than decreases caused by improving modem speeds and downward trending long-distance rates. As they increased, various methods of recouping the costs were attempted, all of which caused friction in the groups. The problems were so bad that Jennings came to refer to the system as the \"fight-o-net\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "As modems reached speeds of 28.8 kbit/s, dial-up Internet became increasingly common. By 1995, the bulletin board market was reeling as users abandoned local BBS systems in favour of larger sites and web pages, which could be accessed worldwide for the same cost as accessing a local BBS system. This also made FidoNet less expensive to implement, because inter-net transfers could be delivered over the Internet as well, at little or no marginal cost. But this seriously diluted the entire purpose of the store-and-forward model, which had been built up specifically to address a long-distance problem that no longer existed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The FidoNet nodelist started shrinking, especially in areas with a widespread availability of internet connections. This downward trend continues but has levelled out at approximately 2,500 nodes. FidoNet remains popular in areas where Internet access is difficult to come by, or expensive.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Around 2014, a retro movement led to a slow increase in internet-connected BBS and nodes. Telnet, rlogin, and SSH are being used between systems. This means the user can telnet to any BBS worldwide as cheaply as ones next door. Also, Usenet and internet mail has been added, along with long file names to many newer versions of BBS software, some being freeware, resulting in increasing use. Nodelists are no longer declining in all cases.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "FidoNet is governed in a hierarchical structure according to FidoNet policy, with designated coordinators at each level to manage the administration of FidoNet nodes and resolve disputes between members. Network coordinators are responsible for managing the individual nodes within their area, usually a city or similar sized area. Regional coordinators are responsible for managing the administration of the network coordinators within their region, typically the size of a state, or small country. Zone coordinators are responsible for managing the administration of all of the regions within their zone. The world is divided into six zones, the coordinators of which elect one of themselves to be the International Coordinator of FidoNet.",
"title": "FidoNet organizational structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "FidoNet was historically designed to use modem-based dial-up access between bulletin board systems, and much of its policy and structure reflected this.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The FidoNet system officially referred only to the transfer of Netmail—the individual private messages between people using bulletin boards—including the protocols and standards with which to support it. A netmail message would contain the name of the person sending, the name of the intended recipient, and the respective FidoNet addresses of each. The FidoNet system was responsible for routing the message from one system to the other (details below), with the bulletin board software on each end being responsible for ensuring that only the intended recipient could read it. Due to the hobbyist nature of the network, any privacy between the sender and recipient was only the result of politeness from the owners of the FidoNet systems involved in the mail's transfer. It was common, however, for system operators to reserve the right to review the content of mail that passed through their system.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Netmail allowed for the attachment of a single file to every message. This led to a series of piggyback protocols that built additional features onto FidoNet by passing information back and forth as file attachments. These included the automated distribution of files and transmission of data for inter-BBS games.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "By far the most commonly used of these piggyback protocols was Echomail, public discussions similar to Usenet newsgroups in nature. Echomail was supported by a variety of software that collected up new messages from the local BBSes' public forums (the scanner), compressed it using ARC or ZIP, attached the resulting archive to a Netmail message, and sent that message to a selected system. On receiving such a message, identified because it was addressed to a particular user, the reverse process was used to extract the messages, and a tosser put them back into the new system's forums.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Echomail was so popular that for many users, Echomail was the FidoNet. Private person-to-person Netmail was relatively rare.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "FidoNet is politically organized into a tree structure, with different parts of the tree electing their respective coordinators. The FidoNet hierarchy consists of zones, regions, networks, nodes and points broken down more-or-less geographically.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The highest level is the zone, which is largely continent-based:",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Each zone is broken down into regions, which are broken down into nets, which consist of individual nodes. Zones 7-4095 are used for othernets; groupings of nodes that use Fido-compatible software to carry their own independent message areas without being in any way controlled by FidoNet's political structure. Using un-used zone numbers would ensure that each network would have a unique set of addresses, avoiding potential routing conflicts and ambiguities for systems that belonged to more than one network.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "FidoNet addresses explicitly consist of a zone number, a network number (or region number), and a node number. They are written in the form Zone:Network/Node. The FidoNet structure also allows for semantic designation of region, host, and hub status for particular nodes, but this status is not directly indicated by the main address.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "For example, consider a node located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States with an assigned node number is 918, located in Zone 1 (North America), Region 19, and Network 170. The full FidoNet address for this system would be 1:170/918. The region was used for administrative purposes, and was only part of the address if the node was listed directly underneath the Regional Coordinator, rather than one of the networks that were used to divide the region further.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "FidoNet policy requires that each FidoNet system maintain a nodelist of every other member system. Information on each node includes the name of the system or BBS, the name of the node operator, the geographic location, the telephone number, and software capabilities. The nodelist is updated weekly, to avoid unwanted calls to nodes that had shut down, with their phone numbers possibly having been reassigned for voice use by the respective telephone company.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "To accomplish regular updates, coordinators of each network maintain the list of systems in their local areas. The lists are forwarded back to the International Coordinator via automated systems on a regular basis. The International Coordinator would then compile a new nodelist, and generate the list of changes (nodediff) to be distributed for node operators to apply to their existing nodelist.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "In a theoretical situation, a node would normally forward messages to a hub. The hub, acting as a distribution point for mail, might then send the message to the Net Coordinator. From there it may be sent through a Regional Coordinator, or to some other system specifically set up for the function. Mail to other zones might be sent through a Zone Gate.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "For example, a FidoNet message might follow the path:",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Originally there was no specific relationship between network numbers and the regions they reside in. In some areas of FidoNet, most notably in Zone 2, the relationship between region number and network number are entwined. For example, 2:201/329 is in Net 201 which is in Region 20 while 2:2410/330 is in Net 2410 which is in Region 24. Zone 2 also relates the node number to the hub number if the network is large enough to contain any hubs. This effect may be seen in the nodelist by looking at the structure of Net 2410 where node 2:2410/330 is listed under Hub 300. This is not the case in other zones.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "In Zone 1, things are much different. Zone 1 was the starting point and when Zones and Regions were formed, the existing nets were divided up regionally with no set formula. The only consideration taken was where they were located geographically with respect to the region's mapped outline. As net numbers got added, the following formula was used.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Region number × 20",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Then when some regions started running out of network numbers, the following was also used.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Region number × 200",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Region 19, for instance, contains nets 380-399 and 3800-3999 in addition to those that were in Region 19 when it was formed.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Part of the objective behind the formation of local nets was to implement cost reduction plans by which all messages would be sent to one or more hubs or hosts in compressed form (ARC was nominally standard, but PKZIP is universally supported); one toll call could then be made during off-peak hours to exchange entire message-filled archives with an out-of-town uplink for further redistribution.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "In practice, the FidoNet structure allows for any node to connect directly to any other, and node operators would sometimes form their own toll-calling arrangements on an ad-hoc basis, allowing for a balance between collective cost saving and timely delivery. For instance, if one node operator in a network offered to make regular toll calls to a particular system elsewhere, other operators might arrange to forward all of their mail destined for the remote system, and those near it, to the local volunteer. Operators within individual networks would sometimes have cost-sharing arrangements, but it was also common for people to volunteer to pay for regular toll calls either out of generosity or to build their status in the community.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "This ad-hoc system was particularly popular with networks that were built on top of FidoNet. Echomail, for instance, often involved relatively large file transfers due to its popularity. If official FidoNet distributors refused to transfer Echomail due to additional toll charges, other node operators would sometimes volunteer. In such cases, Echomail messages would be routed to the volunteers' systems instead.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The FidoNet system was best adapted to an environment in which local telephone service was inexpensive and long-distance calls (or intercity data transfer via packet-switched networks) costly. Therefore, it fared somewhat poorly in Japan, where even local lines are expensive, or in France, where tolls on local calls and competition with Minitel or other data networks limited its growth.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "As the number of messages in Echomail grew over time, it became very difficult for users to keep up with the volume while logged into their local BBS. Points were introduced to address this, allowing technically-savvy users to receive the already compressed and batched Echomail (and Netmail) and read it locally on their own machines.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "To do this, the FidoNet addressing scheme was extended with the addition of a final address segment, the point number. For instance, a user on the example system above might be given point number 10, and thus could be sent mail at the address 1:170/918.10.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "In real-world use, points are fairly difficult to set up. The FidoNet software typically consisted of a number of small utility programs run by manually edited scripts that required some level of technical ability. Reading and editing the mail required either a \"sysop editor\" program or a BBS program to be run locally.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "In North America (Zone 1), where local calls are generally free, the benefits of the system were offset by its complexity. Points were used only briefly, and even then only to a limited degree. Dedicated offline mail reader programs such as Blue Wave, Squiggy and Silver Xpress (OPX) were introduced in the mid-1990s and quickly rendered the point system obsolete. Many of these packages supported the QWK offline mail standard.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "In other parts of the world, especially Europe, this was different. In Europe, even local calls are generally metered, so there was a strong incentive to keep the duration of the calls as short as possible. Point software employs standard compression (ZIP, ARJ, etc.) and so keeps the calls down to a few minutes a day at most. In contrast to North America, pointing saw rapid and fairly widespread uptake in Europe.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Many regions distribute a pointlist in parallel with the nodelist. The pointlist segments are maintained by Net- and Region Pointlist Keepers and the Zone Point List Keeper assembles them into the Zone pointlist. At the peak of FidoNet there were over 120,000 points listed in the Zone 2 pointlist. Listing points is on a voluntary basis and not every point is listed, so how many points there really were is anybody's guess. As of June 2006, there are still some 50,000 listed points. Most of them are in Russia and Ukraine.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "FidoNet contained several technical specifications for compatibility between systems. The most basic of all is FTS-0001, with which all FidoNet systems are required to comply as a minimum requirement. FTS-0001 defined:",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Other specifications that were commonly used provided for echomail, different transfer protocols and handshake methods (e.g.: Yoohoo/Yoohoo2u2, EMSI), file compression, nodelist format, transfer over reliable connections such as the Internet (Binkp), and other aspects.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Since computer bulletin boards historically used the same telephone lines for transferring mail as were used for dial-in human users of the BBS, FidoNet policy dictates that at least one designated line of each FidoNet node must be available for accepting mail from other FidoNet nodes during a particular hour of each day.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Zone Mail Hour, as it was named, varies depending on the geographic location of the node, and was designated to occur during the early morning. The exact hour varies depending on the time zone, and any node with only one telephone line is required to reject human callers. In practice, particularly in later times, most FidoNet systems tend to accept mail at any time of day when the phone line is not busy, usually during night.",
"title": "Technical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Most FidoNet deployments were designed in a modular fashion. A typical deployment would involve several applications that would communicate through shared files and directories, and switch between each other through carefully designed scripts or batch files. However, monolithic software that encompassed all required functions in one package is available, such as D'Bridge. Such software eliminated the need for custom batch files and is tightly integrated in operation. The preference for deployment was that of the operator and there were both pros and cons of running in either fashion.",
"title": "FidoNet deployments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Arguably the most important piece of software on a DOS-based Fido system was the FOSSIL driver, which was a small device driver which provided a standard way for the Fido software to talk to the modem. This driver needed to be loaded before any Fido software would work. An efficient FOSSIL driver meant faster, more reliable connections.",
"title": "FidoNet deployments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Mailer software was responsible for transferring files and messages between systems, as well as passing control to other applications, such as the BBS software, at appropriate times. The mailer would initially answer the phone and, if necessary, deal with incoming mail via FidoNet transfer protocols. If the mailer answered the phone and a human caller was detected rather than other mailer software, the mailer would exit, and pass control to the BBS software, which would then initialise for interaction with the user. When outgoing mail was waiting on the local system, the mailer software would attempt to send it from time to time by dialing and connecting to other systems who would accept and route the mail further. Due to the costs of toll calls which often varied between peak and off-peak times, mailer software would usually allow its operator to configure the optimal times in which to attempt to send mail to other systems.",
"title": "FidoNet deployments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "BBS software was used to interact with human callers to the system. BBS software would allow dial-in users to use the system's message bases and write mail to others, locally or on other BBSes. Mail directed to other BBSes would later be routed and sent by the mailer, usually after the user had finished using the system. Many BBSes also allowed users to exchange files, play games, and interact with other users in a variety of ways (i.e.: node to node chat).",
"title": "FidoNet deployments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "A scanner/tosser application, such as FastEcho, FMail, TosScan and Squish, would normally be invoked when a BBS user had entered a new FidoNet message that needed to be sent, or when a mailer had received new mail to be imported into the local messages bases. This application would be responsible for handling the packaging of incoming and outgoing mail, moving it between the local system's message bases and the mailer's inbound and outbound directories. The scanner/tosser application would generally be responsible for basic routing information, determining which systems to forward mail to.",
"title": "FidoNet deployments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "In later times, message readers or editors that were independent of BBS software were also developed. Often the System Operator of a particular BBS would use a devoted message reader, rather than the BBS software itself, to read and write FidoNet and related messages. One of the most popular editors in 2008 was GoldED+. In some cases, FidoNet nodes, or more often FidoNet points, had no public bulletin board attached and existed only for the transfer of mail for the benefit of the node's operator. Most nodes in 2009 had no BBS access, but only points, if anything.",
"title": "FidoNet deployments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "The original Fido BBS software, and some other FidoNet-supporting software from the 1980s, is no longer functional on modern systems. This is for several reasons, including problems related to the Y2K bug. In some cases, the original authors have left the BBS or shareware community, and the software, much of which was closed source, has been rendered abandonware.",
"title": "FidoNet deployments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Several DOS-based legacy FidoNet Mailers such as FrontDoor, Intermail, MainDoor and D'Bridge from the early 1990s can still be run today under Windows without a modem, by using the freeware NetFoss Telnet FOSSIL driver, and by using a Virtual Modem such as NetSerial. This allows the mailer to dial an IP address or hostname via Telnet, rather than dialing a real POTS phone number. There are similar solutions for Linux such as MODEMU (modem emulator) which has limited success when combined with DOSEMU (DOS emulator). Mail Tossers such as FastEcho and FMail are still used today under both Windows and Linux/DOSEMU.",
"title": "FidoNet deployments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "There are several modern Windows based FidoNet Mailers available today with source code, including Argus, Radius, and Taurus. MainDoor is another Windows based Fidonet mailer, which also can be run using either a modem or directly over TCP/IP. Two popular free and open source software FidoNet mailers for Unix-like systems are the binkd (cross-platform, IP-only, uses the binkp protocol) and qico (supports modem communication as well as the IP protocol of ifcico and binkp).",
"title": "FidoNet deployments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "On the hardware side, Fido systems were usually well-equipped machines, for their day, with quick CPUs, high-speed modems and 16550 UARTs, which were at the time an upgrade. As a Fidonet system was usually a BBS, it needed to quickly process any new mail events before returning to its 'waiting for call' state. In addition, the BBS itself usually necessitated lots of storage space. Finally, a FidoNet system usually had at least one dedicated phone line. Consequently, operating a Fidonet system often required significant financial investment, a cost usually met by the owner of the system.",
"title": "FidoNet deployments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "While the use of FidoNet has dropped dramatically compared with its use up to the mid-1990s, it is still used in many countries and especially Russia and former republics of the USSR. Some BBSes, including those that are now available for users with Internet connections via telnet, also retain their FidoNet netmail and echomail feeds.",
"title": "FidoNet availability"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Some of FidoNet's echomail conferences are available via gateways with the Usenet news hierarchy using software like UFGate. There are also mail gates for exchanging messages between Internet and FidoNet. Widespread net abuse and e-mail spam on the Internet side has caused some gateways (such as the former 1:1/31 IEEE fidonet.org gateway) to become unusable or cease operation entirely.",
"title": "FidoNet availability"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "FidoNews is the newsletter of the FidoNet community. Affectionately nicknamed The Snooze, it is published weekly. It was first published in 1984. Throughout its history, it has been published by various people and entities, including the short-lived International FidoNet Association.",
"title": "FidoNews"
}
] |
FidoNet is a worldwide computer network that is used for communication between bulletin board systems (BBSes). It uses a store-and-forward system to exchange private (email) and public (forum) messages between the BBSes in the network, as well as other files and protocols in some cases. The FidoNet system was based on several small interacting programs, only one of which needed to be ported to support other BBS software. FidoNet was one of the few networks that was supported by almost all BBS software, as well as a number of non-BBS online services. This modular construction also allowed FidoNet to easily upgrade to new data compression systems, which was important in an era using modem-based communications over telephone links with high long-distance calling charges. The rapid improvement in modem speeds during the early 1990s, combined with the rapid decrease in price of computer systems and storage, made BBSes increasingly popular. By the mid-1990s there were almost 40,000 FidoNet systems in operation, and it was possible to communicate with millions of users around the world. Only UUCPNET came close in terms of breadth or numbers; FidoNet's user base far surpassed other networks like BITNET. The broad availability of low-cost Internet connections starting in the mid-1990s lessened the need for FidoNet's store-and-forward system, as any system in the world could be reached for equal cost. Direct dialing into local BBS systems rapidly declined. Although FidoNet has shrunk considerably since the late 1990s, it has remained in use even today despite internet connectivity becoming more widespread.
|
2001-11-02T15:10:50Z
|
2023-12-10T17:41:37Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet
|
11,444 |
Falsification
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Falsification may refer to:
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"text": "Falsification may refer to:",
"title": ""
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Falsification may refer to: The act of disproving a proposition, hypothesis, or theory: see Falsifiability
Mathematical proof
Falsified evidence
Falsification of history, distortion of the historical record also known as Historical revisionism
Forgery, the act of producing something that lacks authenticity with the intent to commit fraud or deception
Self-falsification, e.g., the Liar's paradox
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2021-12-28T13:10:11Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsification
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Flag of the United States
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The national flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag or the U.S. flag, consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton, referred to as the union and bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows, where rows of six stars (top and bottom) alternate with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 U.S. states, and the 13 stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that declared independence from Great Britain, which they obtained in their victory in the American Revolutionary War.
During the Revolutionary War era, the "Rebellious Stripes" were considered as the most important element of United States flag designs, and were always mentioned before the stars. The "Stripes and Stars" was a popular phrase into the 19th century. Credit for the term "Stars and Stripes" has been given to the Marquis de Lafayette, a French soldier who volunteered his aid to the Continental Army, led by George Washington, in the Revolutionary War against Britain.
Nicknames for the flag include the Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, and The Star-Spangled Banner.
The current design of the U.S. flag is its 27th; the design of the flag has been modified officially 26 times since 1777. The 48-star flag was in effect for 47 years until the 49-star version became official on July 4, 1959. The 50-star flag was ordered by then president Eisenhower on August 21, 1959, and was adopted in July 1960. It is the longest-used version of the U.S. flag and has been in use for over 63 years.
The first flag resembling the modern stars and stripes was an unofficial flag sometimes called the Grand Union Flag, or "the Continental Colors". It consisted of 13 red-and-white stripes, with the Union Jack in the upper left-hand-corner. It first appeared on December 3, 1775, when Continental Navy Lieutenant John Paul Jones flew it aboard Captain Esek Hopkin's flagship Alfred in the Delaware River. It remained the national flag until June 14, 1777. At the time of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, there were no flags with any stars on them; the Second Continental Congress did not adopt flags with "stars, white in a blue field" for another year. The "Grand Union Flag" has historically been referred to as the first national flag of the United States.
The Continental Navy raised the Colors as the ensign of the fledgling nation in the American War for Independence – likely by the expedient of transforming their previous British red ensign by adding white stripes. The name "Grand Union" was first applied to the Continental Colors by George Henry Preble in his 1872 book known as History of the American Flag.
The flag very closely resembles the flag of the British East India Company in that era. Sir Charles Fawcett argued in 1937 that the company flag inspired the design of the U.S. flag. Both flags could easily have been constructed by adding white stripes to a British Red Ensign, one of the three maritime flags used throughout the British Empire at the time. However, the East India Company flag could have from nine to 13 stripes and was not allowed to be flown outside the Indian Ocean. Benjamin Franklin once gave a speech endorsing the adoption of the company's flag by the United States as their national flag. He said to George Washington, "While the field of your flag must be new in the details of its design, it need not be entirely new in its elements. There is already in use a flag, I refer to the flag of the East India Company." This was a way of symbolizing American loyalty to the Crown as well as the United States' aspirations to be self-governing, as was the East India Company. Some colonists also felt that the company could be a powerful ally in the American War of Independence, as they shared similar aims and grievances against the British government's tax policies. Colonists, therefore, flew the company's flag to endorse the company.
The theory that the Grand Union Flag was a direct descendant of the flag of the East India Company has been criticized as lacking written evidence; on the other hand, the resemblance is obvious, and some of the Founding Fathers of the United States were aware of the East India Company's activities and of their free administration of India under Company rule.
On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress passed the Flag Resolution which stated: "Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." Flag Day is now observed on June 14 of each year. While scholars still argue about this, tradition holds that the new flag was first hoisted in June 1777 by the Continental Army at the Middlebrook encampment.
Both the stripes (barry) and the stars (mullets) have precedents in classical heraldry. Mullets were comparatively rare in early modern heraldry. However, an example of mullets representing territorial divisions predating the U.S. flag is the Valais 1618 coat of arms, where seven mullets stood for seven districts.
Another widely repeated theory is that the design was inspired by the coat of arms of George Washington's family, which includes three red stars over two horizontal red bars on a white field. Despite the similar visual elements, there is "little evidence" or "no evidence whatsoever" to support the claimed connection with the flag design. The Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington, published by the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon, calls it an "enduring myth" backed by "no discernible evidence." The story seems to have originated with the 1876 play Washington: A Drama in Five Acts, by the English poet Martin Farquhar Tupper, and was further popularized through repetition in the children's magazine St. Nicholas.
The first official U.S. flag flown during battle was on August 3, 1777, at Fort Schuyler (Fort Stanwix) during the Siege of Fort Stanwix. Massachusetts reinforcements brought news of the adoption by Congress of the official flag to Fort Schuyler. Soldiers cut up their shirts to make the white stripes; scarlet material to form the red was secured from red flannel petticoats of officers' wives, while material for the blue union was secured from Capt. Abraham Swartwout's blue cloth coat. A voucher is extant that Congress paid Capt. Swartwout of Dutchess County for his coat for the flag.
The 1777 resolution was probably meant to define a naval ensign. In the late 18th century, the notion of a national flag did not yet exist or was only nascent. The flag resolution appears between other resolutions from the Marine Committee. On May 10, 1779, Secretary of the Board of War Richard Peters expressed concern that "it is not yet settled what is the Standard of the United States." However, the term "Standard" referred to a national standard for the Army of the United States. Each regiment was to carry the national standard in addition to its regimental standard. The national standard was not a reference to the national or naval flag.
The Flag Resolution did not specify any particular arrangement, number of points, nor orientation for the stars and the arrangement or whether the flag had to have seven red stripes and six white ones or vice versa. The appearance was up to the maker of the flag. Some flag makers arranged the stars into one big star, in a circle or in rows and some replaced a state's star with its initial. One arrangement features 13 five-pointed stars arranged in a circle, with the stars arranged pointing outwards from the circle (as opposed to up), the Betsy Ross flag. Experts have dated the earliest known example of this flag to be 1792 in a painting by John Trumbull.
Despite the 1777 resolution, the early years of American independence featured many different flags. Most were individually crafted rather than mass-produced. While there are many examples of 13-star arrangements, some of those flags included blue stripes as well as red and white. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, in an October 3, 1778, letter to Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, described the American flag as consisting of "13 stripes, alternately red, white, and blue, a small square in the upper angle, next to the flagstaff, is a blue field, with 13 white stars, denoting a new Constellation." John Paul Jones used a variety of 13-star flags on his U.S. Navy ships including the well-documented 1779 flags of the Serapis and the Alliance. The Serapis flag had three rows of eight-pointed stars with red, white, and blue stripes. However, the flag for the Alliance had five rows of eight-pointed stars with 13 red and white stripes, and the white stripes were on the outer edges. Both flags were documented by the Dutch government in October 1779, making them two of the earliest known flags of 13 stars.
Francis Hopkinson of New Jersey, a naval flag designer and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, designed a flag in 1777 while he was the chairman of the Continental Navy Board's Middle Department, sometime between his appointment to that position in November 1776 and the time that the flag resolution was adopted in June 1777. The Navy Board was under the Continental Marine Committee. Not only did Hopkinson claim that he designed the U.S. flag, but he also claimed that he designed a flag for the U.S. Navy. Hopkinson was the only person to have made such a claim during his own life when he sent a letter and several bills to Congress for his work. These claims are documented in the Journals of the Continental Congress and George Hasting's biography of Hopkinson. Hopkinson initially wrote a letter to Congress, via the Continental Board of Admiralty, on May 25, 1780. In this letter, he asked for a "Quarter Cask of the Public Wine" as payment for designing the U.S. flag, the seal for the Admiralty Board, the seal for the Treasury Board, Continental currency, the Great Seal of the United States, and other devices. However, in three subsequent bills to Congress, Hopkinson asked to be paid in cash, but he did not list his U.S. flag design. Instead, he asked to be paid for designing the "great Naval Flag of the United States" in the first bill; the "Naval Flag of the United States" in the second bill; and "the Naval Flag of the States" in the third, along with the other items. The flag references were generic terms for the naval ensign that Hopkinson had designed: a flag of seven red stripes and six white ones. The predominance of red stripes made the naval flag more visible against the sky on a ship at sea. By contrast, Hopkinson's flag for the United States had seven white stripes and six red ones – in reality, six red stripes laid on a white background. Hopkinson's sketches have not been found, but we can make these conclusions because Hopkinson incorporated different stripe arrangements in the Admiralty (naval) Seal that he designed in the Spring of 1780 and the Great Seal of the United States that he proposed at the same time. His Admiralty Seal had seven red stripes; whereas his second U.S. Seal proposal had seven white ones. Remnants of Hopkinson's U.S. flag of seven white stripes can be found in the Great Seal of the United States and the President's seal. When Hopkinson was chairman of the Navy Board, his position was like that of today's Secretary of the Navy. The payment was not made, most likely, because other people had contributed to designing the Great Seal of the United States, and because it was determined he already received a salary as a member of Congress. This contradicts the legend of the Betsy Ross flag, which suggests that she sewed the first Stars and Stripes flag at the request of the government in the Spring of 1776.
On 10 May 1779, a letter from the War Board to George Washington stated that there was still no design established for a national standard, on which to base regimental standards, but also referenced flag requirements given to the board by General von Steuben. On 3 September, Richard Peters submitted to Washington "Drafts of a Standard" and asked for his "Ideas of the Plan of the Standard," adding that the War Board preferred a design they viewed as "a variant for the Marine Flag." Washington agreed that he preferred "the standard, with the Union and Emblems in the center." The drafts are lost to history but are likely to be similar to the first Jack of the United States.
The origin of the stars and stripes design has been muddled by a story disseminated by the descendants of Betsy Ross. The apocryphal story credits Betsy Ross for sewing one of the first flags from a pencil sketch handed to her by George Washington. No such evidence exists either in George Washington's diaries or the Continental Congress's records. Indeed, nearly a century passed before Ross's grandson, William Canby, first publicly suggested the story in 1870. By her family's own admission, Ross ran an upholstery business, and she had never made a flag as of the supposed visit in June 1776. Furthermore, her grandson admitted that his own search through the Journals of Congress and other official records failed to find corroborating evidence for his grandmother's story.
George Henry Preble states in his 1882 text that no combined stars and stripes flag was in common use prior to June 1777, and that no one knows who designed the 1777 flag. Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich argues that there was no "first flag" worth arguing over. Researchers accept that the United States flag evolved, and did not have one design. Marla Miller writes, "The flag, like the Revolution it represents, was the work of many hands."
The family of Rebecca Young claimed that she sewed the first flag. Young's daughter was Mary Pickersgill, who made the Star-Spangled Banner Flag. She was assisted by Grace Wisher, a 13-year-old African American girl.
In 1795, the number of stars and stripes was increased from 13 to 15 (to reflect the entry of Vermont and Kentucky as states of the Union). For a time the flag was not changed when subsequent states were admitted, probably because it was thought that this would cause too much clutter. It was the 15-star, 15-stripe flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write "Defence of Fort M'Henry", later known as "The Star-Spangled Banner", which is now the American national anthem. The flag is currently on display in the exhibition "The Star-Spangled Banner: The Flag That Inspired the National Anthem" at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History in a two-story display chamber that protects the flag while it is on view.
On April 4, 1818, a plan was passed by Congress at the suggestion of U.S. Naval Captain Samuel C. Reid in which the flag was changed to have 20 stars, with a new star to be added when each new state was admitted, but the number of stripes would be reduced to 13 so as to honor the original colonies. The act specified that new flag designs should become official on the first July 4 (Independence Day) following the admission of one or more new states.
In 1912, the 48-star flag was adopted. This was the first time that a flag act specified an official arrangement of the stars in the canton, namely six rows of eight stars each, where each star would point upward. The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy, however, has already been using standardized designs. Throughout the 19th century, different star patterns, both rectangular and circular, had been abundant in civilian use.
In 1960, the current 50-star flag was adopted, incorporating the most recent change, from 49 stars to 50, when the present design was chosen, after Hawaii gained statehood in August 1959. Before that, the admission of Alaska in January 1959 had prompted the debut of a short-lived 49-star flag.
When Alaska and Hawaii were being considered for statehood in the 1950s, more than 1,500 designs were submitted to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Although some were 49-star versions, the vast majority were 50-star proposals. At least three of these designs were identical to the present design of the 50-star flag. At the time, credit was given by the executive department to the United States Army Institute of Heraldry for the design. The 49- and 50-star flags were each flown for the first time at Fort McHenry on Independence Day, in 1959 and 1960 respectively.
On July 4, 2007, the 50-star flag became the version of the flag in the longest use, surpassing the 48-star flag that was used from 1912 to 1959.
The U.S. flag was brought to the city of Canton (Guǎngzhōu) in China in 1784 by the merchant ship Empress of China, which carried a cargo of ginseng. There it gained the designation "Flower Flag" (Chinese: 花旗; pinyin: huāqí; Cantonese Yale: fākeì). According to a pseudonymous account first published in the Boston Courier and later retold by author and U.S. naval officer George H. Preble:
When the thirteen stripes and stars first appeared at Canton, much curiosity was excited among the people. News was circulated that a strange ship had arrived from the further end of the world, bearing a flag "as beautiful as a flower". Every body went to see the kwa kee chuen [花旗船; Fākeìsyùhn], or "flower flagship". This name at once established itself in the language, and America is now called the kwa kee kwoh [花旗國; Fākeìgwok], the "flower flag country"—and an American, kwa kee kwoh yin [花旗國人; Fākeìgwokyàhn]—"flower flag countryman"—a more complimentary designation than that of "red headed barbarian"—the name first bestowed upon the Dutch.
In the above quote, the Chinese words are written phonetically based on spoken Cantonese. The names given were common usage in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Chinese now refer to the United States as Měiguó from Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 美国; traditional Chinese: 美國). Měi is short for Měilìjiān (simplified Chinese: 美利坚; traditional Chinese: 美利堅, phono-semantic matching of "American") and "guó" means "country", so this name is unrelated to the flag. However, the "flower flag" terminology persists in some places today: for example, American ginseng is called flower flag ginseng (simplified Chinese: 花旗参; traditional Chinese: 花旗參) in Chinese, and Citibank, which opened a branch in China in 1902, is known as Flower Flag Bank (花旗银行).
Similarly, Vietnamese also uses the borrowed term from Chinese with Sino-Vietnamese reading for the United States, as Hoa Kỳ from 花旗 ("Flower Flag"). Even though the United States is also called nước Mỹ (or simplier Mỹ) colloquially in Vietnamese before the name Měiguó was popular amongst Chinese, Hoa Kỳ is always recognized as the formal name for the United States with the Vietnamese state officially designates it as Hợp chúng quốc Hoa Kỳ (chữ Hán: 合眾國 花旗, lit. 'United states of the Flower Flag'). By that, in Vietnam, the U.S. is also nicknamed xứ Cờ Hoa ("land of Flower Flag") based on the Hoa Kỳ designation.
Additionally, the seal of Shanghai Municipal Council in Shanghai International Settlement from 1869 included the U.S. flag as part of the top left-hand shield near the flag of the U.K., as the U.S. participated in the creation of this enclave in the Chinese city of Shanghai. It is also included in the badge of the Gulangyu Municipal Police in the International Settlement of Gulangyu, Amoy.
President Richard Nixon presented a U.S. flag and Moon rocks to Mao Zedong during his visit to China in 1972. They are now on display at the National Museum of China.
The U.S. flag took its first trip around the world in 1787–1790 on board the Columbia. William Driver, who coined the phrase "Old Glory", took the U.S. flag around the world in 1831–32. The flag attracted the notice of the Japanese when an oversized version was carried to Yokohama by the steamer Great Republic as part of a round-the-world journey in 1871.
Prior to the Civil War, the American flag was rarely seen outside of military forts, government buildings and ships. This changed following the Battle of Fort Sumter in 1861. The flag flying over the fort was allowed to leave with the Union troops as they surrendered. It was taken across Northern cities, which spurred a wave of "Flagmania". The Stars and Stripes, which had had no real place in the public conscious, suddenly became a part of the national identity. The flag became a symbol of the Union, and the sale of flags exploded at this time. Historian Adam Goodheart wrote:
For the first time American flags were mass-produced rather than individually stitched and even so, manufacturers could not keep up with demand. As the long winter of 1861 turned into spring, that old flag meant something new. The abstraction of the Union cause was transfigured into a physical thing: strips of cloth that millions of people would fight for, and many thousands die for.
In the Civil War, the flag was allowed to be carried into battle, reversing the 1847 regulation which prohibited this. (During the American War of Independence and War of 1812 the army was not officially sanctioned to carry the United States flag into battle. It was not until 1834 that the artillery was allowed to carry the American flag; the army would be granted to do the same in 1841. However, in 1847, in the middle of the war with Mexico, the flag was limited to camp use and not allowed to be brought into battle.) Some wanted to remove the stars of the states which had seceded but Abraham Lincoln was opposed, believing it would give legitimacy to the Confederate states.
In the following table depicting the 28 various designs of the United States flag, the star patterns for the flags are merely the usual patterns, often associated with the United States Navy. Canton designs, prior to the proclamation of the 48-star flag, had no official arrangement of the stars. Furthermore, the exact colors of the flag were not standardized until 1934.
The flag of the United States is the nation's most widely recognized symbol. Within the United States, flags are frequently displayed not only on public buildings but on private residences. The flag is a common motif on decals for car windows, and on clothing ornamentation such as badges and lapel pins. Owing to the United States's emergence as a superpower in the 20th century, the flag is among the most widely recognized symbols in the world, and is used to represent the United States.
The flag has become a powerful symbol of Americanism, and is flown on many occasions, with giant outdoor flags used by retail outlets to draw customers. Reverence for the flag has at times reached religion-like fervor: in 1919 William Norman Guthrie's book The Religion of Old Glory discussed "the cult of the flag" and formally proposed vexillolatry.
Despite a number of attempts to ban the practice, desecration of the flag remains protected as free speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Scholars have noted the irony that "[t]he flag is so revered because it represents the land of the free, and that freedom includes the ability to use or abuse that flag in protest". Comparing practice worldwide, Testi noted in 2010 that the United States was not unique in adoring its banner, for the flags of Scandinavian countries are also "beloved, domesticated, commercialized and sacralized objects".
When the flag was officially adopted in 1777, the colors of red, white and blue were not given an official meaning. However, when Charles Thomson, Secretary of the Continental Congress, presented a proposed U.S. seal in 1782, he explained its center section in this way:
The colours of the pales are those used in the flag of the United States of America; White signifies purity and innocence, Red, hardiness & valor, and Blue, the colour of the Chief signifies vigilance, perseverance & justice.
These meanings have broadly been accepted as official, with some variation, but there are other extant interpretations as well:
The colors of our flag signify the qualities of the human spirit we Americans cherish. Red for courage and readiness to sacrifice; white for pure intentions and high ideals; and blue for vigilance and justice."
We take the stars from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity, representing our liberty.
The basic design of the current flag is specified by 4 U.S.C. § 1 (1947): "The flag of the United States shall be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white; and the union of the flag shall be forty-eight stars, white in a blue field." 4 U.S.C. § 2 outlines the addition of new stars to represent new states, with no distinction made for the shape, size, or arrangement of the stars. Executive Order 10834 (1959) specifies a 50-star design for use after Hawaii was added as a state, and Federal Specification DDD-F-416F (2005) provides additional details about the production of physical flags for use by federal agencies.
Strictly speaking, the executive order establishing these specifications governs only flags made for or by the federal government. In practice, most U.S. national flags available for sale to the public follow the federal star arrangement, but have a different width-to-height ratio; common sizes are 2 × 3 ft. or 4 × 6 ft. (flag ratio 1.5), 2.5 × 4 ft. or 5 × 8 ft. (1.6), or 3 × 5 ft. or 6 × 10 ft. (1.667). Even flags flown over the U.S. Capitol for sale to the public through Representatives or Senators are provided in these sizes. Flags that are made to the prescribed 1.9 ratio are often referred to as "G-spec" (for "government specification") flags.
Federal Specification DDD-F-416F specifies the exact red, white, and blue colors to be used for physical flags procured by federal agencies with reference to the Standard Color Reference of America, 10th edition, a set of dyed silk fabric samples produced by The Color Association of the United States. The colors are "White", No. 70001; "Old Glory Red", No. 70180; and "Old Glory Blue", No. 70075.
CIE coordinates for the colors of the 9th edition of the Standard Color Reference were carefully measured and cross-checked by color scientists from the National Bureau of Standards in 1946, with the resulting coordinates adopted as a formal specification. These colors form the standard for cloth, and there is no perfect way to convert them to RGB for display on screen or CMYK for printing. The "relative" coordinates in the following table were found by scaling the luminous reflectance relative to the flag's white.
As with the design, the official colors are only officially required for flags produced for the U.S. federal government, and other colors are often used for mass-market flags, printed reproductions, and other products intended to evoke flag colors. The practice of using more saturated colors than the official cloth is not new. As Taylor, Knoche, and Granville wrote in 1950: "The color of the official wool bunting [of the blue field] is a very dark blue, but printed reproductions of the flag, as well as merchandise supposed to match the flag, present the color as a deep blue much brighter than the official wool."
Sometimes, Pantone Matching System (PMS) alternatives to the dyed fabric colors are recommended by US government agencies for use in websites or printed documents. One set was given on the website of the U.S. embassy in London as early as 1996; the website of the U.S. embassy in Stockholm claimed in 2001 that those had been suggested by Pantone, and that the U.S. Government Printing Office preferred a different set. A third red was suggested by a California Military Department document in 2002. In 2001, the Texas legislature specified that the colors of the Texas flag should be "(1) the same colors used in the United States flag; and (2) defined as numbers 193 (red) and 281 (dark blue) of the Pantone Matching System." The current internal style guide of the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs specifies PMS 282C blue and PMS 193C red, and gives RGB and CMYK conversions generated by Adobe InDesign.
Traditionally, the flag may be decorated with golden fringe surrounding the perimeter of the flag as long as it does not deface the flag proper. Ceremonial displays of the flag, such as those in parades or on indoor posts, often use fringe to enhance the flag's appearance. Traditionally, the Army and Air Force use a fringed flag for parades, color guard and indoor display, while the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard use a fringeless flag for all occasions.
The first recorded use of fringe on a flag dates from 1835, and the Army used it officially in 1895. No specific law governs the legality of fringe. Still, a 1925 opinion of the attorney general addresses the use of fringe (and the number of stars) "... is at the discretion of the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy ..." as quoted from a footnote in previous volumes of Title 4 of the United States Code law books. This opinion is a source for claims that a flag with fringe is a military ensign rather than a civilian. However, according to the Army Institute of Heraldry, which has official custody of the flag designs and makes any change ordered, there are no implications of symbolism in using fringe.
Individuals associated with the sovereign citizen movement and tax protester conspiracy arguments have claimed, based on the military usage, that the presence of a fringed flag in a civilian courtroom changes the nature or jurisdiction of the court. Federal and state courts have rejected this contention.
The flag is customarily flown year-round at most public buildings, and it is not unusual to find private houses flying full-size (3 by 5 feet (0.91 by 1.52 m)) flags. Some private use is year-round, but becomes widespread on civic holidays like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Presidents' Day, Flag Day, and on Independence Day. On Memorial Day, it is common to place small flags by war memorials and next to the graves of U.S. war veterans. Also, on Memorial Day, it is common to fly the flag at half staff until noon to remember those who lost their lives fighting in U.S. wars.
The United States Flag Code outlines certain guidelines for the flag's use, display, and disposal. For example, the flag should never be dipped to any person or thing, unless it is the ensign responding to a salute from a ship of a foreign nation. This tradition may come from the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, where countries were asked to dip their flag to King Edward VII: the American flag bearer did not. Team captain Martin Sheridan is famously quoted as saying, "this flag dips to no earthly king", though the true provenance of this quotation is unclear.
The flag should never be allowed to touch the ground and should be illuminated if flown at night. The flag should be repaired or replaced if the edges become tattered through wear. When a flag is so tattered that it can no longer serve as a symbol of the United States, it should be destroyed in a dignified manner, preferably by burning. The American Legion and other organizations regularly conduct flag retirement ceremonies, often on Flag Day, June 14. (The Boy Scouts of America recommends that modern nylon or polyester flags be recycled instead of burned due to hazardous gases produced when such materials are burned.)
The Flag Code prohibits using the flag "for any advertising purpose" and also states that the flag "should not be embroidered, printed, or otherwise impressed on such articles as cushions, handkerchiefs, napkins, boxes, or anything intended to be discarded after temporary use". Both of these codes are generally ignored, almost always without comment.
Section 8, entitled "Respect For Flag", states in part: "The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery", and "No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform". Section 3 of the Flag Code defines "the flag" as anything "by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag of the United States of America". An additional provision that is frequently violated at sporting events is part (c) "The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free."
Although the Flag Code is U.S. federal law, there is no penalty for a private citizen or group failing to comply with the Flag Code, and it is not widely enforced—punitive enforcement would conflict with the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Passage of the proposed Flag Desecration Amendment would overrule the legal precedent that has been established.
When the flag is affixed to the right side of a vehicle of any kind (e.g., cars, boats, planes, any physical object that moves), it should be oriented so that the canton is towards the front of the vehicle, as if the flag were streaming backward from its hoist as the vehicle moves forward. Therefore, U.S. flag decals on the right sides of vehicles may appear to be reversed, with the union to the observer's right instead of left as more commonly seen.
The flag has been displayed on every U.S. spacecraft designed for crewed flight starting from John Glenn's Friendship 7 flight in 1962, including Mercury, Gemini, Apollo Command/Service Module, Apollo Lunar Module, and the Space Shuttle. The flag also appeared on the S-IC first stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle used for Apollo. Nevertheless, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo were launched and landed vertically and could not horizontal atmospheric flight as the Space Shuttle did on its landing approach, so the streaming convention was not followed. These flags were oriented with the stripes running horizontally, perpendicular to the direction of flight.
On some U.S. military uniforms, flag patches are worn on the right shoulder, following the vehicle convention with the union toward the front. This rule dates back to the Army's early history when mounted cavalry and infantry units would designate a standard-bearer who carried the Colors into battle. As he charged, his forward motion caused the flag to stream back. Since the Stars and Stripes are mounted with the canton closest to the pole, that section stayed to the right, while the stripes flew to the left. Several U.S. military uniforms, such as flight suits worn by members of the United States Air Force and Navy, have the flag patch on the left shoulder.
Other organizations that wear flag patches on their uniforms can have the flag facing in either direction. The congressional charter of the Boy Scouts of America stipulates that Boy Scout uniforms should not imitate U.S. military uniforms; consequently, the flags are displayed on the right shoulder with the stripes facing front, the reverse of the military style. Law enforcement officers often wear a small flag patch, either on a shoulder or above a shirt pocket.
Every U.S. astronaut since the crew of Gemini 4 has worn the flag on the left shoulder of his or her space suit, except for the crew of Apollo 1, whose flags were worn on the right shoulder. In this case, the canton was on the left.
The flag did not appear on U.S. postal stamp issues until the Battle of White Plains Issue was released in 1926, depicting the flag with a circle of 13 stars. The 48-star flag first appeared on the General Casimir Pulaski issue of 1931, though in a small monochrome depiction. The first U.S. postage stamp to feature the flag as the sole subject was issued July 4, 1957, Scott catalog number 1094. Since then, the flag has frequently appeared on U.S. stamps.
In 1907 Eben Appleton, New York stockbroker and grandson of Lieutenant Colonel George Armistead (the commander of Fort McHenry during the 1814 bombardment), loaned the Star-Spangled Banner Flag to the Smithsonian Institution. In 1912 he converted the loan into a gift. Appleton donated the flag with the wish that it would always be on view to the public. In 1994, the National Museum of American History determined that the Star-Spangled Banner Flag required further conservation treatment to remain on public display. In 1998 teams of museum conservators, curators, and other specialists helped move the flag from its home in the Museum's Flag Hall into a new conservation laboratory. Following the reopening of the National Museum of American History on November 21, 2008, the flag is now on display in a special exhibition, "The Star-Spangled Banner: The Flag That Inspired the National Anthem," where it rests at a 10-degree angle in dim light for conservation purposes.
U.S. flags are displayed continuously at certain locations by presidential proclamation, acts of Congress, and custom.
The flag should especially be displayed at full staff on the following days:
The flag is displayed at half-staff (half-mast in naval usage) as a sign of respect or mourning. Nationwide, this action is proclaimed by the president; statewide or territory-wide, the proclamation is made by the governor. In addition, there is no prohibition against municipal governments, private businesses, or citizens flying the flag at half-staff as a local sign of respect and mourning. However, many flag enthusiasts feel this type of practice has somewhat diminished the meaning of the original intent of lowering the flag to honor those who held high positions in federal or state offices. President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first proclamation on March 1, 1954, standardizing the dates and periods for flying the flag at half-staff from all federal buildings, grounds, and naval vessels; other congressional resolutions and presidential proclamations ensued. However, they are only guidelines to all other entities: typically followed at state and local government facilities and encouraged of private businesses and citizens.
To properly fly the flag at half-staff, one should first briefly hoist it top of the staff, then lower it to the half-staff position, halfway between the top and bottom of the staff. Similarly, when the flag is to be lowered from half-staff, it should be first briefly hoisted to the top of the staff.
Federal statutes provide that the flag should be flown at half-staff on the following dates:
The flag of the United States is sometimes burned as a cultural or political statement, in protest of the policies of the U.S. government, or for other reasons, both within the U.S. and abroad. The United States Supreme Court in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), and reaffirmed in U.S. v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990), has ruled that due to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is unconstitutional for a government (whether federal, state, or municipal) to prohibit the desecration of a flag, due to its status as "symbolic speech." However, content-neutral restrictions may still be imposed to regulate the time, place, and manner of such expression. If the flag that was burned was someone else's property (as it was in the Johnson case, since Johnson had stolen the flag from a Texas bank's flagpole), the offender could be charged with petty larceny (a flag usually sells at retail for less than US$20), or with destruction of private property, or possibly both. Desecration of a flag representing a minority group may also be charged as a hate crime in some jurisdictions.
Though not part of the official Flag Code, according to military custom, flags should be folded into a triangular shape when not in use. To properly fold the flag:
There is also no specific meaning for each fold of the flag. However, there are scripts read by non-government organizations and also by the Air Force that are used during the flag folding ceremony. These scripts range from historical timelines of the flag to religious themes.
Traditionally, the flag of the United States plays a role in military funerals, and occasionally in funerals of other civil servants (such as law enforcement officers, fire fighters, and U.S. presidents). A burial flag is draped over the deceased's casket as a pall during services. Just prior to the casket being lowered into the ground, the flag is ceremonially folded and presented to the deceased's next of kin as a token of respect.
The U.S. flag has inspired many other flags for regions, political movements, and cultural groups, resulting in a stars and stripes flag family. The other national flags belonging to this family are: Chile, Cuba, Greece, Liberia, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, Togo, and Uruguay.
If a new U.S. state were to be admitted, it would require a new design of the flag to accommodate an additional star for a 51st state. 51-star flags have been designed and used as a symbol by supporters of statehood in various jurisdictions.
According to the U.S. Army Institute of Heraldry, the United States flag never becomes obsolete. Any approved American flag may continue to be used and displayed until no longer serviceable.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The national flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag or the U.S. flag, consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton, referred to as the union and bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows, where rows of six stars (top and bottom) alternate with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 U.S. states, and the 13 stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that declared independence from Great Britain, which they obtained in their victory in the American Revolutionary War.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "During the Revolutionary War era, the \"Rebellious Stripes\" were considered as the most important element of United States flag designs, and were always mentioned before the stars. The \"Stripes and Stars\" was a popular phrase into the 19th century. Credit for the term \"Stars and Stripes\" has been given to the Marquis de Lafayette, a French soldier who volunteered his aid to the Continental Army, led by George Washington, in the Revolutionary War against Britain.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Nicknames for the flag include the Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, and The Star-Spangled Banner.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The current design of the U.S. flag is its 27th; the design of the flag has been modified officially 26 times since 1777. The 48-star flag was in effect for 47 years until the 49-star version became official on July 4, 1959. The 50-star flag was ordered by then president Eisenhower on August 21, 1959, and was adopted in July 1960. It is the longest-used version of the U.S. flag and has been in use for over 63 years.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The first flag resembling the modern stars and stripes was an unofficial flag sometimes called the Grand Union Flag, or \"the Continental Colors\". It consisted of 13 red-and-white stripes, with the Union Jack in the upper left-hand-corner. It first appeared on December 3, 1775, when Continental Navy Lieutenant John Paul Jones flew it aboard Captain Esek Hopkin's flagship Alfred in the Delaware River. It remained the national flag until June 14, 1777. At the time of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, there were no flags with any stars on them; the Second Continental Congress did not adopt flags with \"stars, white in a blue field\" for another year. The \"Grand Union Flag\" has historically been referred to as the first national flag of the United States.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The Continental Navy raised the Colors as the ensign of the fledgling nation in the American War for Independence – likely by the expedient of transforming their previous British red ensign by adding white stripes. The name \"Grand Union\" was first applied to the Continental Colors by George Henry Preble in his 1872 book known as History of the American Flag.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The flag very closely resembles the flag of the British East India Company in that era. Sir Charles Fawcett argued in 1937 that the company flag inspired the design of the U.S. flag. Both flags could easily have been constructed by adding white stripes to a British Red Ensign, one of the three maritime flags used throughout the British Empire at the time. However, the East India Company flag could have from nine to 13 stripes and was not allowed to be flown outside the Indian Ocean. Benjamin Franklin once gave a speech endorsing the adoption of the company's flag by the United States as their national flag. He said to George Washington, \"While the field of your flag must be new in the details of its design, it need not be entirely new in its elements. There is already in use a flag, I refer to the flag of the East India Company.\" This was a way of symbolizing American loyalty to the Crown as well as the United States' aspirations to be self-governing, as was the East India Company. Some colonists also felt that the company could be a powerful ally in the American War of Independence, as they shared similar aims and grievances against the British government's tax policies. Colonists, therefore, flew the company's flag to endorse the company.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The theory that the Grand Union Flag was a direct descendant of the flag of the East India Company has been criticized as lacking written evidence; on the other hand, the resemblance is obvious, and some of the Founding Fathers of the United States were aware of the East India Company's activities and of their free administration of India under Company rule.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress passed the Flag Resolution which stated: \"Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.\" Flag Day is now observed on June 14 of each year. While scholars still argue about this, tradition holds that the new flag was first hoisted in June 1777 by the Continental Army at the Middlebrook encampment.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Both the stripes (barry) and the stars (mullets) have precedents in classical heraldry. Mullets were comparatively rare in early modern heraldry. However, an example of mullets representing territorial divisions predating the U.S. flag is the Valais 1618 coat of arms, where seven mullets stood for seven districts.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Another widely repeated theory is that the design was inspired by the coat of arms of George Washington's family, which includes three red stars over two horizontal red bars on a white field. Despite the similar visual elements, there is \"little evidence\" or \"no evidence whatsoever\" to support the claimed connection with the flag design. The Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington, published by the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon, calls it an \"enduring myth\" backed by \"no discernible evidence.\" The story seems to have originated with the 1876 play Washington: A Drama in Five Acts, by the English poet Martin Farquhar Tupper, and was further popularized through repetition in the children's magazine St. Nicholas.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The first official U.S. flag flown during battle was on August 3, 1777, at Fort Schuyler (Fort Stanwix) during the Siege of Fort Stanwix. Massachusetts reinforcements brought news of the adoption by Congress of the official flag to Fort Schuyler. Soldiers cut up their shirts to make the white stripes; scarlet material to form the red was secured from red flannel petticoats of officers' wives, while material for the blue union was secured from Capt. Abraham Swartwout's blue cloth coat. A voucher is extant that Congress paid Capt. Swartwout of Dutchess County for his coat for the flag.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The 1777 resolution was probably meant to define a naval ensign. In the late 18th century, the notion of a national flag did not yet exist or was only nascent. The flag resolution appears between other resolutions from the Marine Committee. On May 10, 1779, Secretary of the Board of War Richard Peters expressed concern that \"it is not yet settled what is the Standard of the United States.\" However, the term \"Standard\" referred to a national standard for the Army of the United States. Each regiment was to carry the national standard in addition to its regimental standard. The national standard was not a reference to the national or naval flag.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Flag Resolution did not specify any particular arrangement, number of points, nor orientation for the stars and the arrangement or whether the flag had to have seven red stripes and six white ones or vice versa. The appearance was up to the maker of the flag. Some flag makers arranged the stars into one big star, in a circle or in rows and some replaced a state's star with its initial. One arrangement features 13 five-pointed stars arranged in a circle, with the stars arranged pointing outwards from the circle (as opposed to up), the Betsy Ross flag. Experts have dated the earliest known example of this flag to be 1792 in a painting by John Trumbull.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Despite the 1777 resolution, the early years of American independence featured many different flags. Most were individually crafted rather than mass-produced. While there are many examples of 13-star arrangements, some of those flags included blue stripes as well as red and white. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, in an October 3, 1778, letter to Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, described the American flag as consisting of \"13 stripes, alternately red, white, and blue, a small square in the upper angle, next to the flagstaff, is a blue field, with 13 white stars, denoting a new Constellation.\" John Paul Jones used a variety of 13-star flags on his U.S. Navy ships including the well-documented 1779 flags of the Serapis and the Alliance. The Serapis flag had three rows of eight-pointed stars with red, white, and blue stripes. However, the flag for the Alliance had five rows of eight-pointed stars with 13 red and white stripes, and the white stripes were on the outer edges. Both flags were documented by the Dutch government in October 1779, making them two of the earliest known flags of 13 stars.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Francis Hopkinson of New Jersey, a naval flag designer and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, designed a flag in 1777 while he was the chairman of the Continental Navy Board's Middle Department, sometime between his appointment to that position in November 1776 and the time that the flag resolution was adopted in June 1777. The Navy Board was under the Continental Marine Committee. Not only did Hopkinson claim that he designed the U.S. flag, but he also claimed that he designed a flag for the U.S. Navy. Hopkinson was the only person to have made such a claim during his own life when he sent a letter and several bills to Congress for his work. These claims are documented in the Journals of the Continental Congress and George Hasting's biography of Hopkinson. Hopkinson initially wrote a letter to Congress, via the Continental Board of Admiralty, on May 25, 1780. In this letter, he asked for a \"Quarter Cask of the Public Wine\" as payment for designing the U.S. flag, the seal for the Admiralty Board, the seal for the Treasury Board, Continental currency, the Great Seal of the United States, and other devices. However, in three subsequent bills to Congress, Hopkinson asked to be paid in cash, but he did not list his U.S. flag design. Instead, he asked to be paid for designing the \"great Naval Flag of the United States\" in the first bill; the \"Naval Flag of the United States\" in the second bill; and \"the Naval Flag of the States\" in the third, along with the other items. The flag references were generic terms for the naval ensign that Hopkinson had designed: a flag of seven red stripes and six white ones. The predominance of red stripes made the naval flag more visible against the sky on a ship at sea. By contrast, Hopkinson's flag for the United States had seven white stripes and six red ones – in reality, six red stripes laid on a white background. Hopkinson's sketches have not been found, but we can make these conclusions because Hopkinson incorporated different stripe arrangements in the Admiralty (naval) Seal that he designed in the Spring of 1780 and the Great Seal of the United States that he proposed at the same time. His Admiralty Seal had seven red stripes; whereas his second U.S. Seal proposal had seven white ones. Remnants of Hopkinson's U.S. flag of seven white stripes can be found in the Great Seal of the United States and the President's seal. When Hopkinson was chairman of the Navy Board, his position was like that of today's Secretary of the Navy. The payment was not made, most likely, because other people had contributed to designing the Great Seal of the United States, and because it was determined he already received a salary as a member of Congress. This contradicts the legend of the Betsy Ross flag, which suggests that she sewed the first Stars and Stripes flag at the request of the government in the Spring of 1776.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "On 10 May 1779, a letter from the War Board to George Washington stated that there was still no design established for a national standard, on which to base regimental standards, but also referenced flag requirements given to the board by General von Steuben. On 3 September, Richard Peters submitted to Washington \"Drafts of a Standard\" and asked for his \"Ideas of the Plan of the Standard,\" adding that the War Board preferred a design they viewed as \"a variant for the Marine Flag.\" Washington agreed that he preferred \"the standard, with the Union and Emblems in the center.\" The drafts are lost to history but are likely to be similar to the first Jack of the United States.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The origin of the stars and stripes design has been muddled by a story disseminated by the descendants of Betsy Ross. The apocryphal story credits Betsy Ross for sewing one of the first flags from a pencil sketch handed to her by George Washington. No such evidence exists either in George Washington's diaries or the Continental Congress's records. Indeed, nearly a century passed before Ross's grandson, William Canby, first publicly suggested the story in 1870. By her family's own admission, Ross ran an upholstery business, and she had never made a flag as of the supposed visit in June 1776. Furthermore, her grandson admitted that his own search through the Journals of Congress and other official records failed to find corroborating evidence for his grandmother's story.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "George Henry Preble states in his 1882 text that no combined stars and stripes flag was in common use prior to June 1777, and that no one knows who designed the 1777 flag. Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich argues that there was no \"first flag\" worth arguing over. Researchers accept that the United States flag evolved, and did not have one design. Marla Miller writes, \"The flag, like the Revolution it represents, was the work of many hands.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The family of Rebecca Young claimed that she sewed the first flag. Young's daughter was Mary Pickersgill, who made the Star-Spangled Banner Flag. She was assisted by Grace Wisher, a 13-year-old African American girl.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In 1795, the number of stars and stripes was increased from 13 to 15 (to reflect the entry of Vermont and Kentucky as states of the Union). For a time the flag was not changed when subsequent states were admitted, probably because it was thought that this would cause too much clutter. It was the 15-star, 15-stripe flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write \"Defence of Fort M'Henry\", later known as \"The Star-Spangled Banner\", which is now the American national anthem. The flag is currently on display in the exhibition \"The Star-Spangled Banner: The Flag That Inspired the National Anthem\" at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History in a two-story display chamber that protects the flag while it is on view.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "On April 4, 1818, a plan was passed by Congress at the suggestion of U.S. Naval Captain Samuel C. Reid in which the flag was changed to have 20 stars, with a new star to be added when each new state was admitted, but the number of stripes would be reduced to 13 so as to honor the original colonies. The act specified that new flag designs should become official on the first July 4 (Independence Day) following the admission of one or more new states.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In 1912, the 48-star flag was adopted. This was the first time that a flag act specified an official arrangement of the stars in the canton, namely six rows of eight stars each, where each star would point upward. The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy, however, has already been using standardized designs. Throughout the 19th century, different star patterns, both rectangular and circular, had been abundant in civilian use.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 1960, the current 50-star flag was adopted, incorporating the most recent change, from 49 stars to 50, when the present design was chosen, after Hawaii gained statehood in August 1959. Before that, the admission of Alaska in January 1959 had prompted the debut of a short-lived 49-star flag.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "When Alaska and Hawaii were being considered for statehood in the 1950s, more than 1,500 designs were submitted to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Although some were 49-star versions, the vast majority were 50-star proposals. At least three of these designs were identical to the present design of the 50-star flag. At the time, credit was given by the executive department to the United States Army Institute of Heraldry for the design. The 49- and 50-star flags were each flown for the first time at Fort McHenry on Independence Day, in 1959 and 1960 respectively.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "On July 4, 2007, the 50-star flag became the version of the flag in the longest use, surpassing the 48-star flag that was used from 1912 to 1959.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The U.S. flag was brought to the city of Canton (Guǎngzhōu) in China in 1784 by the merchant ship Empress of China, which carried a cargo of ginseng. There it gained the designation \"Flower Flag\" (Chinese: 花旗; pinyin: huāqí; Cantonese Yale: fākeì). According to a pseudonymous account first published in the Boston Courier and later retold by author and U.S. naval officer George H. Preble:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "When the thirteen stripes and stars first appeared at Canton, much curiosity was excited among the people. News was circulated that a strange ship had arrived from the further end of the world, bearing a flag \"as beautiful as a flower\". Every body went to see the kwa kee chuen [花旗船; Fākeìsyùhn], or \"flower flagship\". This name at once established itself in the language, and America is now called the kwa kee kwoh [花旗國; Fākeìgwok], the \"flower flag country\"—and an American, kwa kee kwoh yin [花旗國人; Fākeìgwokyàhn]—\"flower flag countryman\"—a more complimentary designation than that of \"red headed barbarian\"—the name first bestowed upon the Dutch.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In the above quote, the Chinese words are written phonetically based on spoken Cantonese. The names given were common usage in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Chinese now refer to the United States as Měiguó from Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 美国; traditional Chinese: 美國). Měi is short for Měilìjiān (simplified Chinese: 美利坚; traditional Chinese: 美利堅, phono-semantic matching of \"American\") and \"guó\" means \"country\", so this name is unrelated to the flag. However, the \"flower flag\" terminology persists in some places today: for example, American ginseng is called flower flag ginseng (simplified Chinese: 花旗参; traditional Chinese: 花旗參) in Chinese, and Citibank, which opened a branch in China in 1902, is known as Flower Flag Bank (花旗银行).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Similarly, Vietnamese also uses the borrowed term from Chinese with Sino-Vietnamese reading for the United States, as Hoa Kỳ from 花旗 (\"Flower Flag\"). Even though the United States is also called nước Mỹ (or simplier Mỹ) colloquially in Vietnamese before the name Měiguó was popular amongst Chinese, Hoa Kỳ is always recognized as the formal name for the United States with the Vietnamese state officially designates it as Hợp chúng quốc Hoa Kỳ (chữ Hán: 合眾國 花旗, lit. 'United states of the Flower Flag'). By that, in Vietnam, the U.S. is also nicknamed xứ Cờ Hoa (\"land of Flower Flag\") based on the Hoa Kỳ designation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Additionally, the seal of Shanghai Municipal Council in Shanghai International Settlement from 1869 included the U.S. flag as part of the top left-hand shield near the flag of the U.K., as the U.S. participated in the creation of this enclave in the Chinese city of Shanghai. It is also included in the badge of the Gulangyu Municipal Police in the International Settlement of Gulangyu, Amoy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "President Richard Nixon presented a U.S. flag and Moon rocks to Mao Zedong during his visit to China in 1972. They are now on display at the National Museum of China.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The U.S. flag took its first trip around the world in 1787–1790 on board the Columbia. William Driver, who coined the phrase \"Old Glory\", took the U.S. flag around the world in 1831–32. The flag attracted the notice of the Japanese when an oversized version was carried to Yokohama by the steamer Great Republic as part of a round-the-world journey in 1871.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Prior to the Civil War, the American flag was rarely seen outside of military forts, government buildings and ships. This changed following the Battle of Fort Sumter in 1861. The flag flying over the fort was allowed to leave with the Union troops as they surrendered. It was taken across Northern cities, which spurred a wave of \"Flagmania\". The Stars and Stripes, which had had no real place in the public conscious, suddenly became a part of the national identity. The flag became a symbol of the Union, and the sale of flags exploded at this time. Historian Adam Goodheart wrote:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "For the first time American flags were mass-produced rather than individually stitched and even so, manufacturers could not keep up with demand. As the long winter of 1861 turned into spring, that old flag meant something new. The abstraction of the Union cause was transfigured into a physical thing: strips of cloth that millions of people would fight for, and many thousands die for.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In the Civil War, the flag was allowed to be carried into battle, reversing the 1847 regulation which prohibited this. (During the American War of Independence and War of 1812 the army was not officially sanctioned to carry the United States flag into battle. It was not until 1834 that the artillery was allowed to carry the American flag; the army would be granted to do the same in 1841. However, in 1847, in the middle of the war with Mexico, the flag was limited to camp use and not allowed to be brought into battle.) Some wanted to remove the stars of the states which had seceded but Abraham Lincoln was opposed, believing it would give legitimacy to the Confederate states.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In the following table depicting the 28 various designs of the United States flag, the star patterns for the flags are merely the usual patterns, often associated with the United States Navy. Canton designs, prior to the proclamation of the 48-star flag, had no official arrangement of the stars. Furthermore, the exact colors of the flag were not standardized until 1934.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The flag of the United States is the nation's most widely recognized symbol. Within the United States, flags are frequently displayed not only on public buildings but on private residences. The flag is a common motif on decals for car windows, and on clothing ornamentation such as badges and lapel pins. Owing to the United States's emergence as a superpower in the 20th century, the flag is among the most widely recognized symbols in the world, and is used to represent the United States.",
"title": "Symbolism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The flag has become a powerful symbol of Americanism, and is flown on many occasions, with giant outdoor flags used by retail outlets to draw customers. Reverence for the flag has at times reached religion-like fervor: in 1919 William Norman Guthrie's book The Religion of Old Glory discussed \"the cult of the flag\" and formally proposed vexillolatry.",
"title": "Symbolism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Despite a number of attempts to ban the practice, desecration of the flag remains protected as free speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Scholars have noted the irony that \"[t]he flag is so revered because it represents the land of the free, and that freedom includes the ability to use or abuse that flag in protest\". Comparing practice worldwide, Testi noted in 2010 that the United States was not unique in adoring its banner, for the flags of Scandinavian countries are also \"beloved, domesticated, commercialized and sacralized objects\".",
"title": "Symbolism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "When the flag was officially adopted in 1777, the colors of red, white and blue were not given an official meaning. However, when Charles Thomson, Secretary of the Continental Congress, presented a proposed U.S. seal in 1782, he explained its center section in this way:",
"title": "Symbolism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The colours of the pales are those used in the flag of the United States of America; White signifies purity and innocence, Red, hardiness & valor, and Blue, the colour of the Chief signifies vigilance, perseverance & justice.",
"title": "Symbolism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "These meanings have broadly been accepted as official, with some variation, but there are other extant interpretations as well:",
"title": "Symbolism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The colors of our flag signify the qualities of the human spirit we Americans cherish. Red for courage and readiness to sacrifice; white for pure intentions and high ideals; and blue for vigilance and justice.\"",
"title": "Symbolism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "We take the stars from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity, representing our liberty.",
"title": "Symbolism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The basic design of the current flag is specified by 4 U.S.C. § 1 (1947): \"The flag of the United States shall be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white; and the union of the flag shall be forty-eight stars, white in a blue field.\" 4 U.S.C. § 2 outlines the addition of new stars to represent new states, with no distinction made for the shape, size, or arrangement of the stars. Executive Order 10834 (1959) specifies a 50-star design for use after Hawaii was added as a state, and Federal Specification DDD-F-416F (2005) provides additional details about the production of physical flags for use by federal agencies.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Strictly speaking, the executive order establishing these specifications governs only flags made for or by the federal government. In practice, most U.S. national flags available for sale to the public follow the federal star arrangement, but have a different width-to-height ratio; common sizes are 2 × 3 ft. or 4 × 6 ft. (flag ratio 1.5), 2.5 × 4 ft. or 5 × 8 ft. (1.6), or 3 × 5 ft. or 6 × 10 ft. (1.667). Even flags flown over the U.S. Capitol for sale to the public through Representatives or Senators are provided in these sizes. Flags that are made to the prescribed 1.9 ratio are often referred to as \"G-spec\" (for \"government specification\") flags.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Federal Specification DDD-F-416F specifies the exact red, white, and blue colors to be used for physical flags procured by federal agencies with reference to the Standard Color Reference of America, 10th edition, a set of dyed silk fabric samples produced by The Color Association of the United States. The colors are \"White\", No. 70001; \"Old Glory Red\", No. 70180; and \"Old Glory Blue\", No. 70075.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "CIE coordinates for the colors of the 9th edition of the Standard Color Reference were carefully measured and cross-checked by color scientists from the National Bureau of Standards in 1946, with the resulting coordinates adopted as a formal specification. These colors form the standard for cloth, and there is no perfect way to convert them to RGB for display on screen or CMYK for printing. The \"relative\" coordinates in the following table were found by scaling the luminous reflectance relative to the flag's white.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "As with the design, the official colors are only officially required for flags produced for the U.S. federal government, and other colors are often used for mass-market flags, printed reproductions, and other products intended to evoke flag colors. The practice of using more saturated colors than the official cloth is not new. As Taylor, Knoche, and Granville wrote in 1950: \"The color of the official wool bunting [of the blue field] is a very dark blue, but printed reproductions of the flag, as well as merchandise supposed to match the flag, present the color as a deep blue much brighter than the official wool.\"",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Sometimes, Pantone Matching System (PMS) alternatives to the dyed fabric colors are recommended by US government agencies for use in websites or printed documents. One set was given on the website of the U.S. embassy in London as early as 1996; the website of the U.S. embassy in Stockholm claimed in 2001 that those had been suggested by Pantone, and that the U.S. Government Printing Office preferred a different set. A third red was suggested by a California Military Department document in 2002. In 2001, the Texas legislature specified that the colors of the Texas flag should be \"(1) the same colors used in the United States flag; and (2) defined as numbers 193 (red) and 281 (dark blue) of the Pantone Matching System.\" The current internal style guide of the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs specifies PMS 282C blue and PMS 193C red, and gives RGB and CMYK conversions generated by Adobe InDesign.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Traditionally, the flag may be decorated with golden fringe surrounding the perimeter of the flag as long as it does not deface the flag proper. Ceremonial displays of the flag, such as those in parades or on indoor posts, often use fringe to enhance the flag's appearance. Traditionally, the Army and Air Force use a fringed flag for parades, color guard and indoor display, while the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard use a fringeless flag for all occasions.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The first recorded use of fringe on a flag dates from 1835, and the Army used it officially in 1895. No specific law governs the legality of fringe. Still, a 1925 opinion of the attorney general addresses the use of fringe (and the number of stars) \"... is at the discretion of the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy ...\" as quoted from a footnote in previous volumes of Title 4 of the United States Code law books. This opinion is a source for claims that a flag with fringe is a military ensign rather than a civilian. However, according to the Army Institute of Heraldry, which has official custody of the flag designs and makes any change ordered, there are no implications of symbolism in using fringe.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Individuals associated with the sovereign citizen movement and tax protester conspiracy arguments have claimed, based on the military usage, that the presence of a fringed flag in a civilian courtroom changes the nature or jurisdiction of the court. Federal and state courts have rejected this contention.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The flag is customarily flown year-round at most public buildings, and it is not unusual to find private houses flying full-size (3 by 5 feet (0.91 by 1.52 m)) flags. Some private use is year-round, but becomes widespread on civic holidays like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Presidents' Day, Flag Day, and on Independence Day. On Memorial Day, it is common to place small flags by war memorials and next to the graves of U.S. war veterans. Also, on Memorial Day, it is common to fly the flag at half staff until noon to remember those who lost their lives fighting in U.S. wars.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The United States Flag Code outlines certain guidelines for the flag's use, display, and disposal. For example, the flag should never be dipped to any person or thing, unless it is the ensign responding to a salute from a ship of a foreign nation. This tradition may come from the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, where countries were asked to dip their flag to King Edward VII: the American flag bearer did not. Team captain Martin Sheridan is famously quoted as saying, \"this flag dips to no earthly king\", though the true provenance of this quotation is unclear.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The flag should never be allowed to touch the ground and should be illuminated if flown at night. The flag should be repaired or replaced if the edges become tattered through wear. When a flag is so tattered that it can no longer serve as a symbol of the United States, it should be destroyed in a dignified manner, preferably by burning. The American Legion and other organizations regularly conduct flag retirement ceremonies, often on Flag Day, June 14. (The Boy Scouts of America recommends that modern nylon or polyester flags be recycled instead of burned due to hazardous gases produced when such materials are burned.)",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The Flag Code prohibits using the flag \"for any advertising purpose\" and also states that the flag \"should not be embroidered, printed, or otherwise impressed on such articles as cushions, handkerchiefs, napkins, boxes, or anything intended to be discarded after temporary use\". Both of these codes are generally ignored, almost always without comment.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Section 8, entitled \"Respect For Flag\", states in part: \"The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery\", and \"No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform\". Section 3 of the Flag Code defines \"the flag\" as anything \"by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag of the United States of America\". An additional provision that is frequently violated at sporting events is part (c) \"The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.\"",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Although the Flag Code is U.S. federal law, there is no penalty for a private citizen or group failing to comply with the Flag Code, and it is not widely enforced—punitive enforcement would conflict with the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Passage of the proposed Flag Desecration Amendment would overrule the legal precedent that has been established.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "When the flag is affixed to the right side of a vehicle of any kind (e.g., cars, boats, planes, any physical object that moves), it should be oriented so that the canton is towards the front of the vehicle, as if the flag were streaming backward from its hoist as the vehicle moves forward. Therefore, U.S. flag decals on the right sides of vehicles may appear to be reversed, with the union to the observer's right instead of left as more commonly seen.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The flag has been displayed on every U.S. spacecraft designed for crewed flight starting from John Glenn's Friendship 7 flight in 1962, including Mercury, Gemini, Apollo Command/Service Module, Apollo Lunar Module, and the Space Shuttle. The flag also appeared on the S-IC first stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle used for Apollo. Nevertheless, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo were launched and landed vertically and could not horizontal atmospheric flight as the Space Shuttle did on its landing approach, so the streaming convention was not followed. These flags were oriented with the stripes running horizontally, perpendicular to the direction of flight.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "On some U.S. military uniforms, flag patches are worn on the right shoulder, following the vehicle convention with the union toward the front. This rule dates back to the Army's early history when mounted cavalry and infantry units would designate a standard-bearer who carried the Colors into battle. As he charged, his forward motion caused the flag to stream back. Since the Stars and Stripes are mounted with the canton closest to the pole, that section stayed to the right, while the stripes flew to the left. Several U.S. military uniforms, such as flight suits worn by members of the United States Air Force and Navy, have the flag patch on the left shoulder.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Other organizations that wear flag patches on their uniforms can have the flag facing in either direction. The congressional charter of the Boy Scouts of America stipulates that Boy Scout uniforms should not imitate U.S. military uniforms; consequently, the flags are displayed on the right shoulder with the stripes facing front, the reverse of the military style. Law enforcement officers often wear a small flag patch, either on a shoulder or above a shirt pocket.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Every U.S. astronaut since the crew of Gemini 4 has worn the flag on the left shoulder of his or her space suit, except for the crew of Apollo 1, whose flags were worn on the right shoulder. In this case, the canton was on the left.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "The flag did not appear on U.S. postal stamp issues until the Battle of White Plains Issue was released in 1926, depicting the flag with a circle of 13 stars. The 48-star flag first appeared on the General Casimir Pulaski issue of 1931, though in a small monochrome depiction. The first U.S. postage stamp to feature the flag as the sole subject was issued July 4, 1957, Scott catalog number 1094. Since then, the flag has frequently appeared on U.S. stamps.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "In 1907 Eben Appleton, New York stockbroker and grandson of Lieutenant Colonel George Armistead (the commander of Fort McHenry during the 1814 bombardment), loaned the Star-Spangled Banner Flag to the Smithsonian Institution. In 1912 he converted the loan into a gift. Appleton donated the flag with the wish that it would always be on view to the public. In 1994, the National Museum of American History determined that the Star-Spangled Banner Flag required further conservation treatment to remain on public display. In 1998 teams of museum conservators, curators, and other specialists helped move the flag from its home in the Museum's Flag Hall into a new conservation laboratory. Following the reopening of the National Museum of American History on November 21, 2008, the flag is now on display in a special exhibition, \"The Star-Spangled Banner: The Flag That Inspired the National Anthem,\" where it rests at a 10-degree angle in dim light for conservation purposes.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "U.S. flags are displayed continuously at certain locations by presidential proclamation, acts of Congress, and custom.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "The flag should especially be displayed at full staff on the following days:",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "The flag is displayed at half-staff (half-mast in naval usage) as a sign of respect or mourning. Nationwide, this action is proclaimed by the president; statewide or territory-wide, the proclamation is made by the governor. In addition, there is no prohibition against municipal governments, private businesses, or citizens flying the flag at half-staff as a local sign of respect and mourning. However, many flag enthusiasts feel this type of practice has somewhat diminished the meaning of the original intent of lowering the flag to honor those who held high positions in federal or state offices. President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first proclamation on March 1, 1954, standardizing the dates and periods for flying the flag at half-staff from all federal buildings, grounds, and naval vessels; other congressional resolutions and presidential proclamations ensued. However, they are only guidelines to all other entities: typically followed at state and local government facilities and encouraged of private businesses and citizens.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "To properly fly the flag at half-staff, one should first briefly hoist it top of the staff, then lower it to the half-staff position, halfway between the top and bottom of the staff. Similarly, when the flag is to be lowered from half-staff, it should be first briefly hoisted to the top of the staff.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Federal statutes provide that the flag should be flown at half-staff on the following dates:",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "The flag of the United States is sometimes burned as a cultural or political statement, in protest of the policies of the U.S. government, or for other reasons, both within the U.S. and abroad. The United States Supreme Court in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), and reaffirmed in U.S. v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990), has ruled that due to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is unconstitutional for a government (whether federal, state, or municipal) to prohibit the desecration of a flag, due to its status as \"symbolic speech.\" However, content-neutral restrictions may still be imposed to regulate the time, place, and manner of such expression. If the flag that was burned was someone else's property (as it was in the Johnson case, since Johnson had stolen the flag from a Texas bank's flagpole), the offender could be charged with petty larceny (a flag usually sells at retail for less than US$20), or with destruction of private property, or possibly both. Desecration of a flag representing a minority group may also be charged as a hate crime in some jurisdictions.",
"title": "Display and use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Though not part of the official Flag Code, according to military custom, flags should be folded into a triangular shape when not in use. To properly fold the flag:",
"title": "Folding for storage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "There is also no specific meaning for each fold of the flag. However, there are scripts read by non-government organizations and also by the Air Force that are used during the flag folding ceremony. These scripts range from historical timelines of the flag to religious themes.",
"title": "Folding for storage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Traditionally, the flag of the United States plays a role in military funerals, and occasionally in funerals of other civil servants (such as law enforcement officers, fire fighters, and U.S. presidents). A burial flag is draped over the deceased's casket as a pall during services. Just prior to the casket being lowered into the ground, the flag is ceremonially folded and presented to the deceased's next of kin as a token of respect.",
"title": "Use in funerals"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "The U.S. flag has inspired many other flags for regions, political movements, and cultural groups, resulting in a stars and stripes flag family. The other national flags belonging to this family are: Chile, Cuba, Greece, Liberia, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, Togo, and Uruguay.",
"title": "Related flags"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "If a new U.S. state were to be admitted, it would require a new design of the flag to accommodate an additional star for a 51st state. 51-star flags have been designed and used as a symbol by supporters of statehood in various jurisdictions.",
"title": "Possible future design of the flag"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "According to the U.S. Army Institute of Heraldry, the United States flag never becomes obsolete. Any approved American flag may continue to be used and displayed until no longer serviceable.",
"title": "Possible future design of the flag"
}
] |
The national flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag or the U.S. flag, consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton, referred to as the union and bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows, where rows of six stars alternate with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 U.S. states, and the 13 stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that declared independence from Great Britain, which they obtained in their victory in the American Revolutionary War. During the Revolutionary War era, the "Rebellious Stripes" were considered as the most important element of United States flag designs, and were always mentioned before the stars. The "Stripes and Stars" was a popular phrase into the 19th century. Credit for the term "Stars and Stripes" has been given to the Marquis de Lafayette, a French soldier who volunteered his aid to the Continental Army, led by George Washington, in the Revolutionary War against Britain. Nicknames for the flag include the Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, and The Star-Spangled Banner.
|
2001-11-02T23:15:13Z
|
2023-12-29T18:16:43Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States
|
11,448 |
Federated States of Micronesia
|
The Federated States of Micronesia (/ˌmaɪkroʊˈniːʒə/ ; abbreviated FSM), or simply Micronesia, is an island country in Micronesia, a subregion of Oceania. The federation consists of four states—from west to east, Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosrae—that are spread across the western Pacific. Together, the states comprise around 607 islands (a combined land area of approximately 702 km or 271 sq mi) that cover a longitudinal distance of almost 2,700 km (1,700 mi) just north of the equator. They lie northeast of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, south of Guam and the Marianas, west of Nauru and the Marshall Islands, east of Palau and the Philippines, about 2,900 km (1,800 mi) north of eastern Australia, 3,400 km (2,100 mi) southeast of Japan, and some 4,000 km (2,485 mi) southwest of the main islands of the Hawaiian Islands.
While the FSM's total land area is relatively small, the country's waters occupy nearly 3 million km (1.2 million sq mi) of the Pacific Ocean, giving the country the 14th-largest exclusive economic zone in the world. The sovereign island nation's capital is Palikir, located on Pohnpei Island, while the largest city is Weno, located in the Chuuk Atoll.
Each of its four states is centered on one or more main volcanic islands, and all but Kosrae include numerous outlying atolls. The Federated States of Micronesia is spread across part of the Caroline Islands in the wider region of Micronesia, which consists of thousands of small islands divided among several countries. The term Micronesia may refer to the Federated States or to the region as a whole.
The FSM was formerly a part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI), a United Nations Trust Territory under U.S. administration, but it formed its own constitutional government on May 10, 1979, becoming a sovereign state after independence was attained on November 3, 1986, under a Compact of Free Association with the United States. Other neighboring island entities, and also former members of the TTPI, formulated their own constitutional governments and became the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the Republic of Palau (ROP). The FSM has a seat in the United Nations and has been a member of the Pacific Community since 1983.
The ancestors of the Micronesians settled over four thousand years ago. A decentralized chieftain-based system eventually evolved into a more centralized economic and religious culture centered on Yap Island.
Nan Madol, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, consisting of a series of small artificial islands linked by a network of canals, is often called the Venice of the Pacific. It is located on the eastern periphery of the island of Pohnpei and used to be the ceremonial and political seat of the Saudeleur dynasty that united Pohnpei's estimated 25,000 people from about AD 500 until 1500, when the centralized system collapsed.
European explorers—first the Portuguese in search of the Spice Islands (Indonesia) and then the Spanish—reached the Carolines in the sixteenth century. The Treaty of Tordesillas gave these lands to Spain and the Spanish incorporated the archipelago to the Spanish East Indies through the capital, Manila, and in the 19th century established a number of outposts and missions. In 1887, they founded the town of Santiago de la Ascensión in what today is Kolonia on the island of Pohnpei.
In the 1870s, Germany began extending its sphere of influence in the Caroline Islands, leading to the Carolines Question of 1885 in which Pope Leo XIII was asked to determine if Germany or Spain had authority over the islands. The result was a confirmation of Spanish authority over the islands, but Germany would have free access to the islands.
Following defeat in the Spanish–American War, the Spanish sold the archipelago to Germany in 1899 under the German–Spanish Treaty of 1899. Germany incorporated it into German New Guinea. (A few remote islands, notably Kapingamarangi, were not specifically named in the treaty, but this remained unnoticed until the late 1940s and, while acknowledging the historical curiosity in 1949, Spain has made no modern claims to the islands.)
During World War I, it was captured by Japan. Following the war, the League of Nations awarded a mandate for Japan to administer the islands as part of the South Seas Mandate.
During World War II, a significant portion of the Japanese fleet was based in Truk Lagoon. In February 1944, Operation Hailstone, one of the most important naval battles of the war, took place at Truk, in which many Japanese support vessels and aircraft were destroyed.
Following World War II, it was administered by the United States under United Nations auspices in 1947 as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands pursuant to Security Council Resolution 21.
On May 10, 1979, four of the Trust Territory districts ratified a new constitution to become the Federated States of Micronesia. Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands chose not to participate. The FSM signed a Compact of Free Association with the United States, which entered into force on November 3, 1986, marking Micronesia's emergence from trusteeship to independence. Independence was formally concluded under international law in 1990, when the United Nations officially ended the Trusteeship status pursuant to Security Council Resolution 683. The Compact was renewed in 2004.
In February 2021, following a bitter leadership dispute, the Federated States of Micronesia announced it would quit the Pacific Islands Forum in its formal process of withdrawal.
The Federated States of Micronesia is governed by the 1979 constitution, which guarantees fundamental human rights and establishes a separation of governmental powers. This constitution constructs the national government to be similar to – but not exactly alike – that of the United States. The unicameral Congress has fourteen members elected by popular vote. Four senators—one from each state—serve four-year terms; the remaining ten senators represent single-member districts based on population and serve two-year terms. Congress elects the President and Vice President from among the four state-based senators to serve four-year terms in the executive branch. Their congressional seats are then filled by special elections.
An appointed cabinet supports the president and vice president. There are no formal political parties.
In international politics, the Federated States of Micronesia has often voted with the United States with respect to United Nations General Assembly resolutions.
The FSM is a sovereign, self-governing state in free association with the United States of America, which is wholly responsible for its defense. The FSM National Police operates a Maritime Wing Unit. The Compact of Free Association allows FSM citizens to join the U.S. military without having to obtain U.S. permanent residency or citizenship, allows for immigration and employment for Micronesians in the U.S., and establishes economic and technical aid programs.
FSM has foreign relations with 56 countries, including the Holy See and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. FSM was admitted to the United Nations based on the Security Council's recommendation on August 9, 1991, in Resolution 703 and the General Assembly's approval on September 17, 1991, in Resolution 46/2. The FSM was an active member of the Pacific Islands Forum. However, in February 2021, FSM announced it would be formally withdrawing from the Forum in a joint statement with Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Nauru after a dispute regarding Henry Puna's election as the Forum's secretary-general. In February 2022, following Russian invasion of Ukraine, FSM severed diplomatic relations with Russia and called the invasion "unjustified and brutal".
The four states in the federation are, from west to east:
These states are further divided into municipalities.
The Federated States of Micronesia consists of 607 islands extending 2,900 km (1,802 mi) across the archipelago of the Caroline Islands east of the Philippines. The islands have a combined area of 702 km (271 sq mi).
The islands are grouped into four states, which are Yap, Chuuk (called Truk until January 1990), Pohnpei (known as "Ponape" until November 1984), and Kosrae (formerly Kusaie). These four states are each represented by a white star on the national flag. The capital is Palikir, on Pohnpei.
Two terrestrial ecoregions lie within the country's borders: Carolines tropical moist forests and Yap tropical dry forests. It had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.55/10, ranking it 37th globally out of 172 countries.
The major coastal communities are mangrove forests, seagrass beds, lagoons and coral reefs, biologically and physically linked. About 300 species of coral, 1000 species of fish and 1200 species of mollusks are recognized in Micronesia. In the mangrove forests there are shrimps, crabs and fish, as well as birds that feed on them. Seagrass meadows appear offshore following the mangroves. The lagoons provide food for the reef inhabitants and contain various kinds of plankton. The biodiversity and complexity of the coral reefs increases markedly from east to west, with 150 species of hard coral at Kosrae, 200 at Pohnpei and 300 at Chuuk. Coral productivity in this area is among the highest in the world, absorbing about 2500 grams of carbon per square meter per year, against 2200 grams in the tropical forest and 125 grams in the open sea.
Inland, from the tidal zone to the top of the mountains there is a varied range of vegetation, cloud forest, upland, palm, plantation, areas dominated by climbers of the genus Merremia, savannas, native secondary forest, fragments of introduced trees, cultivated areas, freshwater swamps, swamps of the palm Nypa fruticans, atoll forests, forests in rocky areas and beaches. There are about 1230 species of ferns and flowering plants, of which 782 are native, including 145 native fern species. On Pohnpei Island, there are about 750 plant species, of which 110 are endemic. Another 457 species have been introduced.
The Federated States of Micronesia has a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen: Af). The weather is warm, humid and rainy all year round. The islands are located north of the equator and are affected by constant trade winds, which temper the climate. Minimum temperatures range all year round between 22 and 25 °C, and maximum temperatures between 30 and 32 °C. The abundant precipitations oscillate between 2500 and 5000 mm per year, although in the faces oriented to the wind they can surpass 6000 mm. Mount Nahnalaud, only 750 m high, on the island of Pohnpei, receives an average of 10,160 mm, being one of the rainiest places on earth, with almost always overcast skies. In general, the rains are produced by showers and storms of short duration but very intense. The driest places are the flat atolls, where rainfall can drop below 3000 mm. The driest months are January and February, with no less than 250 mm and 20 days of rain.
Transportation in the Federated States of Micronesia
The Federated States of Micronesia is served by four international airports.
Economic activity in the Federated States of Micronesia consists primarily of subsistence farming and fishing. The islands have few mineral deposits worth exploiting, except for high-grade phosphate. Long line fishing of tuna is also viable with foreign vessels from China that operated in the 1990s. The potential for a tourist industry exists, but the remoteness of the location and a lack of adequate facilities hinder development. Financial assistance from the U.S. is the primary source of revenue, with the U.S. pledged to spend $1.3 billion in the islands in 1986–2001; when the Compact was amended in 2004, the United States committed to providing $110 million in development aid through 2023. The CIA World Factbook lists high dependence on U.S. aid as one of the main concerns of the FSM. Geographical isolation and a poorly developed infrastructure are major impediments to long-term growth.
The indigenous population of the nation, which is predominantly Micronesian, consists of various ethnolinguistic groups. It has a nearly 100% Pacific Islander and Asian population: Chuukese 48.8%, Pohnpeian 24.2%, Kosraean 6.2%, Yapese 5.2%, Yap outer islands 4.5%, Asian 1.8%, Polynesian 1.5%, other 6.4%, unknown 1.4%. A sizable minority also have some Japanese ancestry, which is a result of intermarriages between Japanese settlers and Micronesians during the Japanese colonial period.
There is also a growing expatriate population of Americans, Australians, Europeans, and residents from China and the Philippines since the 1990s. English has become the common language of the government, and for secondary and tertiary education. Outside of the main capital towns of the four FSM states, the local languages are primarily spoken. In the Catholic mission of Pohnpei, among the Mercedarian missionaries, considered an institution in the country, Spanish is also spoken. Growth remains high at more than 3% annually, offset somewhat by net emigration.
English is the official and common language. Aside from English, the following Austronesian languages are spoken:
The Federated States of Micronesia are 97% Christian. More than half of the population follows the Catholic Church (55%) and about 42% follow various Protestant Christian groups. In general this is due to Spanish and German colonial history. Spanish rule meant that a large part of the population remained Catholic. During the German colonial period, until 1914, Catholic and Protestant missionaries from the German Empire were deployed. Several Protestant denominations, as well as the Roman Catholic Church, are present in every Micronesian state. Most Protestant groups trace their roots to American Congregationalist missionaries. On the island of Kosrae, the population is approximately 7,800; 95 percent are Protestants. On Pohnpei, the population of 35,000 is evenly divided between Protestants and Catholics. Most immigrants are Filipino Catholics who have joined local Catholic churches, e.g. Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church in Pohnpei.
On Chuuk and Yap, an estimated 60 percent are Catholic and 40 percent are Protestant. Religious groups with small followings include Baptists, Assemblies of God, Salvation Army, Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and the Baháʼí Faith. There is a small group of Buddhists on Pohnpei, and a small group of Ahmadiyya Muslims in both Pohnpei and Kosrae. Attendance at religious services is generally high; churches are well supported by their congregations and play a significant role in civil society.
In the 1890s, on the island of Pohnpei, intermissionary conflicts and the conversion of clan leaders resulted in religious divisions along clan lines which persist today. More Protestants live on the western side of the island, while more Catholics live on the eastern side. Missionaries of many religious traditions are present and operate freely. The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice. The US government received no reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious belief or practice in 2007.
Life expectancy was 66 for men and 69 for women in 2018.
Pingelap in Pohnpei State is notable for the prevalence of an extreme form of color blindness called Achromatopsia, and known locally as maskun. Approximately 5% of the atoll's 3000 inhabitants are afflicted.
Baseball is very popular in the FSM.
The sport of association football in the Federated States of Micronesia is run by the Federated States of Micronesia Football Association. They control the Micronesian Games, the nation's football championship and the Micronesia national football team.
The Federated States of Micronesia Athletic Association is the governing body for the country's sports and athletics.
Each of the four states has its own culture and traditions, but there are also common cultural and economic bonds that are centuries old. Cultural similarities include the importance of the traditional extended family and clan systems and are found on all the islands.
The island of Yap is notable for its "stone money" (Rai stones), large disks usually of calcite, up to 4 meters (13 ft) in diameter, with a hole in the middle. The islanders, aware of the owner of a piece, do not necessarily move them when ownership changes. There are five major types: Mmbul, Gaw, Ray, Yar, and Reng, the last being only 30 cm (12 in) in diameter. Their value is based on both size and history, many of them having been brought from other islands, as far as New Guinea, but most coming in ancient times from Palau. Approximately 6,500 of them are scattered around the island.
Pohnpei is home to Nan Madol: Ceremonial Centre of Eastern Micronesia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but the site is currently listed as In Danger due to natural causes. The government is working on the conservation of the site.
Traditional dances on the main islands includes "stick dancing" on Pohnpei, Chuuk and Yap, standing dances on Chuuk and sitting dances on Yap and Chuuk. The Yapese are particularly known for their skills in dancing. The Yapese stick dance is performed by men, women and children together, while standing dances are performed either by women or men and boys, but never both together. The men participate in various dancing competitions, which are segregated by caste; the lower castes have some distinct dances, such as a woman's standing dance, but can only dance when authorized by a person of a higher caste.
The following papers have been published in the FSM:
There have been very few published literary writers from the Federated States of Micronesia. In 2008, Emelihter Kihleng became the first ever Micronesian to publish a collection of poetry in the English language.
Government
General information
News media
Maps
Travel
Weather
6°55′N 158°15′E / 6.917°N 158.250°E / 6.917; 158.250
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Federated States of Micronesia (/ˌmaɪkroʊˈniːʒə/ ; abbreviated FSM), or simply Micronesia, is an island country in Micronesia, a subregion of Oceania. The federation consists of four states—from west to east, Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosrae—that are spread across the western Pacific. Together, the states comprise around 607 islands (a combined land area of approximately 702 km or 271 sq mi) that cover a longitudinal distance of almost 2,700 km (1,700 mi) just north of the equator. They lie northeast of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, south of Guam and the Marianas, west of Nauru and the Marshall Islands, east of Palau and the Philippines, about 2,900 km (1,800 mi) north of eastern Australia, 3,400 km (2,100 mi) southeast of Japan, and some 4,000 km (2,485 mi) southwest of the main islands of the Hawaiian Islands.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "While the FSM's total land area is relatively small, the country's waters occupy nearly 3 million km (1.2 million sq mi) of the Pacific Ocean, giving the country the 14th-largest exclusive economic zone in the world. The sovereign island nation's capital is Palikir, located on Pohnpei Island, while the largest city is Weno, located in the Chuuk Atoll.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Each of its four states is centered on one or more main volcanic islands, and all but Kosrae include numerous outlying atolls. The Federated States of Micronesia is spread across part of the Caroline Islands in the wider region of Micronesia, which consists of thousands of small islands divided among several countries. The term Micronesia may refer to the Federated States or to the region as a whole.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The FSM was formerly a part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI), a United Nations Trust Territory under U.S. administration, but it formed its own constitutional government on May 10, 1979, becoming a sovereign state after independence was attained on November 3, 1986, under a Compact of Free Association with the United States. Other neighboring island entities, and also former members of the TTPI, formulated their own constitutional governments and became the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the Republic of Palau (ROP). The FSM has a seat in the United Nations and has been a member of the Pacific Community since 1983.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The ancestors of the Micronesians settled over four thousand years ago. A decentralized chieftain-based system eventually evolved into a more centralized economic and religious culture centered on Yap Island.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Nan Madol, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, consisting of a series of small artificial islands linked by a network of canals, is often called the Venice of the Pacific. It is located on the eastern periphery of the island of Pohnpei and used to be the ceremonial and political seat of the Saudeleur dynasty that united Pohnpei's estimated 25,000 people from about AD 500 until 1500, when the centralized system collapsed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "European explorers—first the Portuguese in search of the Spice Islands (Indonesia) and then the Spanish—reached the Carolines in the sixteenth century. The Treaty of Tordesillas gave these lands to Spain and the Spanish incorporated the archipelago to the Spanish East Indies through the capital, Manila, and in the 19th century established a number of outposts and missions. In 1887, they founded the town of Santiago de la Ascensión in what today is Kolonia on the island of Pohnpei.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In the 1870s, Germany began extending its sphere of influence in the Caroline Islands, leading to the Carolines Question of 1885 in which Pope Leo XIII was asked to determine if Germany or Spain had authority over the islands. The result was a confirmation of Spanish authority over the islands, but Germany would have free access to the islands.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Following defeat in the Spanish–American War, the Spanish sold the archipelago to Germany in 1899 under the German–Spanish Treaty of 1899. Germany incorporated it into German New Guinea. (A few remote islands, notably Kapingamarangi, were not specifically named in the treaty, but this remained unnoticed until the late 1940s and, while acknowledging the historical curiosity in 1949, Spain has made no modern claims to the islands.)",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "During World War I, it was captured by Japan. Following the war, the League of Nations awarded a mandate for Japan to administer the islands as part of the South Seas Mandate.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "During World War II, a significant portion of the Japanese fleet was based in Truk Lagoon. In February 1944, Operation Hailstone, one of the most important naval battles of the war, took place at Truk, in which many Japanese support vessels and aircraft were destroyed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Following World War II, it was administered by the United States under United Nations auspices in 1947 as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands pursuant to Security Council Resolution 21.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "On May 10, 1979, four of the Trust Territory districts ratified a new constitution to become the Federated States of Micronesia. Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands chose not to participate. The FSM signed a Compact of Free Association with the United States, which entered into force on November 3, 1986, marking Micronesia's emergence from trusteeship to independence. Independence was formally concluded under international law in 1990, when the United Nations officially ended the Trusteeship status pursuant to Security Council Resolution 683. The Compact was renewed in 2004.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In February 2021, following a bitter leadership dispute, the Federated States of Micronesia announced it would quit the Pacific Islands Forum in its formal process of withdrawal.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The Federated States of Micronesia is governed by the 1979 constitution, which guarantees fundamental human rights and establishes a separation of governmental powers. This constitution constructs the national government to be similar to – but not exactly alike – that of the United States. The unicameral Congress has fourteen members elected by popular vote. Four senators—one from each state—serve four-year terms; the remaining ten senators represent single-member districts based on population and serve two-year terms. Congress elects the President and Vice President from among the four state-based senators to serve four-year terms in the executive branch. Their congressional seats are then filled by special elections.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "An appointed cabinet supports the president and vice president. There are no formal political parties.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In international politics, the Federated States of Micronesia has often voted with the United States with respect to United Nations General Assembly resolutions.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The FSM is a sovereign, self-governing state in free association with the United States of America, which is wholly responsible for its defense. The FSM National Police operates a Maritime Wing Unit. The Compact of Free Association allows FSM citizens to join the U.S. military without having to obtain U.S. permanent residency or citizenship, allows for immigration and employment for Micronesians in the U.S., and establishes economic and technical aid programs.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "FSM has foreign relations with 56 countries, including the Holy See and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. FSM was admitted to the United Nations based on the Security Council's recommendation on August 9, 1991, in Resolution 703 and the General Assembly's approval on September 17, 1991, in Resolution 46/2. The FSM was an active member of the Pacific Islands Forum. However, in February 2021, FSM announced it would be formally withdrawing from the Forum in a joint statement with Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Nauru after a dispute regarding Henry Puna's election as the Forum's secretary-general. In February 2022, following Russian invasion of Ukraine, FSM severed diplomatic relations with Russia and called the invasion \"unjustified and brutal\".",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The four states in the federation are, from west to east:",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "These states are further divided into municipalities.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The Federated States of Micronesia consists of 607 islands extending 2,900 km (1,802 mi) across the archipelago of the Caroline Islands east of the Philippines. The islands have a combined area of 702 km (271 sq mi).",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The islands are grouped into four states, which are Yap, Chuuk (called Truk until January 1990), Pohnpei (known as \"Ponape\" until November 1984), and Kosrae (formerly Kusaie). These four states are each represented by a white star on the national flag. The capital is Palikir, on Pohnpei.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Two terrestrial ecoregions lie within the country's borders: Carolines tropical moist forests and Yap tropical dry forests. It had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.55/10, ranking it 37th globally out of 172 countries.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The major coastal communities are mangrove forests, seagrass beds, lagoons and coral reefs, biologically and physically linked. About 300 species of coral, 1000 species of fish and 1200 species of mollusks are recognized in Micronesia. In the mangrove forests there are shrimps, crabs and fish, as well as birds that feed on them. Seagrass meadows appear offshore following the mangroves. The lagoons provide food for the reef inhabitants and contain various kinds of plankton. The biodiversity and complexity of the coral reefs increases markedly from east to west, with 150 species of hard coral at Kosrae, 200 at Pohnpei and 300 at Chuuk. Coral productivity in this area is among the highest in the world, absorbing about 2500 grams of carbon per square meter per year, against 2200 grams in the tropical forest and 125 grams in the open sea.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Inland, from the tidal zone to the top of the mountains there is a varied range of vegetation, cloud forest, upland, palm, plantation, areas dominated by climbers of the genus Merremia, savannas, native secondary forest, fragments of introduced trees, cultivated areas, freshwater swamps, swamps of the palm Nypa fruticans, atoll forests, forests in rocky areas and beaches. There are about 1230 species of ferns and flowering plants, of which 782 are native, including 145 native fern species. On Pohnpei Island, there are about 750 plant species, of which 110 are endemic. Another 457 species have been introduced.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Federated States of Micronesia has a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen: Af). The weather is warm, humid and rainy all year round. The islands are located north of the equator and are affected by constant trade winds, which temper the climate. Minimum temperatures range all year round between 22 and 25 °C, and maximum temperatures between 30 and 32 °C. The abundant precipitations oscillate between 2500 and 5000 mm per year, although in the faces oriented to the wind they can surpass 6000 mm. Mount Nahnalaud, only 750 m high, on the island of Pohnpei, receives an average of 10,160 mm, being one of the rainiest places on earth, with almost always overcast skies. In general, the rains are produced by showers and storms of short duration but very intense. The driest places are the flat atolls, where rainfall can drop below 3000 mm. The driest months are January and February, with no less than 250 mm and 20 days of rain.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Transportation in the Federated States of Micronesia",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The Federated States of Micronesia is served by four international airports.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Economic activity in the Federated States of Micronesia consists primarily of subsistence farming and fishing. The islands have few mineral deposits worth exploiting, except for high-grade phosphate. Long line fishing of tuna is also viable with foreign vessels from China that operated in the 1990s. The potential for a tourist industry exists, but the remoteness of the location and a lack of adequate facilities hinder development. Financial assistance from the U.S. is the primary source of revenue, with the U.S. pledged to spend $1.3 billion in the islands in 1986–2001; when the Compact was amended in 2004, the United States committed to providing $110 million in development aid through 2023. The CIA World Factbook lists high dependence on U.S. aid as one of the main concerns of the FSM. Geographical isolation and a poorly developed infrastructure are major impediments to long-term growth.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The indigenous population of the nation, which is predominantly Micronesian, consists of various ethnolinguistic groups. It has a nearly 100% Pacific Islander and Asian population: Chuukese 48.8%, Pohnpeian 24.2%, Kosraean 6.2%, Yapese 5.2%, Yap outer islands 4.5%, Asian 1.8%, Polynesian 1.5%, other 6.4%, unknown 1.4%. A sizable minority also have some Japanese ancestry, which is a result of intermarriages between Japanese settlers and Micronesians during the Japanese colonial period.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "There is also a growing expatriate population of Americans, Australians, Europeans, and residents from China and the Philippines since the 1990s. English has become the common language of the government, and for secondary and tertiary education. Outside of the main capital towns of the four FSM states, the local languages are primarily spoken. In the Catholic mission of Pohnpei, among the Mercedarian missionaries, considered an institution in the country, Spanish is also spoken. Growth remains high at more than 3% annually, offset somewhat by net emigration.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "English is the official and common language. Aside from English, the following Austronesian languages are spoken:",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The Federated States of Micronesia are 97% Christian. More than half of the population follows the Catholic Church (55%) and about 42% follow various Protestant Christian groups. In general this is due to Spanish and German colonial history. Spanish rule meant that a large part of the population remained Catholic. During the German colonial period, until 1914, Catholic and Protestant missionaries from the German Empire were deployed. Several Protestant denominations, as well as the Roman Catholic Church, are present in every Micronesian state. Most Protestant groups trace their roots to American Congregationalist missionaries. On the island of Kosrae, the population is approximately 7,800; 95 percent are Protestants. On Pohnpei, the population of 35,000 is evenly divided between Protestants and Catholics. Most immigrants are Filipino Catholics who have joined local Catholic churches, e.g. Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church in Pohnpei.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "On Chuuk and Yap, an estimated 60 percent are Catholic and 40 percent are Protestant. Religious groups with small followings include Baptists, Assemblies of God, Salvation Army, Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and the Baháʼí Faith. There is a small group of Buddhists on Pohnpei, and a small group of Ahmadiyya Muslims in both Pohnpei and Kosrae. Attendance at religious services is generally high; churches are well supported by their congregations and play a significant role in civil society.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In the 1890s, on the island of Pohnpei, intermissionary conflicts and the conversion of clan leaders resulted in religious divisions along clan lines which persist today. More Protestants live on the western side of the island, while more Catholics live on the eastern side. Missionaries of many religious traditions are present and operate freely. The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice. The US government received no reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious belief or practice in 2007.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Life expectancy was 66 for men and 69 for women in 2018.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Pingelap in Pohnpei State is notable for the prevalence of an extreme form of color blindness called Achromatopsia, and known locally as maskun. Approximately 5% of the atoll's 3000 inhabitants are afflicted.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Baseball is very popular in the FSM.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The sport of association football in the Federated States of Micronesia is run by the Federated States of Micronesia Football Association. They control the Micronesian Games, the nation's football championship and the Micronesia national football team.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The Federated States of Micronesia Athletic Association is the governing body for the country's sports and athletics.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Each of the four states has its own culture and traditions, but there are also common cultural and economic bonds that are centuries old. Cultural similarities include the importance of the traditional extended family and clan systems and are found on all the islands.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The island of Yap is notable for its \"stone money\" (Rai stones), large disks usually of calcite, up to 4 meters (13 ft) in diameter, with a hole in the middle. The islanders, aware of the owner of a piece, do not necessarily move them when ownership changes. There are five major types: Mmbul, Gaw, Ray, Yar, and Reng, the last being only 30 cm (12 in) in diameter. Their value is based on both size and history, many of them having been brought from other islands, as far as New Guinea, but most coming in ancient times from Palau. Approximately 6,500 of them are scattered around the island.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Pohnpei is home to Nan Madol: Ceremonial Centre of Eastern Micronesia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but the site is currently listed as In Danger due to natural causes. The government is working on the conservation of the site.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Traditional dances on the main islands includes \"stick dancing\" on Pohnpei, Chuuk and Yap, standing dances on Chuuk and sitting dances on Yap and Chuuk. The Yapese are particularly known for their skills in dancing. The Yapese stick dance is performed by men, women and children together, while standing dances are performed either by women or men and boys, but never both together. The men participate in various dancing competitions, which are segregated by caste; the lower castes have some distinct dances, such as a woman's standing dance, but can only dance when authorized by a person of a higher caste.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The following papers have been published in the FSM:",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "There have been very few published literary writers from the Federated States of Micronesia. In 2008, Emelihter Kihleng became the first ever Micronesian to publish a collection of poetry in the English language.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Government",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "General information",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "News media",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Maps",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Travel",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Weather",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "6°55′N 158°15′E / 6.917°N 158.250°E / 6.917; 158.250",
"title": "External links"
}
] |
The Federated States of Micronesia, or simply Micronesia, is an island country in Micronesia, a subregion of Oceania. The federation consists of four states—from west to east, Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosrae—that are spread across the western Pacific. Together, the states comprise around 607 islands that cover a longitudinal distance of almost 2,700 km (1,700 mi) just north of the equator. They lie northeast of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, south of Guam and the Marianas, west of Nauru and the Marshall Islands, east of Palau and the Philippines, about 2,900 km (1,800 mi) north of eastern Australia, 3,400 km (2,100 mi) southeast of Japan, and some 4,000 km (2,485 mi) southwest of the main islands of the Hawaiian Islands. While the FSM's total land area is relatively small, the country's waters occupy nearly 3 million km2 (1.2 million sq mi) of the Pacific Ocean, giving the country the 14th-largest exclusive economic zone in the world. The sovereign island nation's capital is Palikir, located on Pohnpei Island, while the largest city is Weno, located in the Chuuk Atoll. Each of its four states is centered on one or more main volcanic islands, and all but Kosrae include numerous outlying atolls. The Federated States of Micronesia is spread across part of the Caroline Islands in the wider region of Micronesia, which consists of thousands of small islands divided among several countries. The term Micronesia may refer to the Federated States or to the region as a whole. The FSM was formerly a part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI), a United Nations Trust Territory under U.S. administration, but it formed its own constitutional government on May 10, 1979, becoming a sovereign state after independence was attained on November 3, 1986, under a Compact of Free Association with the United States. Other neighboring island entities, and also former members of the TTPI, formulated their own constitutional governments and became the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the Republic of Palau (ROP). The FSM has a seat in the United Nations and has been a member of the Pacific Community since 1983.
|
2001-11-02T22:14:29Z
|
2023-12-29T05:44:12Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_States_of_Micronesia
|
11,449 |
Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg
|
Frederick William (German: Friedrich Wilhelm; 16 February 1620 – 29 April 1688) was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, thus ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia, from 1640 until his death in 1688. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he is popularly known as "the Great Elector" (der Große Kurfürst) because of his military and political achievements. Frederick William was a staunch pillar of the Calvinist faith, associated with the rising commercial class. He saw the importance of trade and promoted it vigorously. His shrewd domestic reforms gave Prussia a strong position in the post-Westphalian political order of Northern-Central Europe, setting Prussia up for elevation from duchy to kingdom, achieved under his son and successor.
Elector Frederick William was born in Berlin to George William, Elector of Brandenburg, and Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate. His inheritance consisted of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Duchy of Cleves, the County of Mark, and the Duchy of Prussia.
Owing to the disorder in Brandenburg during the Thirty Years' War, he spent part of his youth in the Netherlands, studying at Leiden University and learning something of war and statecraft under Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. During his boyhood, a marriage had been suggested between him and Christina, heir to the throne of Sweden, but although the idea was revived during the peace negotiations between Sweden and Brandenburg, it came to nothing.
When his father died in 1640, the 20-year-old's reign as elector began.
Following the Thirty Years' War, which devastated much of the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick William focused on rebuilding his war-ravaged territories. Brandenburg-Prussia benefited from his policy of religious tolerance, and he used French subsidies to build up an army that took part in the 1655 to 1660 Second Northern War. This ended with the treaties of Labiau, Wehlau, Bromberg and Oliva; these changed the status of Ducal Prussia from that of a Polish fief to fully sovereign (after a brief period of control by Sweden).
In 1672, Frederick William joined the Franco-Dutch War as an ally of the Dutch Republic, led by his nephew William of Orange but made peace with France in the June 1673 Treaty of Vossem. Although he rejoined the anti-French alliance in 1674, this left him diplomatically isolated; despite conquering much of Swedish Pomerania during the Scanian War, he was obliged to return most of it to Sweden in the 1679 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. In 1666 his title to Cleves, Jülich and Ravensberg was definitely recognized.
Frederick William was a military commander of wide renown, and his standing army would later become the model for the Prussian Army. He is notable for his joint victory with Swedish forces at the Battle of Warsaw, which, according to Hajo Holborn, marked "the beginning of Prussian military history", but the Swedes turned on him at the behest of King Louis XIV and invaded Brandenburg. After marching 250 kilometres in 15 days back to Brandenburg, he caught the Swedes by surprise and managed to defeat them on the field at the Battle of Fehrbellin, destroying the myth of Swedish military invincibility. He later destroyed another Swedish army that invaded the Duchy of Prussia during the Great Sleigh Drive in 1678. He is noted for his use of broad directives and delegation of decision-making to his commanders, which would later become the basis for the German doctrine of Auftragstaktik, and for using rapid mobility to defeat his foes.
Since his capital Berlin had suffered greatly from the Swedish occupation during the Thirty Years' War, Friedrich Wilhelm commissioned the master engineer Johann Gregor Memhardt to plan a city fortification. Construction of the Berlin Fortress began in 1650 following the contemporary fortification model of bastion forts in northern Italy. Large parts were finished between 1658 and 1662, but the last ramparts only in 1683.
Frederick William raised an army of 45,000 soldiers by 1678, through the General War Commissariat presided over by Joachim Friedrich von Blumenthal. He succeeded in his goal of centralizing the administration and increasing the revenue, and was an advocate of mercantilism, monopolies, subsidies, tariffs, and internal improvements. Following Louis XIV's revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Frederick William encouraged skilled French and Walloon Huguenots to emigrate to Brandenburg-Prussia with the Edict of Potsdam, bolstering the country's technical and industrial base. On Blumenthal's advice he agreed to exempt the nobility from taxes and in return they agreed to dissolve the Estates-General. He also simplified travel in Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia by connecting riverways with canals, a system that was expanded by later Prussian architects, such as Georg Steenke; the system is still in use today.
In his half-century reign, 1640–1688, the Great Elector transformed the small remote state of Prussia into a great power by augmenting and integrating the Hohenzollern family possessions in northern Germany and Prussia. When he became elector (ruler) of Brandenburg in 1640, the country was in ruins from the Thirty Years' War; it had lost half its population from war, disease and emigration. The capital Berlin had only 6,000 people left when the wars ended in 1648. He united the multiple separate domains that his family had acquired primarily by marriage over the decades, and built the powerful unified state of Prussia out of them. His success in rebuilding the lands and his astute military and diplomatic leadership propelled him into the ranks of the prominent rulers in an era of "absolutism". Historians compare him to his contemporaries such as Louis XIV of France (1643–1715), Peter the Great (1682–1725) of Russia, and Charles XI of Sweden (1660–1697).
Although a strict Calvinist who stood ready to form alliances against the Catholic states led by France's Louis XIV, he was tolerant of Catholics and Jews. He settled some 20,000 Huguenot refugees from France in his domains, which helped establish industry and trade, as did the foreign craftsmen he brought in. He established local governments in each province, headed by a governor and a chancellor, but they reported to his central government in Berlin. The Great Elector is most famous for building a strong standing army, with an elite officer corps. In 1668 he introduced the Prussian General Staff; it became the model in controlling an army for other European powers. Funding the military through heavy taxes required building up new industry, such as wool, cotton, linen, lace, soap, paper, and iron. He paid attention to infrastructure, especially building the Frederick William Canal through Berlin, linking his capital city to ocean traffic. He was frustrated in building up naval power, lacking ports and sailors. A learned man, he founded a university and established the Berlin library.
In 1682, at the suggestion of the Dutch merchant and privateer Benjamin Raule, he granted a charter to the Brandenburg Africa Company (BAC), marking the first organised and sustained attempt by a German state to take part in the Atlantic slave trade. As Brandenburg-Prussia remained economically impoverished after the Thirty Years War, he hoped to replicate the mercantile successes of the Dutch East India Company. The charter he granted to the BAC stipulated that they could establish a colony in West Africa, which was subsequently named the Brandenburger Gold Coast. Between 17,000 and 30,000 enslaved Africans were transported by the BAC to the Americas before the colony was sold to the Dutch in 1721.
Significant ships named after Frederick William include two Imperial Navy ships of Germany named Grosser Kurfürst: one built in 1875 and the other built in 1913. Shipping company Norddeutscher Lloyd (aka North German Lloyd) also built a cargo and passenger liner for North Atlantic service with the same name that was later taken into US Navy service.
On 7 December 1646 in The Hague, Frederick William entered into a marriage, proposed by Blumenthal as a partial solution to the Jülich-Berg question, with Luise Henriette of Nassau (1627–1667), daughter of Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels and his 1st cousin once removed through William the Silent. Their children were as follows:
On 13 June 1668 in Gröningen, Frederick William married Sophie Dorothea of Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, daughter of Philip, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and Sophie Hedwig of Saxe-Lauenburg, widow of Christian Louis, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Their children were the following:
In both self-confident women he found political advisers who thought and acted pragmatically. Both accompanied him on his campaigns. Luise Henriette also distinguished herself through charity, Sophie Dorothea through extraordinary business acumen, which allowed her to increase both her own fortune (and thus the inheritance of her children) and to strengthen the state economy. Both also left behind impressive palace buildings that they had built on their fiefs from their own income.
The suspicion that Dorothea worked towards a division of Brandenburg-Prussia in order to secure an income for her sons is regarded as refuted by historical scholarship. This negative perception is based on the fact that some publicists do not base their critical judgments on Dorothea on the primary sources, but on the centuries-old legends that are mainly based on publications after her death, especially by Karl Ludwig von Pöllnitz. There is no question, however, that the Elector's eldest surviving son and successor harbored at least corresponding fears about his stepmother.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Frederick William (German: Friedrich Wilhelm; 16 February 1620 – 29 April 1688) was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, thus ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia, from 1640 until his death in 1688. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he is popularly known as \"the Great Elector\" (der Große Kurfürst) because of his military and political achievements. Frederick William was a staunch pillar of the Calvinist faith, associated with the rising commercial class. He saw the importance of trade and promoted it vigorously. His shrewd domestic reforms gave Prussia a strong position in the post-Westphalian political order of Northern-Central Europe, setting Prussia up for elevation from duchy to kingdom, achieved under his son and successor.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Elector Frederick William was born in Berlin to George William, Elector of Brandenburg, and Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate. His inheritance consisted of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Duchy of Cleves, the County of Mark, and the Duchy of Prussia.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Owing to the disorder in Brandenburg during the Thirty Years' War, he spent part of his youth in the Netherlands, studying at Leiden University and learning something of war and statecraft under Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. During his boyhood, a marriage had been suggested between him and Christina, heir to the throne of Sweden, but although the idea was revived during the peace negotiations between Sweden and Brandenburg, it came to nothing.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "When his father died in 1640, the 20-year-old's reign as elector began.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Following the Thirty Years' War, which devastated much of the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick William focused on rebuilding his war-ravaged territories. Brandenburg-Prussia benefited from his policy of religious tolerance, and he used French subsidies to build up an army that took part in the 1655 to 1660 Second Northern War. This ended with the treaties of Labiau, Wehlau, Bromberg and Oliva; these changed the status of Ducal Prussia from that of a Polish fief to fully sovereign (after a brief period of control by Sweden).",
"title": "Foreign diplomacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1672, Frederick William joined the Franco-Dutch War as an ally of the Dutch Republic, led by his nephew William of Orange but made peace with France in the June 1673 Treaty of Vossem. Although he rejoined the anti-French alliance in 1674, this left him diplomatically isolated; despite conquering much of Swedish Pomerania during the Scanian War, he was obliged to return most of it to Sweden in the 1679 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. In 1666 his title to Cleves, Jülich and Ravensberg was definitely recognized.",
"title": "Foreign diplomacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Frederick William was a military commander of wide renown, and his standing army would later become the model for the Prussian Army. He is notable for his joint victory with Swedish forces at the Battle of Warsaw, which, according to Hajo Holborn, marked \"the beginning of Prussian military history\", but the Swedes turned on him at the behest of King Louis XIV and invaded Brandenburg. After marching 250 kilometres in 15 days back to Brandenburg, he caught the Swedes by surprise and managed to defeat them on the field at the Battle of Fehrbellin, destroying the myth of Swedish military invincibility. He later destroyed another Swedish army that invaded the Duchy of Prussia during the Great Sleigh Drive in 1678. He is noted for his use of broad directives and delegation of decision-making to his commanders, which would later become the basis for the German doctrine of Auftragstaktik, and for using rapid mobility to defeat his foes.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Since his capital Berlin had suffered greatly from the Swedish occupation during the Thirty Years' War, Friedrich Wilhelm commissioned the master engineer Johann Gregor Memhardt to plan a city fortification. Construction of the Berlin Fortress began in 1650 following the contemporary fortification model of bastion forts in northern Italy. Large parts were finished between 1658 and 1662, but the last ramparts only in 1683.",
"title": "Domestic policies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Frederick William raised an army of 45,000 soldiers by 1678, through the General War Commissariat presided over by Joachim Friedrich von Blumenthal. He succeeded in his goal of centralizing the administration and increasing the revenue, and was an advocate of mercantilism, monopolies, subsidies, tariffs, and internal improvements. Following Louis XIV's revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Frederick William encouraged skilled French and Walloon Huguenots to emigrate to Brandenburg-Prussia with the Edict of Potsdam, bolstering the country's technical and industrial base. On Blumenthal's advice he agreed to exempt the nobility from taxes and in return they agreed to dissolve the Estates-General. He also simplified travel in Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia by connecting riverways with canals, a system that was expanded by later Prussian architects, such as Georg Steenke; the system is still in use today.",
"title": "Domestic policies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In his half-century reign, 1640–1688, the Great Elector transformed the small remote state of Prussia into a great power by augmenting and integrating the Hohenzollern family possessions in northern Germany and Prussia. When he became elector (ruler) of Brandenburg in 1640, the country was in ruins from the Thirty Years' War; it had lost half its population from war, disease and emigration. The capital Berlin had only 6,000 people left when the wars ended in 1648. He united the multiple separate domains that his family had acquired primarily by marriage over the decades, and built the powerful unified state of Prussia out of them. His success in rebuilding the lands and his astute military and diplomatic leadership propelled him into the ranks of the prominent rulers in an era of \"absolutism\". Historians compare him to his contemporaries such as Louis XIV of France (1643–1715), Peter the Great (1682–1725) of Russia, and Charles XI of Sweden (1660–1697).",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Although a strict Calvinist who stood ready to form alliances against the Catholic states led by France's Louis XIV, he was tolerant of Catholics and Jews. He settled some 20,000 Huguenot refugees from France in his domains, which helped establish industry and trade, as did the foreign craftsmen he brought in. He established local governments in each province, headed by a governor and a chancellor, but they reported to his central government in Berlin. The Great Elector is most famous for building a strong standing army, with an elite officer corps. In 1668 he introduced the Prussian General Staff; it became the model in controlling an army for other European powers. Funding the military through heavy taxes required building up new industry, such as wool, cotton, linen, lace, soap, paper, and iron. He paid attention to infrastructure, especially building the Frederick William Canal through Berlin, linking his capital city to ocean traffic. He was frustrated in building up naval power, lacking ports and sailors. A learned man, he founded a university and established the Berlin library.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1682, at the suggestion of the Dutch merchant and privateer Benjamin Raule, he granted a charter to the Brandenburg Africa Company (BAC), marking the first organised and sustained attempt by a German state to take part in the Atlantic slave trade. As Brandenburg-Prussia remained economically impoverished after the Thirty Years War, he hoped to replicate the mercantile successes of the Dutch East India Company. The charter he granted to the BAC stipulated that they could establish a colony in West Africa, which was subsequently named the Brandenburger Gold Coast. Between 17,000 and 30,000 enslaved Africans were transported by the BAC to the Americas before the colony was sold to the Dutch in 1721.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Significant ships named after Frederick William include two Imperial Navy ships of Germany named Grosser Kurfürst: one built in 1875 and the other built in 1913. Shipping company Norddeutscher Lloyd (aka North German Lloyd) also built a cargo and passenger liner for North Atlantic service with the same name that was later taken into US Navy service.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "On 7 December 1646 in The Hague, Frederick William entered into a marriage, proposed by Blumenthal as a partial solution to the Jülich-Berg question, with Luise Henriette of Nassau (1627–1667), daughter of Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels and his 1st cousin once removed through William the Silent. Their children were as follows:",
"title": "Marriages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "On 13 June 1668 in Gröningen, Frederick William married Sophie Dorothea of Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, daughter of Philip, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and Sophie Hedwig of Saxe-Lauenburg, widow of Christian Louis, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Their children were the following:",
"title": "Marriages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In both self-confident women he found political advisers who thought and acted pragmatically. Both accompanied him on his campaigns. Luise Henriette also distinguished herself through charity, Sophie Dorothea through extraordinary business acumen, which allowed her to increase both her own fortune (and thus the inheritance of her children) and to strengthen the state economy. Both also left behind impressive palace buildings that they had built on their fiefs from their own income.",
"title": "Marriages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The suspicion that Dorothea worked towards a division of Brandenburg-Prussia in order to secure an income for her sons is regarded as refuted by historical scholarship. This negative perception is based on the fact that some publicists do not base their critical judgments on Dorothea on the primary sources, but on the centuries-old legends that are mainly based on publications after her death, especially by Karl Ludwig von Pöllnitz. There is no question, however, that the Elector's eldest surviving son and successor harbored at least corresponding fears about his stepmother.",
"title": "Marriages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "",
"title": "External links"
}
] |
Frederick William was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, thus ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia, from 1640 until his death in 1688. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he is popularly known as "the Great Elector" because of his military and political achievements. Frederick William was a staunch pillar of the Calvinist faith, associated with the rising commercial class. He saw the importance of trade and promoted it vigorously. His shrewd domestic reforms gave Prussia a strong position in the post-Westphalian political order of Northern-Central Europe, setting Prussia up for elevation from duchy to kingdom, achieved under his son and successor.
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2001-11-03T16:31:54Z
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2023-10-19T17:00:22Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_William,_Elector_of_Brandenburg
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11,454 |
Frederick V
|
Frederick V or Friedrich V may refer to:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Frederick V or Friedrich V may refer to:",
"title": ""
}
] |
Frederick V or Friedrich V may refer to: Frederick V, Duke of Swabia (1164–1170)
Frederick V, Count of Zollern (d.1289)
Frederick V, Burgrave of Nuremberg, German noble
Frederick V of Austria (1415–1493), or Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick I, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1460–1536), or Friedrich V, Margrave von Brandenburg-Ansbach-Bayreuth
Frederick V, Margrave of Baden-Durlach (1594–1659)
Frederick V, Elector Palatine (1596–1632), or Friedrich V von der Pfalz
Frederick V of Denmark (1723–1766), king of Denmark and Norway
Frederick V, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg (1748–1820)
|
2020-10-08T16:40:06Z
|
[
"Template:Hndis"
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_V
|
|
11,456 |
French horn
|
The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B♭ (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most often used by players in professional orchestras and bands, although the descant and triple horn have become increasingly popular. A musician who plays a horn is known as a horn player or hornist.
Pitch is controlled through the combination of the following factors: speed of air through the instrument (controlled by the player's lungs and thoracic diaphragm); diameter and tension of lip aperture (by the player's lip muscles—the embouchure) in the mouthpiece; plus, in a modern horn, the operation of valves by the left hand, which route the air into extra sections of tubing. Most horns have lever-operated rotary valves, but some, especially older horns, use piston valves (similar to a trumpet's) and the Vienna horn uses double-piston valves, or pumpenvalves. The backward-facing orientation of the bell relates to the perceived desirability to create a subdued sound in concert situations, in contrast to the more piercing quality of the trumpet. A horn without valves is known as a natural horn, changing pitch along the natural harmonics of the instrument (similar to a bugle). Pitch may also be controlled by the position of the hand in the bell, in effect reducing the bell's diameter. The pitch of any note can easily be raised or lowered by adjusting the hand position in the bell. The key of a natural horn can be changed by adding different crooks of different lengths.
Three valves control the flow of air in the single horn, which is tuned to F or less commonly B♭. The more common double horn has a fourth, trigger valve, usually operated by the thumb, which routes the air to one set of tubing tuned to F or another tuned to B♭ which expands the horn range to over four octaves and blends with flutes or clarinets in a woodwind ensemble. Triple horns with five valves are also made, usually tuned in F, B♭, and a descant E♭ or F. There are also double horns with five valves tuned in B♭, descant E♭ or F, and a stopping valve, which greatly simplifies the complicated and difficult hand-stopping technique, though these are rarer. Also common are descant doubles, which typically provide B♭ and alto F branches.
A crucial element in playing the horn deals with the mouthpiece. Most of the time, the mouthpiece is placed in the exact center of the lips, but, because of differences in the formation of the lips and teeth of different players, some tend to play with the mouthpiece slightly off center. Although the exact side-to-side placement of the mouthpiece varies for most horn players, the up-and-down placement of the mouthpiece is generally two-thirds on the upper lip and one-third on the lower lip. When playing higher notes, the majority of players exert a small degree of additional pressure on the lips using the mouthpiece. However, this is undesirable from the perspective of both endurance and tone: excessive mouthpiece pressure makes the horn sound forced and harsh and decreases the player's stamina due to the resulting constricted flow of blood to the lips and lip muscles. Added pressure from the lips to the mouthpiece can also result in tension in the face resulting in what brass players often call “pushing”. As mentioned before, this results in an undesirable sound, and loss of stamina.
The name "French horn" first came into use in the late 17th century. At that time, French makers were preeminent in the manufacture of hunting horns and were credited with creating the now-familiar, circular "hoop" shape of the instrument. As a result, these instruments were often called, even in English, by their French names: trompe de chasse or cor de chasse (the clear modern distinction between trompes [trumpets] and cors [horns] did not exist at that time).
German makers first devised crooks to make such horns playable in different keys—so musicians came to use "French" and "German" to distinguish the simple hunting horn from the newer horn with crooks, which in England was also called the Italian name corno cromatico (chromatic horn).
More recently, "French horn" is often used colloquially, though the adjective has normally been avoided when referring to the European orchestral horn, ever since the German horn began replacing the French-style instrument in British orchestras around 1930. The International Horn Society has recommended since 1971 that the instrument be simply called the horn.
There is also a more specific use of "French horn" to describe a particular horn type, differentiated from the German horn and Vienna horn. In this sense, "French horn" refers to a narrow-bore instrument (10.8–11.0 mm [0.43–0.43 in]) with three Périnet (piston) valves. It retains the narrow bell-throat and mouthpipe crooks of the orchestral hand horn of the late 18th century, and most often has an "ascending" third valve. This is a whole-tone valve arranged so that with the valve in the "up" position the valve loop is engaged, but when the valve is pressed the loop is cut out, raising the pitch by a whole tone.
As the name indicates, humans originally used to blow on the actual horns of animals before starting to emulate naturally occurring horns with metal ones. The use of animal horns survives with the shofar, a ram's horn, which plays an important role in Jewish religious rituals.
Early metal horns were less complex than modern horns, consisting of brass tubes, wound around a few times, with a slightly flared opening (the bell). These early "hunting" horns were originally played on a hunt, often while mounted, and the sound they produced was called a recheat). Change of pitch was controlled entirely by the lips (the horn not being equipped with valves until the 19th century. Without valves, only the notes within the harmonic series are available. By combining a long length with a narrow bore, the French horn's design allows the player to easily reach the higher overtones which differ by whole tones or less, thus making it capable of playing melodies before valves were invented.
Early horns were commonly pitched in B♭ alto, A, A♭, G, F, E, E♭, D, C, and B♭ basso. Since the only notes available were those on the harmonic series of one of those pitches, horn-players had no ability to play in different keys. The remedy for this limitation was the use of crooks, i.e., sections of tubing of differing length that, when inserted, altered the length of the instrument, and thus its pitch.
In the mid-18th century, horn players began to insert the right hand into the bell to change the length of the instrument, adjusting the tuning up to the distance between two adjacent harmonics depending on how much of the opening was covered.
In 1818 the German makers Heinrich Stölzel and Friedrich Blümel patented the first valved horn, using rotary valves. François Périnet introduced piston valves in France about 1839. The use of valves initially aimed to overcome problems associated with changing crooks during a performance. Valves' unreliability, musical taste, and players' distrust, among other reasons, slowed their adoption into the mainstream. Many traditional conservatories and players refused to use them at first, claiming that the valveless horn, or natural horn, was a better instrument. Some musicians who specialize in period instruments use a natural horn to play in original performance styles, to try to recapture the sound of an older piece's original performances.
The use of valves, however, opened up a great deal more flexibility for playing in different keys; in effect, the horn became an entirely different instrument, fully chromatic for the first time. Valves were originally used primarily as a means to play in different keys without crooks, not for harmonic playing. That is reflected in compositions for horns, which only began to include chromatic passages in the late-19th century. There were many different versions of early valves, most being variants of the piston and rotary systems used in modern horns. Early valves by Blühmel are cited as possibly the first rotary valve, but the first confirmed rotary valve design was in 1832 by Joseph Riedl in Vienna.
Horns may be classified in single horn, double horn, compensating double horn, and triple horn as well as the versatility of detachable bells.
Single horns use a single set of tubes connected to the valves. This allows for simplicity of use and a much lighter weight. They are usually in the keys of F or B♭, although many F horns have longer slides to tune them to E♭, and almost all B♭ horns have a valve to put them in the key of A. The problem with single horns is the inevitable choice between accuracy or tone – while the F horn has the "typical" horn sound, above third-space C accuracy is a concern for the majority of players because, by its nature, one plays high in the horn's harmonic series where the overtones are closer together. This led to the development of the B♭ horn, which, although easier to play accurately, has a less desirable sound in the mid and especially the low register where it is not able to play all of the notes. The solution has been the development of the double horn, which combines the two into one horn with a single lead pipe and bell. Both main types of single horns are still used today as student models because they are cheaper and lighter than double horns. In addition, the single B♭ horns are sometimes used in solo and chamber performances and the single F survives orchestrally as the Vienna horn. Additionally, single F alto and B♭ alto descants are used in the performance of some baroque horn concertos and F, B♭ and F alto singles are occasionally used by jazz performers.
Dennis Brain's benchmark recordings of the Mozart Horn Concerti were made on a single B♭ instrument by Gebr. Alexander, now on display at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Despite the introduction of valves, the single F horn proved difficult for use in the highest range, where the partials grew closer and closer, making accuracy a great challenge. An early solution was simply to use a horn of higher pitch—usually B♭. The use of the F versus the B♭ horn was extensively debated among horn players of the late 19th century, until the German horn maker Eduard Kruspe (namesake of his family's brass instrument firm) produced a prototype of the "double horn" in 1897.
The double horn also combines two instruments into a single frame: the original horn in F, and a second, higher horn keyed in B♭. By using a fourth valve (usually operated by the thumb), the horn player can quickly switch from the deep, warm tones of the F horn to the higher, brighter tones of the B♭ horn, or vice versa, as the horn player may choose to have the horn set into B♭ by default by making a simple adjustment to the valves. The two sets of tones are commonly called "sides" of the horn. Using the fourth valve not only changes the basic length (and thus the harmonic series and pitch) of the instrument, it also causes the three main valves to use proportionate slide lengths.
In the US, the two most common styles ("wraps") of double horns are named Kruspe and Geyer/Knopf, after the first instrument makers who developed and standardized them. The Kruspe wrap locates the B♭ change valve above the first valve, near the thumb. The Geyer wrap has the change valve behind the third valve, near the little finger (although the valve's trigger is still played with the thumb). In effect, the air flows in a completely different direction on the other model. Kruspe wrap horns tend to be larger in the bell throat than the Geyer wrap horns. Traditionally, Kruspe models are constructed from nickel silver (also called German silver, an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc, containing no actual silver) while Geyer horns tend to be of yellow brass; although these differences in finish aren't as prevalent today - horns of both finishes can be found in either wrap. Both models have their own strengths and weaknesses, and while the choice of instrument is very personal, an orchestral horn section is usually found to have either one or the other, owing to the differences in tone color, response, and projection of the two different styles.
In Europe the most popular horns are arguably those made by Gebr. Alexander, of Mainz (particularly the Alexander 103), and those made by Paxman in London. In Germany and the Benelux countries, the Alex 103 is extremely popular. These horns do not fit strictly into the Kruspe or Knopf camps, but have features of both. Alexander prefers the traditional medium bell size, which they have produced for many years, whereas Paxman do offer their models in a range of bell throat sizes. In the United States, the Conn 8D, a mass-produced instrument based on the Kruspe design, has been extremely popular in many areas (New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Philadelphia). Since roughly the early 1990s, however, for reasons ranging from changing tastes to a general dislike of Conn's newer 8Ds, orchestras have been moving away from the popular Conn 8D. Geyer model horns (by Carl Geyer, Karl Hill, Keith Berg, Steve Lewis, Jerry Lechniuk, Dan Rauch, and Ricco-Kuhn) are used in other areas (San Francisco, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston, Houston). The CF Schmidt double, with its unique piston change valve, is occasionally found in sections playing Geyer/Knopf model equipment.
The horn, although not large, is awkward in its shape and does not lend itself well to transport where space is shared or limited, especially on planes. To compensate, horn makers can make the bell detachable; this allows for smaller and more manageable horn cases.
The variety in horn history necessitates consideration of the natural horn, Vienna horn, mellophone, marching horn, and Wagner tuba.
The natural horn is the ancestor of the modern horn. It is essentially descended from hunting horns, with its pitch controlled by air speed, aperture (opening of the lips through which air passes) and the use of the right hand moving around, as well as in and out of the bell. Although a few recent composers have written specifically for the natural horn (e.g., György Ligeti's Hamburg Concerto), today it is played primarily as a period instrument. The natural horn can only play from a single harmonic series at a time because there is only one length of tubing available to the horn player. A proficient player can indeed alter the pitch by partially muting the bell with the right hand, thus enabling the player to reach some notes that are not part of the instrument's natural harmonic series – of course this technique also affects the quality of the tone. The player has a choice of key by using crooks to change the length of tubing.
The Vienna horn is a special horn used primarily in Vienna, Austria. Instead of using rotary valves or piston valves, it uses the pumpenvalve (or Vienna valve), which is a double-piston operating inside the valve slides, and usually situated on the opposite side of the corpus from the player's left hand, and operated by a long pushrod. Unlike the modern horn, which has grown considerably larger internally (for a bigger, broader, and louder tone), and considerably heavier (with the addition of valves and tubing in the case of the double horn) the Vienna horn very closely mimics the size and weight of the natural horn, (although the valves do add some weight, they are lighter than rotary valves) even using crooks in the front of the horn, between the mouthpiece and the instrument. Although instead of the full range of keys, Vienna horn players usually use an F crook and it is looked down upon to use others, though switching to an A or B♭ crook for higher pitched music does happen on occasion. Vienna horns are often used with funnel shaped mouthpieces similar to those used on the natural horn, with very little (if any) backbore and a very thin rim. The Viennese horn requires very specialized technique and can be quite challenging to play, even for accomplished players of modern horns. The Vienna horn has a warmer, softer sound than the modern horn. Its pumpenvalves facilitate a continuous transition between notes (glissando); conversely, a more precise operating of the valves is required to avoid notes that sound out of tune.
Two instruments are called a mellophone. The first is an instrument shaped somewhat like a horn, in that it is formed in a circle and is often referred to as a "classic" or "concert" mellophone. It has piston valves and is played with the right hand on the valves. Most are pitched in the key of F, with facility to switch to E♭, either by changing crooks/leadpipes, or by a valve dedicated to this purpose. Older examples often included the ability to be played in the keys of D and/or C as well. Manufacturing of this instrument sharply decreased in the middle of the 20th century, and this mellophone (or mellophonium) rarely appears today.
The second instrument is used in modern brass bands and marching bands, and is more accurately called a "marching mellophone". A derivative of the F alto horn, it is keyed in F. It is shaped like a flugelhorn, with piston valves played with the right hand and a forward-pointing bell. These horns are generally considered better marching instruments than regular horns because their position is more stable on the mouth, they project better, and they weigh less. It is primarily used as the middle voice of drum and bugle corps. Though they are usually played with a V-cup cornet-like mouthpiece, their range overlaps the common playing range of the horn. This mouthpiece switch makes the mellophone louder, less mellow, and more brassy and brilliant, making it more appropriate for marching bands. Often now with the use of converters, traditional conical horn mouthpieces are used to achieve the more mellow sound of a horn to make the marching band sound more like a concert band.
As they are pitched in F or G and their range overlaps that of the horn, mellophones can be used in place of the horn in brass and marching band settings. Mellophones are, however, sometimes unpopular with horn players because the mouthpiece change can be difficult and requires a different embouchure. Mouthpiece adapters are available so that a horn mouthpiece can fit into the mellophone lead pipe, but this does not compensate for the many differences that a horn player must adapt to. The "feel" of the mellophone can be foreign to a horn player. Another unfamiliar aspect of the mellophone is that it is designed to be played with the right hand instead of the left (though it can be played with the left). Intonation can also be an issue with the mellophone.
While horn players may be asked to play the mellophone, it is unlikely that the instrument was ever intended as a substitute for the horn, mainly because of the fundamental differences described. As an instrument it compromises between the ability to sound like a horn, while being used like a trumpet or flugelhorn, a tradeoff that sacrifices acoustic properties for ergonomics.
The marching horn is quite similar to the mellophone in shape and appearance, but is pitched in the key of B♭, the same as the B♭ side of a double horn. It is also available in F alto, one octave above the F side of a double horn. The marching horn is also played with a horn mouthpiece (unlike the mellophone, which needs an adapter to fit the horn mouthpiece). These instruments are primarily used in marching bands so the sound comes from a forward-facing bell, as dissipation of the sound from the backward-facing bell becomes a concern in open-air environments. Many college marching bands and drum corps, however, use mellophones instead, which, with many marching bands, better balance the tone of the other brass instruments; additionally, mellophones require less special training of trumpeters, who considerably outnumber horn players.
The Wagner tuba is a rare brass instrument that is essentially a horn modified to have a larger bell throat and a vertical bell. Despite its name and its somewhat tuba-shaped appearance, it is generally not considered part of the tuba family, because the instrument's relatively narrow bore causes it to play more like a horn. Invented for Richard Wagner specifically for his work Der Ring des Nibelungen, it has since been written for by various other composers, including Bruckner, Stravinsky and Richard Strauss. It uses a horn mouthpiece and is available as a single tuba in B♭ or F, or, more recently, as a double tuba similar to the double horn. It is usually played in a range similar to that of the euphonium, but its possible range is the same as that of the horn, extending from low F♯, below the bass clef staff to high C above the treble staff when read in F. The low pedal tones are substantially easier to play on the Wagner tuba than on the horn. Wagner viewed the regular horn as a woodwind rather than a brass instrument, evidenced by his placing of the horn parts in his orchestral scores in the woodwind group and not in their usual place above the trumpets in the brass section.
Discussion of the repertoire of horns must recognize the different needs of orchestras and concert bands in contrast to marching bands, as above, but also the use of horns in a wide variety of music, including chamber music and jazz.
The horn is most often used as an orchestral and concert band instrument, with its singular tone being employed by composers to achieve specific effects. Leopold Mozart, for example, used horns to signify the hunt, as in his Jagdsinfonie (hunting symphony). Telemann wrote much for the horn, and it features prominently in the work of Handel and in Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 1. Once the technique of hand-stopping had been developed, allowing fully chromatic playing, composers began to write seriously for the horn. Gustav Mahler made great use of the horn's uniquely haunting and distant sound in his symphonies, notably the famous Nachtmusik (serenade) section of his Symphony No. 7.
Many composers have written works that have become favorites in the horn repertoire. These include Poulenc (Elegie) and Saint-Saëns (Morceau de Concert for horn and orchestra, op. 94 and Romance, op. 36). Others, particularly Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose friend Joseph Leutgeb was a noted horn player, wrote extensively for the instrument, including concerti and other solo works. Mozart's A Musical Joke satirizes the limitations of contemporary horn playing, including the risk of selecting the wrong crook by mistake.
The development of the valve horn was exploited by romantic composers such as Bruckner, Mahler, and Richard Strauss, whose father was a well-known professional horn player. Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks contains one of the best known horn solos from this period, relying on the chromatic facility of the valved horn. Schumann's Konzertstück for four horns and orchestra is a notable three-movement work. Brahms had a lifelong love-affair with the instrument, with many prominently featured parts throughout his four symphonies. However players today typically play Brahms on modern valved instruments.
There is an abundance of chamber music repertoire for horn. It is a standard member of the wind quintet and brass quintet, and often appears in other configurations, such as Brahms' Horn Trio for violin, horn and piano (for which, however, Brahms specified the natural horn). Also, the horn can be used by itself in a horn ensemble or "horn choir". The horn choir is especially practical because the extended range of the horn provides the composer or arranger with more possibilities, registerally, sonically, and contrapuntally.
A classical orchestra usually has at least two French horn players. Typically, the first horn played a high part and the second horn played a low part. Composers from Beethoven (early 1800s) onwards commonly used four horns. Here, the first and second horns played as a pair (first horn being high, second horn being low), and the third and fourth horns played as another pair (third horn being high, fourth horn being low).
Music written for the modern horn follows a similar pattern with the first and third horns being high and the second and fourth horns being low. This configuration serves multiple purposes. It is easier to play high when the adjacent player is playing low and vice versa. Pairing makes it easier to write for horns, as the third and fourth horns can take over from the first and second horns or play contrasting material. For example, if the piece is in C minor, the first and second horns might be in C, the tonic major key, which could get most of the notes, and the third and fourth horns might be in E♭, the relative major key, to fill in the gaps.
Many orchestral horn sections in the 2010s also have an assistant who doubles the first horn part for selected passages, joining in loud parts, playing instead of the principal if there is a first horn solo approaching, or alternating with the principal if the part is tiring to play. Often the assistant is asked to play a passage after resting a long time. Also, he or she may be asked to enter in the middle of a passage, exactly matching the sound, articulation, and overall interpretation of the principal, thus enabling the principal horn to rest a bit.
The French horn was at first rarely used in jazz music. (Note that colloquially in jazz, the word "horn" refers to any wind instrument.) Notable exponents, however, began including French horn in jazz pieces and ensembles. These include composer/arranger Gil Evans who included the French horn as an ensemble instrument from the 1940s, first in Claude Thornhill's groups, and later with the pioneering cool jazz nonet (nine-piece group) led by trumpeter Miles Davis, and in many other projects that sometimes also featured Davis, as well as Don Ellis, a trumpet player from Stan Kenton's jazz band. Notable works of Ellis' jazz French horn include "Strawberry Soup" and other songs on the album Tears of Joy. Notable improvising horn players in jazz include Julius Watkins, Willie Ruff, John Graas, David Amram, John Clark, Vincent Chancey, Giovanni Hoffer, Arkady Shilkloper, Adam Unsworth, and Tom Varner.
People who are more notable for their other achievements, but also play the horn, include actors Ewan McGregor and David Ogden Stiers, comedian and television host Jon Stewart, journalist Chuck Todd, The Who bassist and singer John Entwistle, and rapper and record producer B.o.B.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B♭ (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most often used by players in professional orchestras and bands, although the descant and triple horn have become increasingly popular. A musician who plays a horn is known as a horn player or hornist.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Pitch is controlled through the combination of the following factors: speed of air through the instrument (controlled by the player's lungs and thoracic diaphragm); diameter and tension of lip aperture (by the player's lip muscles—the embouchure) in the mouthpiece; plus, in a modern horn, the operation of valves by the left hand, which route the air into extra sections of tubing. Most horns have lever-operated rotary valves, but some, especially older horns, use piston valves (similar to a trumpet's) and the Vienna horn uses double-piston valves, or pumpenvalves. The backward-facing orientation of the bell relates to the perceived desirability to create a subdued sound in concert situations, in contrast to the more piercing quality of the trumpet. A horn without valves is known as a natural horn, changing pitch along the natural harmonics of the instrument (similar to a bugle). Pitch may also be controlled by the position of the hand in the bell, in effect reducing the bell's diameter. The pitch of any note can easily be raised or lowered by adjusting the hand position in the bell. The key of a natural horn can be changed by adding different crooks of different lengths.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Three valves control the flow of air in the single horn, which is tuned to F or less commonly B♭. The more common double horn has a fourth, trigger valve, usually operated by the thumb, which routes the air to one set of tubing tuned to F or another tuned to B♭ which expands the horn range to over four octaves and blends with flutes or clarinets in a woodwind ensemble. Triple horns with five valves are also made, usually tuned in F, B♭, and a descant E♭ or F. There are also double horns with five valves tuned in B♭, descant E♭ or F, and a stopping valve, which greatly simplifies the complicated and difficult hand-stopping technique, though these are rarer. Also common are descant doubles, which typically provide B♭ and alto F branches.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A crucial element in playing the horn deals with the mouthpiece. Most of the time, the mouthpiece is placed in the exact center of the lips, but, because of differences in the formation of the lips and teeth of different players, some tend to play with the mouthpiece slightly off center. Although the exact side-to-side placement of the mouthpiece varies for most horn players, the up-and-down placement of the mouthpiece is generally two-thirds on the upper lip and one-third on the lower lip. When playing higher notes, the majority of players exert a small degree of additional pressure on the lips using the mouthpiece. However, this is undesirable from the perspective of both endurance and tone: excessive mouthpiece pressure makes the horn sound forced and harsh and decreases the player's stamina due to the resulting constricted flow of blood to the lips and lip muscles. Added pressure from the lips to the mouthpiece can also result in tension in the face resulting in what brass players often call “pushing”. As mentioned before, this results in an undesirable sound, and loss of stamina.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The name \"French horn\" first came into use in the late 17th century. At that time, French makers were preeminent in the manufacture of hunting horns and were credited with creating the now-familiar, circular \"hoop\" shape of the instrument. As a result, these instruments were often called, even in English, by their French names: trompe de chasse or cor de chasse (the clear modern distinction between trompes [trumpets] and cors [horns] did not exist at that time).",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "German makers first devised crooks to make such horns playable in different keys—so musicians came to use \"French\" and \"German\" to distinguish the simple hunting horn from the newer horn with crooks, which in England was also called the Italian name corno cromatico (chromatic horn).",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "More recently, \"French horn\" is often used colloquially, though the adjective has normally been avoided when referring to the European orchestral horn, ever since the German horn began replacing the French-style instrument in British orchestras around 1930. The International Horn Society has recommended since 1971 that the instrument be simply called the horn.",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "There is also a more specific use of \"French horn\" to describe a particular horn type, differentiated from the German horn and Vienna horn. In this sense, \"French horn\" refers to a narrow-bore instrument (10.8–11.0 mm [0.43–0.43 in]) with three Périnet (piston) valves. It retains the narrow bell-throat and mouthpipe crooks of the orchestral hand horn of the late 18th century, and most often has an \"ascending\" third valve. This is a whole-tone valve arranged so that with the valve in the \"up\" position the valve loop is engaged, but when the valve is pressed the loop is cut out, raising the pitch by a whole tone.",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "As the name indicates, humans originally used to blow on the actual horns of animals before starting to emulate naturally occurring horns with metal ones. The use of animal horns survives with the shofar, a ram's horn, which plays an important role in Jewish religious rituals.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Early metal horns were less complex than modern horns, consisting of brass tubes, wound around a few times, with a slightly flared opening (the bell). These early \"hunting\" horns were originally played on a hunt, often while mounted, and the sound they produced was called a recheat). Change of pitch was controlled entirely by the lips (the horn not being equipped with valves until the 19th century. Without valves, only the notes within the harmonic series are available. By combining a long length with a narrow bore, the French horn's design allows the player to easily reach the higher overtones which differ by whole tones or less, thus making it capable of playing melodies before valves were invented.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Early horns were commonly pitched in B♭ alto, A, A♭, G, F, E, E♭, D, C, and B♭ basso. Since the only notes available were those on the harmonic series of one of those pitches, horn-players had no ability to play in different keys. The remedy for this limitation was the use of crooks, i.e., sections of tubing of differing length that, when inserted, altered the length of the instrument, and thus its pitch.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In the mid-18th century, horn players began to insert the right hand into the bell to change the length of the instrument, adjusting the tuning up to the distance between two adjacent harmonics depending on how much of the opening was covered.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In 1818 the German makers Heinrich Stölzel and Friedrich Blümel patented the first valved horn, using rotary valves. François Périnet introduced piston valves in France about 1839. The use of valves initially aimed to overcome problems associated with changing crooks during a performance. Valves' unreliability, musical taste, and players' distrust, among other reasons, slowed their adoption into the mainstream. Many traditional conservatories and players refused to use them at first, claiming that the valveless horn, or natural horn, was a better instrument. Some musicians who specialize in period instruments use a natural horn to play in original performance styles, to try to recapture the sound of an older piece's original performances.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The use of valves, however, opened up a great deal more flexibility for playing in different keys; in effect, the horn became an entirely different instrument, fully chromatic for the first time. Valves were originally used primarily as a means to play in different keys without crooks, not for harmonic playing. That is reflected in compositions for horns, which only began to include chromatic passages in the late-19th century. There were many different versions of early valves, most being variants of the piston and rotary systems used in modern horns. Early valves by Blühmel are cited as possibly the first rotary valve, but the first confirmed rotary valve design was in 1832 by Joseph Riedl in Vienna.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Horns may be classified in single horn, double horn, compensating double horn, and triple horn as well as the versatility of detachable bells.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Single horns use a single set of tubes connected to the valves. This allows for simplicity of use and a much lighter weight. They are usually in the keys of F or B♭, although many F horns have longer slides to tune them to E♭, and almost all B♭ horns have a valve to put them in the key of A. The problem with single horns is the inevitable choice between accuracy or tone – while the F horn has the \"typical\" horn sound, above third-space C accuracy is a concern for the majority of players because, by its nature, one plays high in the horn's harmonic series where the overtones are closer together. This led to the development of the B♭ horn, which, although easier to play accurately, has a less desirable sound in the mid and especially the low register where it is not able to play all of the notes. The solution has been the development of the double horn, which combines the two into one horn with a single lead pipe and bell. Both main types of single horns are still used today as student models because they are cheaper and lighter than double horns. In addition, the single B♭ horns are sometimes used in solo and chamber performances and the single F survives orchestrally as the Vienna horn. Additionally, single F alto and B♭ alto descants are used in the performance of some baroque horn concertos and F, B♭ and F alto singles are occasionally used by jazz performers.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Dennis Brain's benchmark recordings of the Mozart Horn Concerti were made on a single B♭ instrument by Gebr. Alexander, now on display at the Royal Academy of Music in London.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Despite the introduction of valves, the single F horn proved difficult for use in the highest range, where the partials grew closer and closer, making accuracy a great challenge. An early solution was simply to use a horn of higher pitch—usually B♭. The use of the F versus the B♭ horn was extensively debated among horn players of the late 19th century, until the German horn maker Eduard Kruspe (namesake of his family's brass instrument firm) produced a prototype of the \"double horn\" in 1897.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The double horn also combines two instruments into a single frame: the original horn in F, and a second, higher horn keyed in B♭. By using a fourth valve (usually operated by the thumb), the horn player can quickly switch from the deep, warm tones of the F horn to the higher, brighter tones of the B♭ horn, or vice versa, as the horn player may choose to have the horn set into B♭ by default by making a simple adjustment to the valves. The two sets of tones are commonly called \"sides\" of the horn. Using the fourth valve not only changes the basic length (and thus the harmonic series and pitch) of the instrument, it also causes the three main valves to use proportionate slide lengths.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In the US, the two most common styles (\"wraps\") of double horns are named Kruspe and Geyer/Knopf, after the first instrument makers who developed and standardized them. The Kruspe wrap locates the B♭ change valve above the first valve, near the thumb. The Geyer wrap has the change valve behind the third valve, near the little finger (although the valve's trigger is still played with the thumb). In effect, the air flows in a completely different direction on the other model. Kruspe wrap horns tend to be larger in the bell throat than the Geyer wrap horns. Traditionally, Kruspe models are constructed from nickel silver (also called German silver, an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc, containing no actual silver) while Geyer horns tend to be of yellow brass; although these differences in finish aren't as prevalent today - horns of both finishes can be found in either wrap. Both models have their own strengths and weaknesses, and while the choice of instrument is very personal, an orchestral horn section is usually found to have either one or the other, owing to the differences in tone color, response, and projection of the two different styles.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In Europe the most popular horns are arguably those made by Gebr. Alexander, of Mainz (particularly the Alexander 103), and those made by Paxman in London. In Germany and the Benelux countries, the Alex 103 is extremely popular. These horns do not fit strictly into the Kruspe or Knopf camps, but have features of both. Alexander prefers the traditional medium bell size, which they have produced for many years, whereas Paxman do offer their models in a range of bell throat sizes. In the United States, the Conn 8D, a mass-produced instrument based on the Kruspe design, has been extremely popular in many areas (New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Philadelphia). Since roughly the early 1990s, however, for reasons ranging from changing tastes to a general dislike of Conn's newer 8Ds, orchestras have been moving away from the popular Conn 8D. Geyer model horns (by Carl Geyer, Karl Hill, Keith Berg, Steve Lewis, Jerry Lechniuk, Dan Rauch, and Ricco-Kuhn) are used in other areas (San Francisco, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston, Houston). The CF Schmidt double, with its unique piston change valve, is occasionally found in sections playing Geyer/Knopf model equipment.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The horn, although not large, is awkward in its shape and does not lend itself well to transport where space is shared or limited, especially on planes. To compensate, horn makers can make the bell detachable; this allows for smaller and more manageable horn cases.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The variety in horn history necessitates consideration of the natural horn, Vienna horn, mellophone, marching horn, and Wagner tuba.",
"title": "Related horns"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The natural horn is the ancestor of the modern horn. It is essentially descended from hunting horns, with its pitch controlled by air speed, aperture (opening of the lips through which air passes) and the use of the right hand moving around, as well as in and out of the bell. Although a few recent composers have written specifically for the natural horn (e.g., György Ligeti's Hamburg Concerto), today it is played primarily as a period instrument. The natural horn can only play from a single harmonic series at a time because there is only one length of tubing available to the horn player. A proficient player can indeed alter the pitch by partially muting the bell with the right hand, thus enabling the player to reach some notes that are not part of the instrument's natural harmonic series – of course this technique also affects the quality of the tone. The player has a choice of key by using crooks to change the length of tubing.",
"title": "Related horns"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The Vienna horn is a special horn used primarily in Vienna, Austria. Instead of using rotary valves or piston valves, it uses the pumpenvalve (or Vienna valve), which is a double-piston operating inside the valve slides, and usually situated on the opposite side of the corpus from the player's left hand, and operated by a long pushrod. Unlike the modern horn, which has grown considerably larger internally (for a bigger, broader, and louder tone), and considerably heavier (with the addition of valves and tubing in the case of the double horn) the Vienna horn very closely mimics the size and weight of the natural horn, (although the valves do add some weight, they are lighter than rotary valves) even using crooks in the front of the horn, between the mouthpiece and the instrument. Although instead of the full range of keys, Vienna horn players usually use an F crook and it is looked down upon to use others, though switching to an A or B♭ crook for higher pitched music does happen on occasion. Vienna horns are often used with funnel shaped mouthpieces similar to those used on the natural horn, with very little (if any) backbore and a very thin rim. The Viennese horn requires very specialized technique and can be quite challenging to play, even for accomplished players of modern horns. The Vienna horn has a warmer, softer sound than the modern horn. Its pumpenvalves facilitate a continuous transition between notes (glissando); conversely, a more precise operating of the valves is required to avoid notes that sound out of tune.",
"title": "Related horns"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Two instruments are called a mellophone. The first is an instrument shaped somewhat like a horn, in that it is formed in a circle and is often referred to as a \"classic\" or \"concert\" mellophone. It has piston valves and is played with the right hand on the valves. Most are pitched in the key of F, with facility to switch to E♭, either by changing crooks/leadpipes, or by a valve dedicated to this purpose. Older examples often included the ability to be played in the keys of D and/or C as well. Manufacturing of this instrument sharply decreased in the middle of the 20th century, and this mellophone (or mellophonium) rarely appears today.",
"title": "Related horns"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The second instrument is used in modern brass bands and marching bands, and is more accurately called a \"marching mellophone\". A derivative of the F alto horn, it is keyed in F. It is shaped like a flugelhorn, with piston valves played with the right hand and a forward-pointing bell. These horns are generally considered better marching instruments than regular horns because their position is more stable on the mouth, they project better, and they weigh less. It is primarily used as the middle voice of drum and bugle corps. Though they are usually played with a V-cup cornet-like mouthpiece, their range overlaps the common playing range of the horn. This mouthpiece switch makes the mellophone louder, less mellow, and more brassy and brilliant, making it more appropriate for marching bands. Often now with the use of converters, traditional conical horn mouthpieces are used to achieve the more mellow sound of a horn to make the marching band sound more like a concert band.",
"title": "Related horns"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "As they are pitched in F or G and their range overlaps that of the horn, mellophones can be used in place of the horn in brass and marching band settings. Mellophones are, however, sometimes unpopular with horn players because the mouthpiece change can be difficult and requires a different embouchure. Mouthpiece adapters are available so that a horn mouthpiece can fit into the mellophone lead pipe, but this does not compensate for the many differences that a horn player must adapt to. The \"feel\" of the mellophone can be foreign to a horn player. Another unfamiliar aspect of the mellophone is that it is designed to be played with the right hand instead of the left (though it can be played with the left). Intonation can also be an issue with the mellophone.",
"title": "Related horns"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "While horn players may be asked to play the mellophone, it is unlikely that the instrument was ever intended as a substitute for the horn, mainly because of the fundamental differences described. As an instrument it compromises between the ability to sound like a horn, while being used like a trumpet or flugelhorn, a tradeoff that sacrifices acoustic properties for ergonomics.",
"title": "Related horns"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The marching horn is quite similar to the mellophone in shape and appearance, but is pitched in the key of B♭, the same as the B♭ side of a double horn. It is also available in F alto, one octave above the F side of a double horn. The marching horn is also played with a horn mouthpiece (unlike the mellophone, which needs an adapter to fit the horn mouthpiece). These instruments are primarily used in marching bands so the sound comes from a forward-facing bell, as dissipation of the sound from the backward-facing bell becomes a concern in open-air environments. Many college marching bands and drum corps, however, use mellophones instead, which, with many marching bands, better balance the tone of the other brass instruments; additionally, mellophones require less special training of trumpeters, who considerably outnumber horn players.",
"title": "Related horns"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The Wagner tuba is a rare brass instrument that is essentially a horn modified to have a larger bell throat and a vertical bell. Despite its name and its somewhat tuba-shaped appearance, it is generally not considered part of the tuba family, because the instrument's relatively narrow bore causes it to play more like a horn. Invented for Richard Wagner specifically for his work Der Ring des Nibelungen, it has since been written for by various other composers, including Bruckner, Stravinsky and Richard Strauss. It uses a horn mouthpiece and is available as a single tuba in B♭ or F, or, more recently, as a double tuba similar to the double horn. It is usually played in a range similar to that of the euphonium, but its possible range is the same as that of the horn, extending from low F♯, below the bass clef staff to high C above the treble staff when read in F. The low pedal tones are substantially easier to play on the Wagner tuba than on the horn. Wagner viewed the regular horn as a woodwind rather than a brass instrument, evidenced by his placing of the horn parts in his orchestral scores in the woodwind group and not in their usual place above the trumpets in the brass section.",
"title": "Related horns"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Discussion of the repertoire of horns must recognize the different needs of orchestras and concert bands in contrast to marching bands, as above, but also the use of horns in a wide variety of music, including chamber music and jazz.",
"title": "Repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The horn is most often used as an orchestral and concert band instrument, with its singular tone being employed by composers to achieve specific effects. Leopold Mozart, for example, used horns to signify the hunt, as in his Jagdsinfonie (hunting symphony). Telemann wrote much for the horn, and it features prominently in the work of Handel and in Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 1. Once the technique of hand-stopping had been developed, allowing fully chromatic playing, composers began to write seriously for the horn. Gustav Mahler made great use of the horn's uniquely haunting and distant sound in his symphonies, notably the famous Nachtmusik (serenade) section of his Symphony No. 7.",
"title": "Repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Many composers have written works that have become favorites in the horn repertoire. These include Poulenc (Elegie) and Saint-Saëns (Morceau de Concert for horn and orchestra, op. 94 and Romance, op. 36). Others, particularly Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose friend Joseph Leutgeb was a noted horn player, wrote extensively for the instrument, including concerti and other solo works. Mozart's A Musical Joke satirizes the limitations of contemporary horn playing, including the risk of selecting the wrong crook by mistake.",
"title": "Repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The development of the valve horn was exploited by romantic composers such as Bruckner, Mahler, and Richard Strauss, whose father was a well-known professional horn player. Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks contains one of the best known horn solos from this period, relying on the chromatic facility of the valved horn. Schumann's Konzertstück for four horns and orchestra is a notable three-movement work. Brahms had a lifelong love-affair with the instrument, with many prominently featured parts throughout his four symphonies. However players today typically play Brahms on modern valved instruments.",
"title": "Repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "There is an abundance of chamber music repertoire for horn. It is a standard member of the wind quintet and brass quintet, and often appears in other configurations, such as Brahms' Horn Trio for violin, horn and piano (for which, however, Brahms specified the natural horn). Also, the horn can be used by itself in a horn ensemble or \"horn choir\". The horn choir is especially practical because the extended range of the horn provides the composer or arranger with more possibilities, registerally, sonically, and contrapuntally.",
"title": "Repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "A classical orchestra usually has at least two French horn players. Typically, the first horn played a high part and the second horn played a low part. Composers from Beethoven (early 1800s) onwards commonly used four horns. Here, the first and second horns played as a pair (first horn being high, second horn being low), and the third and fourth horns played as another pair (third horn being high, fourth horn being low).",
"title": "Orchestral and concert band horns"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Music written for the modern horn follows a similar pattern with the first and third horns being high and the second and fourth horns being low. This configuration serves multiple purposes. It is easier to play high when the adjacent player is playing low and vice versa. Pairing makes it easier to write for horns, as the third and fourth horns can take over from the first and second horns or play contrasting material. For example, if the piece is in C minor, the first and second horns might be in C, the tonic major key, which could get most of the notes, and the third and fourth horns might be in E♭, the relative major key, to fill in the gaps.",
"title": "Orchestral and concert band horns"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Many orchestral horn sections in the 2010s also have an assistant who doubles the first horn part for selected passages, joining in loud parts, playing instead of the principal if there is a first horn solo approaching, or alternating with the principal if the part is tiring to play. Often the assistant is asked to play a passage after resting a long time. Also, he or she may be asked to enter in the middle of a passage, exactly matching the sound, articulation, and overall interpretation of the principal, thus enabling the principal horn to rest a bit.",
"title": "Orchestral and concert band horns"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The French horn was at first rarely used in jazz music. (Note that colloquially in jazz, the word \"horn\" refers to any wind instrument.) Notable exponents, however, began including French horn in jazz pieces and ensembles. These include composer/arranger Gil Evans who included the French horn as an ensemble instrument from the 1940s, first in Claude Thornhill's groups, and later with the pioneering cool jazz nonet (nine-piece group) led by trumpeter Miles Davis, and in many other projects that sometimes also featured Davis, as well as Don Ellis, a trumpet player from Stan Kenton's jazz band. Notable works of Ellis' jazz French horn include \"Strawberry Soup\" and other songs on the album Tears of Joy. Notable improvising horn players in jazz include Julius Watkins, Willie Ruff, John Graas, David Amram, John Clark, Vincent Chancey, Giovanni Hoffer, Arkady Shilkloper, Adam Unsworth, and Tom Varner.",
"title": "In jazz"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "People who are more notable for their other achievements, but also play the horn, include actors Ewan McGregor and David Ogden Stiers, comedian and television host Jon Stewart, journalist Chuck Todd, The Who bassist and singer John Entwistle, and rapper and record producer B.o.B.",
"title": "Notable horn players"
}
] |
The French horn is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B♭ is the horn most often used by players in professional orchestras and bands, although the descant and triple horn have become increasingly popular. A musician who plays a horn is known as a horn player or hornist. Pitch is controlled through the combination of the following factors: speed of air through the instrument; diameter and tension of lip aperture in the mouthpiece; plus, in a modern horn, the operation of valves by the left hand, which route the air into extra sections of tubing. Most horns have lever-operated rotary valves, but some, especially older horns, use piston valves and the Vienna horn uses double-piston valves, or pumpenvalves. The backward-facing orientation of the bell relates to the perceived desirability to create a subdued sound in concert situations, in contrast to the more piercing quality of the trumpet. A horn without valves is known as a natural horn, changing pitch along the natural harmonics of the instrument. Pitch may also be controlled by the position of the hand in the bell, in effect reducing the bell's diameter. The pitch of any note can easily be raised or lowered by adjusting the hand position in the bell. The key of a natural horn can be changed by adding different crooks of different lengths. Three valves control the flow of air in the single horn, which is tuned to F or less commonly B♭. The more common double horn has a fourth, trigger valve, usually operated by the thumb, which routes the air to one set of tubing tuned to F or another tuned to B♭ which expands the horn range to over four octaves and blends with flutes or clarinets in a woodwind ensemble. Triple horns with five valves are also made, usually tuned in F, B♭, and a descant E♭ or F. There are also double horns with five valves tuned in B♭, descant E♭ or F, and a stopping valve, which greatly simplifies the complicated and difficult hand-stopping technique, though these are rarer. Also common are descant doubles, which typically provide B♭ and alto F branches. A crucial element in playing the horn deals with the mouthpiece. Most of the time, the mouthpiece is placed in the exact center of the lips, but, because of differences in the formation of the lips and teeth of different players, some tend to play with the mouthpiece slightly off center. Although the exact side-to-side placement of the mouthpiece varies for most horn players, the up-and-down placement of the mouthpiece is generally two-thirds on the upper lip and one-third on the lower lip. When playing higher notes, the majority of players exert a small degree of additional pressure on the lips using the mouthpiece. However, this is undesirable from the perspective of both endurance and tone: excessive mouthpiece pressure makes the horn sound forced and harsh and decreases the player's stamina due to the resulting constricted flow of blood to the lips and lip muscles. Added pressure from the lips to the mouthpiece can also result in tension in the face resulting in what brass players often call “pushing”. As mentioned before, this results in an undesirable sound, and loss of stamina.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_horn
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Fra Angelico
|
Fra Angelico, OP (born Guido di Pietro; c. 1395 – 18 February 1455) was a Dominican friar and Italian painter of the Early Renaissance, described by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent". He earned his reputation primarily for the series of frescoes he made for his own friary, San Marco, in Florence, then worked in Rome and other cities. All his known work is of religious subjects.
He was known to contemporaries as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (Brother John of Fiesole) and Fra Giovanni Angelico (Angelic Brother John). In modern Italian he is called Beato Angelico (Blessed Angelic One); the common English name Fra Angelico means the "Angelic friar".
In 1982, Pope John Paul II proclaimed him "blessed" in recognition of the holiness of his life, thereby making the title of "Blessed" official. Fiesole is sometimes misinterpreted as being part of his formal name, but it was merely the name of the town where he took his vows as a Dominican friar, and was used by contemporaries to distinguish him from others who were also known as Fra Giovanni. He is listed in the Roman Martyrology as Beatus Ioannes Faesulanus, cognomento Angelicus—"Blessed John of Fiesole, surnamed 'the Angelic' ".
Vasari wrote of Fra Angelico that "it is impossible to bestow too much praise on this holy father, who was so humble and modest in all that he did and said and whose pictures were painted with such facility and piety."
Fra Angelico was born Guido di Pietro in the hamlet of Rupecanina in the Tuscan area of Mugello near Fiesole towards the end of the 14th century. Nothing is known of his parents. He was baptized Guido. As a child, he was probably known after the Italian fashion as Guidolino ("Little Guido"). The earliest recorded document concerning Fra Angelico dates from 17 October 1417, when he joined a religious confraternity or guild at the Carmine Church, still under the name of Guido di Pietro. This record reveals that he was already a painter, a fact that is subsequently confirmed by two records of payment to Guido di Pietro in January and February 1418 for work done in the church of Santo Stefano del Ponte. The first record of Angelico as a friar dates from 1423, when he is first referred to as Fra Giovanni (Friar John), following the custom of those entering one of the older religious orders of taking a new name. He was a member of the local community at Fiesole, not far from Florence, of the Dominican Order, one of the medieval Orders belonging to a category known as mendicant Orders because they generally lived not from the income of estates but from begging or donations. Fra, a contraction of frater (Latin for 'brother'), is a conventional title for a mendicant friar.
According to Vasari, Fra Angelico initially received training as an illuminator, possibly working with his older brother Benedetto who was also a Dominican and an illuminator. The former Dominican convent of San Marco in Florence, now a state museum, holds several manuscripts that are thought to be entirely or partly by his hand. The painter Lorenzo Monaco may have contributed to his art training, and the influence of the Sienese school is discernible in his work. He also trained with master Varricho in Milan He had several important charges in the convents he lived in, but this did not limit his art, which very soon became famous. According to Vasari, the first paintings of this artist were an altarpiece and a painted screen for the Charterhouse (Carthusian monastery) of Florence; none such exist there now.
From 1408 to 1418, Fra Angelico was at the Dominican friary of Cortona, where he painted frescoes, now mostly destroyed, in the Dominican Church and may have been assistant to Gherardo Starnina or a follower of his. Between 1418 and 1436 he was at the convent of Fiesole, where he also executed a number of frescoes for the church and the Fiesole Altarpiece, which was deteriorated but has since been restored. A predella of the altarpiece remains intact and is conserved in the National Gallery, London, and is a great example of Fra Angelico's ability. It shows Christ in Glory surrounded by more than 250 figures, including beatified Dominicans. In this period he painted some of his masterpieces including a version of The Madonna of Humility, well preserved and property of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum but on loan to the MNAC of Barcelona, an Annunciation along with a Madonna of the Pomegranate, at the Prado Museum.
In 1436, Fra Angelico was one of a number of the friars from Fiesole who moved to the newly built convent or friary of San Marco in Florence. This was an important move which put him in the centre of artistic activity of the region and brought about the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici, one of the wealthiest and most powerful members of the city's governing authority (or "Signoria") and founder of the dynasty that would dominate Florentine politics for much of the Renaissance. Cosimo had a cell reserved for himself at the friary in order that he might retreat from the world. It was, according to Vasari, at Cosimo's urging that Fra Angelico set about the task of decorating the convent, including the magnificent fresco of the Chapter House, the often-reproduced Annunciation at the top of the stairs leading to the cells, the Maesta (or Coronation of the Madonna) with Saints (cell 9) and the many other devotional frescoes, of smaller format but remarkable luminous quality, depicting aspects of the Life of Christ that adorn the walls of each cell.
In 1439 Fra Angelico completed one of his most famous works, the San Marco Altarpiece at Florence. The result was unusual for its time. Images of the enthroned Madonna and Child surrounded by saints were common, but they usually depicted a setting that was clearly heaven-like, in which saints and angels hovered about as divine presences rather than people. But in this instance, the saints stand squarely within the space, grouped in a natural way as if they were able to converse about the shared experience of witnessing the Virgin in glory. Paintings such as this, known as Sacred Conversations, were to become the major commissions of Giovanni Bellini, Perugino and Raphael.
In 1445 Pope Eugene IV summoned him to Rome to paint the frescoes of the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament at St Peter's, later demolished by Pope Paul III. Vasari claims that at this time Fra Angelico was offered the Archbishopric of Florence by Pope Nicholas V, and that he refused it, recommending another friar for the position. The story seems possible and even likely. However, if Vasari's date is correct, then the pope must have been Eugene IV and not Nicholas, who was elected Pope only on 6 March 1447. Moreover, the archbishop in 1446–1459 was the Dominican Antoninus of Florence (Antonio Pierozzi), canonized by Pope Adrian VI in 1523. In 1447 Fra Angelico was in Orvieto with his pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, executing works for the Cathedral. Among his other pupils were Zanobi Strozzi.
From 1447 to 1449 Fra Angelico was back at the Vatican, designing the frescoes for the Niccoline Chapel for Nicholas V. The scenes from the lives of the two martyred deacons of the Early Christian Church, St. Stephen and St. Lawrence may have been executed wholly or in part by assistants. The small chapel, with its brightly frescoed walls and gold leaf decorations gives the impression of a jewel box. From 1449 until 1452, Fra Angelico returned to his old convent of Fiesole, where he was the Prior.
In 1455, Fra Angelico died while staying at a Dominican convent in Rome, perhaps on an order to work on Pope Nicholas' chapel. He was buried in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
When singing my praise, don't liken my talents to those of Apelles. Say, rather, that, in the name of Christ, I gave all I had to the poor.
The deeds that count on Earth are not the ones that count in Heaven.
I, Giovanni, am the flower of Tuscany.
The English writer and critic William Michael Rossetti wrote of the friar:
From various accounts of Fra Angelico's life, it is possible to gain some sense of why he was deserving of canonization. He led the devout and ascetic life of a Dominican friar, and never rose above that rank; he followed the dictates of the order in caring for the poor; he was always good-humored. All of his many paintings were of divine subjects, and it seems that he never altered or retouched them, perhaps from a religious conviction that, because his paintings were divinely inspired, they should retain their original form. He was wont to say that he who illustrates the acts of Christ should be with Christ. It is averred that he never handled a brush without fervent prayer and he wept when he painted a Crucifixion. The Last Judgment and the Annunciation were two of the subjects he most frequently treated.
Pope John Paul II beatified Fra Angelico on 3 October 1982, and in 1984 declared him patron of Catholic artists.
Angelico was reported to say "He who does Christ's work must stay with Christ always". This motto earned him the epithet "Blessed Angelico", because of the perfect integrity of his life and the almost divine beauty of the images he painted, to a superlative extent those of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Fra Angelico was working at a time when the style of painting was in a state of change. This process of change had begun a hundred years previous with the works of Giotto and several of his contemporaries, notably Giusto de' Menabuoi, both of whom had created their major works in Padua, although Giotto was trained in Florence by the great Gothic artist, Cimabue, and painted a fresco cycle of St Francis in the Bardi Chapel in the Basilica di Santa Croce. Giotto had many enthusiastic followers, who imitated his style in fresco, some of them, notably the Lorenzetti, achieving great success.
The patrons of these artists were most often monastic establishments or wealthy families endowing a church. Because the paintings often had devotional purpose, the clients tended to be conservative. Frequently, it would seem, the wealthier the client, the more conservative the painting. There was a very good reason for this. The paintings that were commissioned made a statement about the patron. Thus the more gold leaf it displayed, the more it spoke to the patron's glory. The other valuable commodities in the paint-box were lapis lazuli and vermilion. Paint made from these colours did not lend itself to a tonal treatment. The azure blue made of powdered lapis lazuli went on flat, the depth and brilliance of colour being, like the gold leaf, a sign of the patron's ability to provide well. For these reasons, altarpieces are often much more conservatively painted than frescoes, which were often of almost life-sized figures and relied upon a stage-set quality rather than lavish display in order to achieve effect.
Fra Angelico was the contemporary of Gentile da Fabriano. Gentile's altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi, 1423, in the Uffizi is regarded as one of the greatest works of the style known as International Gothic. At the time it was painted, another young artist, known as Masaccio, was working on the frescoes for the Brancacci Chapel at the church of the Carmine. Masaccio had fully grasped the implications of the art of Giotto. Few painters in Florence saw his sturdy, lifelike and emotional figures and were not affected by them. His work partner was an older painter, Masolino, of the same generation as Fra Angelico. Masaccio died at 27, leaving the work unfinished.
The works of Fra Angelico reveal elements that are both conservatively Gothic and progressively Renaissance. In the altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin, painted for the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella, are all the elements that a very expensive altarpiece of the 14th century was expected to provide; a precisely tooled gold ground, much azure, and much vermilion. The workmanship of the gilded haloes and gold-edged robes is exquisite and all very Gothic. What makes this a Renaissance painting, as against Gentile da Fabriano's masterpiece, is the solidity, three-dimensionality and naturalism of the figures and the realistic way in which their garments hang or drape around them. Even though it is clouds these figures stand upon, and not the earth, they do so with weight.
The series of frescoes that Fra Angelico painted for the Dominican friars at San Marcos realise the advancements made by Masaccio and carry them further. Away from the constraints of wealthy clients and the limitations of panel painting, Fra Angelico was able to express his deep reverence for his God and his knowledge and love of humanity. The meditational frescoes in the cells of the convent have a quieting quality about them. They are humble works in simple colours. There is more mauvish pink than there is red, and the brilliant and expensive blue is almost totally lacking. In its place is dull green and the black and white of Dominican robes. There is nothing lavish, nothing to distract from the spiritual experiences of the humble people who are depicted within the frescoes. Each one has the effect of bringing an incident of the life of Christ into the presence of the viewer. They are like windows into a parallel world. These frescoes remain a powerful witness to the piety of the man who created them. Vasari relates that Cosimo de' Medici seeing these works, inspired Fra Angelico to create a large Crucifixion scene with many saints for the Chapter House. As with the other frescoes, the wealthy patronage did not influence the Friar's artistic expression with displays of wealth.
Masaccio ventured into perspective with his creation of a realistically painted niche at Santa Maria Novella. Subsequently, Fra Angelico demonstrated an understanding of linear perspective particularly in his Annunciation paintings set inside the sort of arcades that Michelozzo and Brunelleschi created at San' Marco's and the square in front of it.
When Fra Angelico and his assistants went to the Vatican to decorate the chapel of Pope Nicholas, the artist was again confronted with the need to please the very wealthiest of clients. In consequence, walking into the small chapel is like stepping into a jewel box. The walls are decked with the brilliance of colour and gold that one sees in the most lavish creations of the Gothic painter Simone Martini at the Lower Church of St Francis of Assisi, a hundred years earlier. Yet Fra Angelico has succeeded in creating designs which continue to reveal his own preoccupation with humanity, with humility and with piety. The figures, in their lavish gilded robes, have the sweetness and gentleness for which his works are famous. According to Vasari:
In their bearing and expression, the saints painted by Fra Angelico come nearer to the truth than the figures done by any other artist.
It is probable that much of the actual painting was done by his assistants to his design. Both Benozzo Gozzoli and Gentile da Fabriano were highly accomplished painters. Benozzo took his art further towards the fully developed Renaissance style with his expressive and lifelike portraits in his masterpiece depicting the Journey of the Magi, painted in the Medici's private chapel at their palazzo.
Through Fra Angelico's pupil Benozzo Gozzoli's careful portraiture and technical expertise in the art of fresco we see a link to Domenico Ghirlandaio, who in turn painted extensive schemes for the wealthy patrons of Florence, and through Ghirlandaio to his pupil Michelangelo and the High Renaissance.
Apart from the lineal connection, superficially there may seem little to link the humble priest with his sweetly pretty Madonnas and timeless Crucifixions to the dynamic expressions of Michelangelo's larger-than-life creations. But both these artists received their most important commissions from the wealthiest and most powerful of all patrons, the Vatican.
When Michelangelo took up the Sistine Chapel commission, he was working within a space that had already been extensively decorated by other artists. Around the walls the Life of Christ and Life of Moses were depicted by a range of artists including his teacher Ghirlandaio, Raphael's teacher Perugino and Botticelli. They were works of large scale and exactly the sort of lavish treatment to be expected in a Vatican commission, vying with each other in the complexity of design, number of figures, elaboration of detail and skilful use of gold leaf. Above these works stood a row of painted Popes in brilliant brocades and gold tiaras. None of these splendours have any place in the work which Michelangelo created. Michelangelo, when asked by Pope Julius II to ornament the robes of the Apostles in the usual way, responded that they were very poor men.
Within the cells of San'Marco, Fra Angelico had demonstrated that painterly skill and the artist's personal interpretation were sufficient to create memorable works of art, without the expensive trappings of blue and gold. In the use of the unadorned fresco technique, the clear bright pastel colours, the careful arrangement of a few significant figures and the skillful use of expression, motion and gesture, Michelangelo showed himself to be the artistic descendant of Fra Angelico. Frederick Hartt describes Fra Angelico as "prophetic of the mysticism" of painters such as Rembrandt, El Greco and Zurbarán.
Unknown
Rome
Cortona
Fiesole
Florence, Basilica di San Marco
Florence, Santa Trinita
Florence, Santa Maria degli Angeli
Florence, Santa Maria Novella
Each cell is decorated with a fresco which matches in size and shape of the single round-headed window beside it. The frescoes are apparently for contemplative purposes. They have a pale, serene, unearthly beauty. Many of Fra Angelico's finest and most reproduced works are among them. There are, particularly in the inner row of cells, some of the less inspiring quality and of the more repetitive subject, perhaps completed by assistants. Many pictures include Dominican saints as witnesses of the scene each in one of the nine traditional prayer postures depicted in De Modo Orandi. The friar using the cell could place himself in the scene.
Orvieto Cathedral
Three segments of the ceiling in the Cappella Nuova, with the assistance of Benozzo Gozzoli.
Niccoline Chapel
The Chapel of Pope Nicholas V, at the Vatican, was probably painted with much assistance from Benozzo Gozzoli and Gentile da Fabriano. The entire surface of the wall and ceiling is sumptuously painted. There is much gold leaf for borders and decoration, and a great use of brilliant blue made from lapis lazuli.
Worldwide press coverage reported in November 2006 that two missing masterpieces by Fra Angelico had turned up, having hung in the spare room of the late Jean Preston, in her terrace house in Oxford, England. Her father had bought them for £100 each in the 1960s then bequeathed them to her when he died. Preston, an expert medievalist, recognised them as being high-quality Florentine renaissance, but did not realize that they were works by Fra Angelico until they were identified in 2005 by Michael Liversidge of Bristol University. There was almost no demand at all for medieval art during the 1960s and no dealers showed any interest, so Preston's father bought them almost as an afterthought along with some manuscripts. The paintings are two of eight side panels of a large altarpiece painted in 1439 for Fra Angelico's monastery at San Marco, which was later split up by Napoleon's army. While the centre section is still at the monastery, the other six small panels are in German and US museums. These two panels were presumed lost forever. The Italian Government had hoped to purchase them but they were outbid at auction on 20 April 2007 by a private collector for £1.7M. Both panels are now restored and exhibited in the San Marco Museum in Florence.
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},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "He was known to contemporaries as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (Brother John of Fiesole) and Fra Giovanni Angelico (Angelic Brother John). In modern Italian he is called Beato Angelico (Blessed Angelic One); the common English name Fra Angelico means the \"Angelic friar\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In 1982, Pope John Paul II proclaimed him \"blessed\" in recognition of the holiness of his life, thereby making the title of \"Blessed\" official. Fiesole is sometimes misinterpreted as being part of his formal name, but it was merely the name of the town where he took his vows as a Dominican friar, and was used by contemporaries to distinguish him from others who were also known as Fra Giovanni. He is listed in the Roman Martyrology as Beatus Ioannes Faesulanus, cognomento Angelicus—\"Blessed John of Fiesole, surnamed 'the Angelic' \".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Vasari wrote of Fra Angelico that \"it is impossible to bestow too much praise on this holy father, who was so humble and modest in all that he did and said and whose pictures were painted with such facility and piety.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Fra Angelico was born Guido di Pietro in the hamlet of Rupecanina in the Tuscan area of Mugello near Fiesole towards the end of the 14th century. Nothing is known of his parents. He was baptized Guido. As a child, he was probably known after the Italian fashion as Guidolino (\"Little Guido\"). The earliest recorded document concerning Fra Angelico dates from 17 October 1417, when he joined a religious confraternity or guild at the Carmine Church, still under the name of Guido di Pietro. This record reveals that he was already a painter, a fact that is subsequently confirmed by two records of payment to Guido di Pietro in January and February 1418 for work done in the church of Santo Stefano del Ponte. The first record of Angelico as a friar dates from 1423, when he is first referred to as Fra Giovanni (Friar John), following the custom of those entering one of the older religious orders of taking a new name. He was a member of the local community at Fiesole, not far from Florence, of the Dominican Order, one of the medieval Orders belonging to a category known as mendicant Orders because they generally lived not from the income of estates but from begging or donations. Fra, a contraction of frater (Latin for 'brother'), is a conventional title for a mendicant friar.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "According to Vasari, Fra Angelico initially received training as an illuminator, possibly working with his older brother Benedetto who was also a Dominican and an illuminator. The former Dominican convent of San Marco in Florence, now a state museum, holds several manuscripts that are thought to be entirely or partly by his hand. The painter Lorenzo Monaco may have contributed to his art training, and the influence of the Sienese school is discernible in his work. He also trained with master Varricho in Milan He had several important charges in the convents he lived in, but this did not limit his art, which very soon became famous. According to Vasari, the first paintings of this artist were an altarpiece and a painted screen for the Charterhouse (Carthusian monastery) of Florence; none such exist there now.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "From 1408 to 1418, Fra Angelico was at the Dominican friary of Cortona, where he painted frescoes, now mostly destroyed, in the Dominican Church and may have been assistant to Gherardo Starnina or a follower of his. Between 1418 and 1436 he was at the convent of Fiesole, where he also executed a number of frescoes for the church and the Fiesole Altarpiece, which was deteriorated but has since been restored. A predella of the altarpiece remains intact and is conserved in the National Gallery, London, and is a great example of Fra Angelico's ability. It shows Christ in Glory surrounded by more than 250 figures, including beatified Dominicans. In this period he painted some of his masterpieces including a version of The Madonna of Humility, well preserved and property of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum but on loan to the MNAC of Barcelona, an Annunciation along with a Madonna of the Pomegranate, at the Prado Museum.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1436, Fra Angelico was one of a number of the friars from Fiesole who moved to the newly built convent or friary of San Marco in Florence. This was an important move which put him in the centre of artistic activity of the region and brought about the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici, one of the wealthiest and most powerful members of the city's governing authority (or \"Signoria\") and founder of the dynasty that would dominate Florentine politics for much of the Renaissance. Cosimo had a cell reserved for himself at the friary in order that he might retreat from the world. It was, according to Vasari, at Cosimo's urging that Fra Angelico set about the task of decorating the convent, including the magnificent fresco of the Chapter House, the often-reproduced Annunciation at the top of the stairs leading to the cells, the Maesta (or Coronation of the Madonna) with Saints (cell 9) and the many other devotional frescoes, of smaller format but remarkable luminous quality, depicting aspects of the Life of Christ that adorn the walls of each cell.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1439 Fra Angelico completed one of his most famous works, the San Marco Altarpiece at Florence. The result was unusual for its time. Images of the enthroned Madonna and Child surrounded by saints were common, but they usually depicted a setting that was clearly heaven-like, in which saints and angels hovered about as divine presences rather than people. But in this instance, the saints stand squarely within the space, grouped in a natural way as if they were able to converse about the shared experience of witnessing the Virgin in glory. Paintings such as this, known as Sacred Conversations, were to become the major commissions of Giovanni Bellini, Perugino and Raphael.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 1445 Pope Eugene IV summoned him to Rome to paint the frescoes of the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament at St Peter's, later demolished by Pope Paul III. Vasari claims that at this time Fra Angelico was offered the Archbishopric of Florence by Pope Nicholas V, and that he refused it, recommending another friar for the position. The story seems possible and even likely. However, if Vasari's date is correct, then the pope must have been Eugene IV and not Nicholas, who was elected Pope only on 6 March 1447. Moreover, the archbishop in 1446–1459 was the Dominican Antoninus of Florence (Antonio Pierozzi), canonized by Pope Adrian VI in 1523. In 1447 Fra Angelico was in Orvieto with his pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, executing works for the Cathedral. Among his other pupils were Zanobi Strozzi.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "From 1447 to 1449 Fra Angelico was back at the Vatican, designing the frescoes for the Niccoline Chapel for Nicholas V. The scenes from the lives of the two martyred deacons of the Early Christian Church, St. Stephen and St. Lawrence may have been executed wholly or in part by assistants. The small chapel, with its brightly frescoed walls and gold leaf decorations gives the impression of a jewel box. From 1449 until 1452, Fra Angelico returned to his old convent of Fiesole, where he was the Prior.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1455, Fra Angelico died while staying at a Dominican convent in Rome, perhaps on an order to work on Pope Nicholas' chapel. He was buried in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "When singing my praise, don't liken my talents to those of Apelles. Say, rather, that, in the name of Christ, I gave all I had to the poor.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The deeds that count on Earth are not the ones that count in Heaven.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "I, Giovanni, am the flower of Tuscany.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The English writer and critic William Michael Rossetti wrote of the friar:",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "From various accounts of Fra Angelico's life, it is possible to gain some sense of why he was deserving of canonization. He led the devout and ascetic life of a Dominican friar, and never rose above that rank; he followed the dictates of the order in caring for the poor; he was always good-humored. All of his many paintings were of divine subjects, and it seems that he never altered or retouched them, perhaps from a religious conviction that, because his paintings were divinely inspired, they should retain their original form. He was wont to say that he who illustrates the acts of Christ should be with Christ. It is averred that he never handled a brush without fervent prayer and he wept when he painted a Crucifixion. The Last Judgment and the Annunciation were two of the subjects he most frequently treated.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Pope John Paul II beatified Fra Angelico on 3 October 1982, and in 1984 declared him patron of Catholic artists.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Angelico was reported to say \"He who does Christ's work must stay with Christ always\". This motto earned him the epithet \"Blessed Angelico\", because of the perfect integrity of his life and the almost divine beauty of the images he painted, to a superlative extent those of the Blessed Virgin Mary.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Fra Angelico was working at a time when the style of painting was in a state of change. This process of change had begun a hundred years previous with the works of Giotto and several of his contemporaries, notably Giusto de' Menabuoi, both of whom had created their major works in Padua, although Giotto was trained in Florence by the great Gothic artist, Cimabue, and painted a fresco cycle of St Francis in the Bardi Chapel in the Basilica di Santa Croce. Giotto had many enthusiastic followers, who imitated his style in fresco, some of them, notably the Lorenzetti, achieving great success.",
"title": "Evaluation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The patrons of these artists were most often monastic establishments or wealthy families endowing a church. Because the paintings often had devotional purpose, the clients tended to be conservative. Frequently, it would seem, the wealthier the client, the more conservative the painting. There was a very good reason for this. The paintings that were commissioned made a statement about the patron. Thus the more gold leaf it displayed, the more it spoke to the patron's glory. The other valuable commodities in the paint-box were lapis lazuli and vermilion. Paint made from these colours did not lend itself to a tonal treatment. The azure blue made of powdered lapis lazuli went on flat, the depth and brilliance of colour being, like the gold leaf, a sign of the patron's ability to provide well. For these reasons, altarpieces are often much more conservatively painted than frescoes, which were often of almost life-sized figures and relied upon a stage-set quality rather than lavish display in order to achieve effect.",
"title": "Evaluation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Fra Angelico was the contemporary of Gentile da Fabriano. Gentile's altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi, 1423, in the Uffizi is regarded as one of the greatest works of the style known as International Gothic. At the time it was painted, another young artist, known as Masaccio, was working on the frescoes for the Brancacci Chapel at the church of the Carmine. Masaccio had fully grasped the implications of the art of Giotto. Few painters in Florence saw his sturdy, lifelike and emotional figures and were not affected by them. His work partner was an older painter, Masolino, of the same generation as Fra Angelico. Masaccio died at 27, leaving the work unfinished.",
"title": "Evaluation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The works of Fra Angelico reveal elements that are both conservatively Gothic and progressively Renaissance. In the altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin, painted for the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella, are all the elements that a very expensive altarpiece of the 14th century was expected to provide; a precisely tooled gold ground, much azure, and much vermilion. The workmanship of the gilded haloes and gold-edged robes is exquisite and all very Gothic. What makes this a Renaissance painting, as against Gentile da Fabriano's masterpiece, is the solidity, three-dimensionality and naturalism of the figures and the realistic way in which their garments hang or drape around them. Even though it is clouds these figures stand upon, and not the earth, they do so with weight.",
"title": "Evaluation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The series of frescoes that Fra Angelico painted for the Dominican friars at San Marcos realise the advancements made by Masaccio and carry them further. Away from the constraints of wealthy clients and the limitations of panel painting, Fra Angelico was able to express his deep reverence for his God and his knowledge and love of humanity. The meditational frescoes in the cells of the convent have a quieting quality about them. They are humble works in simple colours. There is more mauvish pink than there is red, and the brilliant and expensive blue is almost totally lacking. In its place is dull green and the black and white of Dominican robes. There is nothing lavish, nothing to distract from the spiritual experiences of the humble people who are depicted within the frescoes. Each one has the effect of bringing an incident of the life of Christ into the presence of the viewer. They are like windows into a parallel world. These frescoes remain a powerful witness to the piety of the man who created them. Vasari relates that Cosimo de' Medici seeing these works, inspired Fra Angelico to create a large Crucifixion scene with many saints for the Chapter House. As with the other frescoes, the wealthy patronage did not influence the Friar's artistic expression with displays of wealth.",
"title": "Evaluation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Masaccio ventured into perspective with his creation of a realistically painted niche at Santa Maria Novella. Subsequently, Fra Angelico demonstrated an understanding of linear perspective particularly in his Annunciation paintings set inside the sort of arcades that Michelozzo and Brunelleschi created at San' Marco's and the square in front of it.",
"title": "Evaluation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "When Fra Angelico and his assistants went to the Vatican to decorate the chapel of Pope Nicholas, the artist was again confronted with the need to please the very wealthiest of clients. In consequence, walking into the small chapel is like stepping into a jewel box. The walls are decked with the brilliance of colour and gold that one sees in the most lavish creations of the Gothic painter Simone Martini at the Lower Church of St Francis of Assisi, a hundred years earlier. Yet Fra Angelico has succeeded in creating designs which continue to reveal his own preoccupation with humanity, with humility and with piety. The figures, in their lavish gilded robes, have the sweetness and gentleness for which his works are famous. According to Vasari:",
"title": "Evaluation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In their bearing and expression, the saints painted by Fra Angelico come nearer to the truth than the figures done by any other artist.",
"title": "Evaluation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "It is probable that much of the actual painting was done by his assistants to his design. Both Benozzo Gozzoli and Gentile da Fabriano were highly accomplished painters. Benozzo took his art further towards the fully developed Renaissance style with his expressive and lifelike portraits in his masterpiece depicting the Journey of the Magi, painted in the Medici's private chapel at their palazzo.",
"title": "Evaluation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Through Fra Angelico's pupil Benozzo Gozzoli's careful portraiture and technical expertise in the art of fresco we see a link to Domenico Ghirlandaio, who in turn painted extensive schemes for the wealthy patrons of Florence, and through Ghirlandaio to his pupil Michelangelo and the High Renaissance.",
"title": "Evaluation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Apart from the lineal connection, superficially there may seem little to link the humble priest with his sweetly pretty Madonnas and timeless Crucifixions to the dynamic expressions of Michelangelo's larger-than-life creations. But both these artists received their most important commissions from the wealthiest and most powerful of all patrons, the Vatican.",
"title": "Evaluation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "When Michelangelo took up the Sistine Chapel commission, he was working within a space that had already been extensively decorated by other artists. Around the walls the Life of Christ and Life of Moses were depicted by a range of artists including his teacher Ghirlandaio, Raphael's teacher Perugino and Botticelli. They were works of large scale and exactly the sort of lavish treatment to be expected in a Vatican commission, vying with each other in the complexity of design, number of figures, elaboration of detail and skilful use of gold leaf. Above these works stood a row of painted Popes in brilliant brocades and gold tiaras. None of these splendours have any place in the work which Michelangelo created. Michelangelo, when asked by Pope Julius II to ornament the robes of the Apostles in the usual way, responded that they were very poor men.",
"title": "Evaluation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Within the cells of San'Marco, Fra Angelico had demonstrated that painterly skill and the artist's personal interpretation were sufficient to create memorable works of art, without the expensive trappings of blue and gold. In the use of the unadorned fresco technique, the clear bright pastel colours, the careful arrangement of a few significant figures and the skillful use of expression, motion and gesture, Michelangelo showed himself to be the artistic descendant of Fra Angelico. Frederick Hartt describes Fra Angelico as \"prophetic of the mysticism\" of painters such as Rembrandt, El Greco and Zurbarán.",
"title": "Evaluation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Unknown",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Rome",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Cortona",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Fiesole",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Florence, Basilica di San Marco",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Florence, Santa Trinita",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Florence, Santa Maria degli Angeli",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Florence, Santa Maria Novella",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Each cell is decorated with a fresco which matches in size and shape of the single round-headed window beside it. The frescoes are apparently for contemplative purposes. They have a pale, serene, unearthly beauty. Many of Fra Angelico's finest and most reproduced works are among them. There are, particularly in the inner row of cells, some of the less inspiring quality and of the more repetitive subject, perhaps completed by assistants. Many pictures include Dominican saints as witnesses of the scene each in one of the nine traditional prayer postures depicted in De Modo Orandi. The friar using the cell could place himself in the scene.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Orvieto Cathedral",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Three segments of the ceiling in the Cappella Nuova, with the assistance of Benozzo Gozzoli.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Niccoline Chapel",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The Chapel of Pope Nicholas V, at the Vatican, was probably painted with much assistance from Benozzo Gozzoli and Gentile da Fabriano. The entire surface of the wall and ceiling is sumptuously painted. There is much gold leaf for borders and decoration, and a great use of brilliant blue made from lapis lazuli.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Worldwide press coverage reported in November 2006 that two missing masterpieces by Fra Angelico had turned up, having hung in the spare room of the late Jean Preston, in her terrace house in Oxford, England. Her father had bought them for £100 each in the 1960s then bequeathed them to her when he died. Preston, an expert medievalist, recognised them as being high-quality Florentine renaissance, but did not realize that they were works by Fra Angelico until they were identified in 2005 by Michael Liversidge of Bristol University. There was almost no demand at all for medieval art during the 1960s and no dealers showed any interest, so Preston's father bought them almost as an afterthought along with some manuscripts. The paintings are two of eight side panels of a large altarpiece painted in 1439 for Fra Angelico's monastery at San Marco, which was later split up by Napoleon's army. While the centre section is still at the monastery, the other six small panels are in German and US museums. These two panels were presumed lost forever. The Italian Government had hoped to purchase them but they were outbid at auction on 20 April 2007 by a private collector for £1.7M. Both panels are now restored and exhibited in the San Marco Museum in Florence.",
"title": "Works"
}
] |
Fra Angelico, OP was a Dominican friar and Italian painter of the Early Renaissance, described by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent". He earned his reputation primarily for the series of frescoes he made for his own friary, San Marco, in Florence, then worked in Rome and other cities. All his known work is of religious subjects. He was known to contemporaries as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole and Fra Giovanni Angelico. In modern Italian he is called Beato Angelico; the common English name Fra Angelico means the "Angelic friar". In 1982, Pope John Paul II proclaimed him "blessed" in recognition of the holiness of his life, thereby making the title of "Blessed" official. Fiesole is sometimes misinterpreted as being part of his formal name, but it was merely the name of the town where he took his vows as a Dominican friar, and was used by contemporaries to distinguish him from others who were also known as Fra Giovanni. He is listed in the Roman Martyrology as Beatus Ioannes Faesulanus, cognomento Angelicus—"Blessed John of Fiesole, surnamed 'the Angelic' ". Vasari wrote of Fra Angelico that "it is impossible to bestow too much praise on this holy father, who was so humble and modest in all that he did and said and whose pictures were painted with such facility and piety."
|
2001-11-04T02:04:46Z
|
2023-10-23T16:43:18Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fra_Angelico
|
11,458 |
Fra Bartolomeo
|
Fra Bartolomeo or Bartolommeo OP (UK: /ˌbɑːrtɒləˈmeɪoʊ/, US: /-toʊl-/, Italian: [bartolo(m)ˈmɛːo]; 28 March 1472 – 31 October 1517), also known as Bartolommeo di Pagholo, Bartolommeo di San Marco, Paolo di Jacopo del Fattorino, and his original nickname Baccio della Porta, was an Italian Renaissance painter of religious subjects. He spent all his career in Florence until his mid-forties, when he travelled to work in various cities, as far south as Rome. He trained with Cosimo Rosselli and in the 1490s fell under the influence of Savonarola, which led him to become a Dominican friar in 1500, renouncing painting for several years. Typically his paintings are of static groups of figures in subjects such as the Virgin and Child with Saints.
He was instructed to resume painting for the benefit of his order in 1504, and then developed an idealized High Renaissance style, seen in his Vision of St Bernard of that year, now in poor condition but whose "figures and drapery move with a seraphic grace that must have struck the young Raphael with the force of revelation". He remained friends with Raphael, and each influenced the other.
His portrait of Savonarola remains the best known image of the reformer. Fra Bartolomeo painted both in oils and fresco, and some of his drawings are pure landscape sketches that are the earliest of this type from any Italian artist.
He was born in Savignano di Prato, Tuscany. He received the nickname of Baccio della Porta ("Baccio of the Gate"), for his house was near the Gate of San Pier Gattolini.
Starting from 1483 or 1484, by recommendation of Benedetto da Maiano, he apprenticed in the workshop of Cosimo Rosselli. In 1490 or 1491 he began a collaboration with Mariotto Albertinelli. In the late 1490s, Baccio was drawn to the teachings of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who denounced what he viewed as vain and corrupt contemporary art. Savonarola argued for art serving as a direct visual illustration of the Bible to educate those unable to read the book. From 1498 is his famous portrait of Savonarola, now in the Museo Nazionale di San Marco in Florence. The following year he was commissioned a fresco of the Universal Judgement for the Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova, completed by Albertinelli and Giuliano Bugiardini when Baccio became a Dominican friar on 26 July 1500. The following year he entered the convent of San Marco.
He renounced painting for several years, not resuming until 1504 when he became the head of the monastery workshop in obedience to his superior. In that year he began a Vision of St. Bernard for Bernardo Bianco's family chapel in the Badia Fiorentina, finished in 1507. Soon thereafter, Raphael visited Florence and befriended the friar. Bartolomeo learned perspective from the younger artist, while Raphael added skills in coloring and handling of drapery, which was noticeable in the works he produced after their meeting. With Raphael, he remained on the friendliest terms, and when he departed from Rome, left in his hands two unfinished pictures which Raphael completed.
At the beginning of 1508, Bartolomeo moved to Venice to paint a Holy Father, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Catherine of Siena for the Dominicans of San Pietro Martire in Murano, influenced somewhat by Venetian colorism. As the Dominicans did not pay for the work, he took it back to Lucca, where it can be seen now. Also in Lucca, in October 1509, he painted with Albertinelli an altarpiece of the Madonna and Child with Saints for the local cathedral. On 26 November 1510 Pier Soderini commissioned him an altarpiece for the Sala del Consiglio of Florence, now in the Museum of San Marco. Two years later he finished another altarpiece for the cathedral of Besançon.
In 1513, he went to Rome, where he painted a Peter and Paul, now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, while from the following years are the St. Mark Evangelist of Palazzo Pitti in Florence and the frescoes in the Dominican convent of Pian di Mugnone, a frazione of Fiesole, just outside Florence. After a promised Feast of Venus for Duke Alfonso I d'Este of Ferrara, of which only drawings remain, his last work is a fresco of Noli me tangere also in Pian di Mugnone.
He died in Florence in 1517.
Initially, his works showed the influence of Rosselli's assistant, Piero di Cosimo, and those of Domenico Ghirlandaio and Filippino Lippi. After his hiatus from 1500 to 1503, he seemed to change vision, taking from Raphael the representation of light and its effects over moving shapes.
Fra Bartolomeo's figures are generally small and draped. These qualities were alleged against him as defects, and to prove that his style was not the result of want of power, he painted the magnificent figure of the St Mark Evangelist (ranked as his masterpiece), and the undraped figure of Saint Sebastian. It is alleged that the latter was felt to be so strongly expressive of suffering and agony, that it was found necessary to remove it from the place where it had been exhibited in the chapel of a convent.
Fra Bartolomeo's compositions are remarkable for skill in the massing of light and shade, richness and delicacy of colouring, and for the admirable drapery of the figures, Bartolomeo having been the first to introduce and use the lay-figure with joints.
Among his pupils were Cecchino del Frate, Benedetto Ciamfanini, Gabriel Rustici, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (the son of Domenico Ghirlandaio), and Fra Paolo Pistolese.
Attribution:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fra Bartolomeo or Bartolommeo OP (UK: /ˌbɑːrtɒləˈmeɪoʊ/, US: /-toʊl-/, Italian: [bartolo(m)ˈmɛːo]; 28 March 1472 – 31 October 1517), also known as Bartolommeo di Pagholo, Bartolommeo di San Marco, Paolo di Jacopo del Fattorino, and his original nickname Baccio della Porta, was an Italian Renaissance painter of religious subjects. He spent all his career in Florence until his mid-forties, when he travelled to work in various cities, as far south as Rome. He trained with Cosimo Rosselli and in the 1490s fell under the influence of Savonarola, which led him to become a Dominican friar in 1500, renouncing painting for several years. Typically his paintings are of static groups of figures in subjects such as the Virgin and Child with Saints.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "He was instructed to resume painting for the benefit of his order in 1504, and then developed an idealized High Renaissance style, seen in his Vision of St Bernard of that year, now in poor condition but whose \"figures and drapery move with a seraphic grace that must have struck the young Raphael with the force of revelation\". He remained friends with Raphael, and each influenced the other.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "His portrait of Savonarola remains the best known image of the reformer. Fra Bartolomeo painted both in oils and fresco, and some of his drawings are pure landscape sketches that are the earliest of this type from any Italian artist.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "He was born in Savignano di Prato, Tuscany. He received the nickname of Baccio della Porta (\"Baccio of the Gate\"), for his house was near the Gate of San Pier Gattolini.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Starting from 1483 or 1484, by recommendation of Benedetto da Maiano, he apprenticed in the workshop of Cosimo Rosselli. In 1490 or 1491 he began a collaboration with Mariotto Albertinelli. In the late 1490s, Baccio was drawn to the teachings of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who denounced what he viewed as vain and corrupt contemporary art. Savonarola argued for art serving as a direct visual illustration of the Bible to educate those unable to read the book. From 1498 is his famous portrait of Savonarola, now in the Museo Nazionale di San Marco in Florence. The following year he was commissioned a fresco of the Universal Judgement for the Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova, completed by Albertinelli and Giuliano Bugiardini when Baccio became a Dominican friar on 26 July 1500. The following year he entered the convent of San Marco.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "He renounced painting for several years, not resuming until 1504 when he became the head of the monastery workshop in obedience to his superior. In that year he began a Vision of St. Bernard for Bernardo Bianco's family chapel in the Badia Fiorentina, finished in 1507. Soon thereafter, Raphael visited Florence and befriended the friar. Bartolomeo learned perspective from the younger artist, while Raphael added skills in coloring and handling of drapery, which was noticeable in the works he produced after their meeting. With Raphael, he remained on the friendliest terms, and when he departed from Rome, left in his hands two unfinished pictures which Raphael completed.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "At the beginning of 1508, Bartolomeo moved to Venice to paint a Holy Father, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Catherine of Siena for the Dominicans of San Pietro Martire in Murano, influenced somewhat by Venetian colorism. As the Dominicans did not pay for the work, he took it back to Lucca, where it can be seen now. Also in Lucca, in October 1509, he painted with Albertinelli an altarpiece of the Madonna and Child with Saints for the local cathedral. On 26 November 1510 Pier Soderini commissioned him an altarpiece for the Sala del Consiglio of Florence, now in the Museum of San Marco. Two years later he finished another altarpiece for the cathedral of Besançon.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1513, he went to Rome, where he painted a Peter and Paul, now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, while from the following years are the St. Mark Evangelist of Palazzo Pitti in Florence and the frescoes in the Dominican convent of Pian di Mugnone, a frazione of Fiesole, just outside Florence. After a promised Feast of Venus for Duke Alfonso I d'Este of Ferrara, of which only drawings remain, his last work is a fresco of Noli me tangere also in Pian di Mugnone.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "He died in Florence in 1517.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Initially, his works showed the influence of Rosselli's assistant, Piero di Cosimo, and those of Domenico Ghirlandaio and Filippino Lippi. After his hiatus from 1500 to 1503, he seemed to change vision, taking from Raphael the representation of light and its effects over moving shapes.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Fra Bartolomeo's figures are generally small and draped. These qualities were alleged against him as defects, and to prove that his style was not the result of want of power, he painted the magnificent figure of the St Mark Evangelist (ranked as his masterpiece), and the undraped figure of Saint Sebastian. It is alleged that the latter was felt to be so strongly expressive of suffering and agony, that it was found necessary to remove it from the place where it had been exhibited in the chapel of a convent.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Fra Bartolomeo's compositions are remarkable for skill in the massing of light and shade, richness and delicacy of colouring, and for the admirable drapery of the figures, Bartolomeo having been the first to introduce and use the lay-figure with joints.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Among his pupils were Cecchino del Frate, Benedetto Ciamfanini, Gabriel Rustici, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (the son of Domenico Ghirlandaio), and Fra Paolo Pistolese.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Attribution:",
"title": "References"
}
] |
Fra Bartolomeo or Bartolommeo, also known as Bartolommeo di Pagholo, Bartolommeo di San Marco, Paolo di Jacopo del Fattorino, and his original nickname Baccio della Porta, was an Italian Renaissance painter of religious subjects. He spent all his career in Florence until his mid-forties, when he travelled to work in various cities, as far south as Rome. He trained with Cosimo Rosselli and in the 1490s fell under the influence of Savonarola, which led him to become a Dominican friar in 1500, renouncing painting for several years. Typically his paintings are of static groups of figures in subjects such as the Virgin and Child with Saints. He was instructed to resume painting for the benefit of his order in 1504, and then developed an idealized High Renaissance style, seen in his Vision of St Bernard of that year, now in poor condition but whose "figures and drapery move with a seraphic grace that must have struck the young Raphael with the force of revelation". He remained friends with Raphael, and each influenced the other. His portrait of Savonarola remains the best known image of the reformer. Fra Bartolomeo painted both in oils and fresco, and some of his drawings are pure landscape sketches that are the earliest of this type from any Italian artist.
|
2002-02-25T15:51:15Z
|
2023-09-14T17:45:27Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fra_Bartolomeo
|
11,459 |
Frédéric Bazille
|
Jean Frédéric Bazille (December 6, 1841 – November 28, 1870) was a French Impressionist painter. Many of Bazille's major works are examples of figure painting in which he placed the subject figure within a landscape painted en plein air.
Frédéric Bazille was born in Montpellier, Hérault, Languedoc-Roussillon, France, into a wealthy wine merchant Protestant family. Bazille grew up in the Le Domaine de Méric, a wine-producing estate in Castelnau-le-Lez, near Montpellier, owned by his family. He became interested in painting after seeing some works of Eugène Delacroix. His family agreed to let him study painting, but only if he also studied medicine.
Bazille began studying medicine in 1859, and moved to Paris in 1862 to continue his studies. There he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley, was drawn to Impressionist painting, and began taking classes in Charles Gleyre's studio. After failing his medical exam in 1864, he began painting full-time. His close friends included Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Édouard Manet. Bazille was generous with his wealth and helped support his less fortunate associates by giving them space in his studio and materials to use.
Bazille was just twenty-three years old when he painted several of his best-known works, including The Pink Dress (c. 1864, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). This painting combines a portrait-like depiction of Bazille's cousin, Thérèse des Hours, who is seen from behind—and the sunlit landscape at which she gazes. His best-known painting is Family Reunion, painted 1867–1868 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris).
Frédéric Bazille joined a Zouave regiment in August 1870, a month after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. On November 28 of that year, he was with his unit at the Battle of Beaune-la-Rolande when, his officer having been injured, he took command and led an assault on the German position. He was hit twice in the failed attack and died on the battlefield at the age of twenty-eight. His father travelled to the battlefield a few days later to take his body back for burial at Montpellier in the Protestant cemetery over a week later.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Jean Frédéric Bazille (December 6, 1841 – November 28, 1870) was a French Impressionist painter. Many of Bazille's major works are examples of figure painting in which he placed the subject figure within a landscape painted en plein air.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Frédéric Bazille was born in Montpellier, Hérault, Languedoc-Roussillon, France, into a wealthy wine merchant Protestant family. Bazille grew up in the Le Domaine de Méric, a wine-producing estate in Castelnau-le-Lez, near Montpellier, owned by his family. He became interested in painting after seeing some works of Eugène Delacroix. His family agreed to let him study painting, but only if he also studied medicine.",
"title": "Life and work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Bazille began studying medicine in 1859, and moved to Paris in 1862 to continue his studies. There he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley, was drawn to Impressionist painting, and began taking classes in Charles Gleyre's studio. After failing his medical exam in 1864, he began painting full-time. His close friends included Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Édouard Manet. Bazille was generous with his wealth and helped support his less fortunate associates by giving them space in his studio and materials to use.",
"title": "Life and work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Bazille was just twenty-three years old when he painted several of his best-known works, including The Pink Dress (c. 1864, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). This painting combines a portrait-like depiction of Bazille's cousin, Thérèse des Hours, who is seen from behind—and the sunlit landscape at which she gazes. His best-known painting is Family Reunion, painted 1867–1868 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris).",
"title": "Life and work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Frédéric Bazille joined a Zouave regiment in August 1870, a month after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. On November 28 of that year, he was with his unit at the Battle of Beaune-la-Rolande when, his officer having been injured, he took command and led an assault on the German position. He was hit twice in the failed attack and died on the battlefield at the age of twenty-eight. His father travelled to the battlefield a few days later to take his body back for burial at Montpellier in the Protestant cemetery over a week later.",
"title": "Life and work"
}
] |
Jean Frédéric Bazille was a French Impressionist painter. Many of Bazille's major works are examples of figure painting in which he placed the subject figure within a landscape painted en plein air.
|
2002-02-25T15:51:15Z
|
2023-09-17T18:18:49Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Bazille
|
11,460 |
Ford Madox Brown
|
Ford Madox Brown (16 April 1821 – 6 October 1893) was a British painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work (1852–1865). Brown spent the latter years of his life painting the twelve works known as The Manchester Murals, depicting Mancunian history, for Manchester Town Hall.
Brown was the grandson of the medical theorist John Brown, founder of the Brunonian system of medicine. His great-grandfather was a Scottish labourer. His father Ford Brown served as a purser in the Royal Navy, including a period serving under Sir Isaac Coffin and a period on HMS Arethusa. He left the Navy after the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
In 1818, Ford Brown married Caroline Madox, of an old Kentish family. Brown's parents had limited financial resources, and they moved to Calais to seek cheaper lodgings, where their daughter Elizabeth Coffin was born in 1819 and their son Ford Madox Brown in 1821.
Brown's education was limited, as the family frequently moved between lodgings in the Pas-de-Calais and relatives in Kent, but he showed artistic talent in copying of Old Master prints. His father initially sought a naval career for his son, writing to his former captain Sir Isaac Coffin. The family moved to Bruges in 1835 so Brown could study at the academy under Albert Gregorius. Brown moved to Ghent in 1836 to continue his studies under Pieter van Hanselaere. He moved to Antwerp in 1837 to study under Gustaf Wappers. He continued to study in Antwerp after his mother's death in 1839. His sister died in 1840, and then his father in 1842.
The Tate Gallery holds an early example of Brown's work, a portrait of his father. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840, a work inspired by Lord Byron's poem The Giaour (now lost) and then completed a version of The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, with his cousin and future wife Elisabeth Bromley as one of his models. He lived in Montmartre with his new wife and aging father in 1841. He painted Manfred on the Jungfrau, inspired by Lord Byron's poem Manfred while he was in Paris.
In 1843 he submitted work to the Westminster Cartoon Competition, for compositions to decorate the new Palace of Westminster. His entry, The Body of Harold Brought before William, was not successful. His early works were, however, greatly admired by the young Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who asked him to become his tutor. Through Rossetti, Brown came into contact with the artists who went on to form the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Though closely linked to them, he was never actually a member of the brotherhood itself, but adopted the bright colours and realistic style of William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. He was also influenced by the works of Holbein that he saw in Basel in 1845, and by Friedrich Overbeck and Peter Cornelius, whom he met in Rome in 1845–46.
Brown struggled to make his mark in the 1850s, with his paintings failing to find buyers, and he considered emigrating to India. In 1852 he started work on two of his most significant works.
One of his most famous images is The Last of England, painted from 1852 to 1855, which was sold in March 1859 for 325 Guineas (2010: £26,700). It depicts a pair of stricken emigrants as they sail away on the ship that will take them from England forever. It was inspired by the departure of the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor Thomas Woolner, who had left for Australia. In an unusual tondo format, the painting is structured with Brown's characteristic linear energy, and emphasis on apparently grotesque and banal details, such as the cabbages hanging from the ship's side. The husband and wife are portraits of Brown and his second wife Emma.
Brown's most important painting was Work (1852–1865), begun in Hampstead in 1852 and which he showed at his retrospective exhibition in 1865. Thomas Plint advanced funds to enable Brown to complete the work, in anticipation of obtaining the finished painting, but died in 1861 before the painting had been completed. In this painting, Brown attempted to depict the totality of the mid-Victorian social experience in a single image, depicting 'navvies' digging up a road (The Mount, off Heath Street in Hampstead, north London) and disrupting the old social hierarchies in the process. The image erupts into proliferating details from the dynamic centre of the action, as the workers tear a hole in the road – and, symbolically, in the social fabric. Each character represents a particular social class and role in the modern urban environment.
Brown wrote a catalogue to accompany the special exhibition of Work. This publication included an extensive explanation of Work that nevertheless leaves many questions unanswered. Brown's concern with the social issues addressed in Work prompted him to open a soup kitchen for Manchester's hungry, and to attempt to aid the city's unemployed to find work by founding a labour exchange.
Brown found patrons in the north of England, including Plint, George Rae from Birkenhead, John Miller from Liverpool, and James Leathart from Newcastle. By the late 1850s he had lost patience with the poor reception he received at the Royal Academy and ceased to show his works there, rejecting an offer from Millais to support his becoming an associate member. He founded the Hogarth Club in 1858, with William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, and his former pupil Rossetti. After a successful period of a few years, the club reached over 80 members, including several prominent members of the Royal Academy, but Brown resigned in 1860, and the club collapsed in 1861.
From the 1860s, Brown also designed furniture and stained glass. He was a founder partner of William Morris's design company, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., in 1861, which dissolved in 1874 with Morris continuing on his own. He was a close friend of the landscape artist Henry Mark Anthony.
Brown's major achievement after Work was The Manchester Murals, a cycle of twelve paintings in the Great Hall of Manchester Town Hall depicting the history of the city. Brown would be 72 by the time he finished the murals. In total, he took six years perfecting the murals, which were his last major work.
Ford Madox Brown was married twice. His first wife Elizabeth Bromley was his first cousin, the daughter of his mother's sister Mary. They were married in Meopham in Kent in April 1841, shortly before his 20th birthday and less than a year after the sudden death of his sister Elizabeth. They lived in Montmartre in 1841 with Brown's invalid father who died the following summer.
Their first child died young as an infant in November 1842. Their daughter Emma Lucy was born in 1843 and the family moved back to England in 1844. They travelled to Rome in 1845 to alleviate the illness of his wife, who was suffering from consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis). She died in Paris in June 1846, aged 27, on the journey back to England from Rome, and was buried on the western side of Highgate Cemetery. Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal and other members of the Rossetti family were later buried alongside.
Emma Hill became a frequent model for Brown from 1848; for example, she is the wife in The Last of England. She became his mistress, and they shared a house in London, but social convention discouraged him from marrying an illiterate daughter of a bricklayer. Their daughter Catherine Emily was born in 1850, and eventually they were married at St Dunstan-in-the-West in April 1853. Ford leased a house in Fitzroy Square.
Their son, Oliver Madox Brown (1855–1874) (known as Nolly) showed promise both as an artist and poet, but died of blood poisoning before his maturity. The death of Nolly was a crushing blow for Brown, and he kept a room for his son's belongings as a shrine. Another son Arthur was born in September 1856. Brown used Arthur as the model for the baby held by a ragged girl in the foreground of Work, but he died aged only ten months old in July 1857.
His daughters Lucy Madox Brown and Catherine Madox Brown were also competent artists. Lucy married William Michael Rossetti in 1874. Catherine, married Francis Hueffer; through Catherine, Brown was the grandfather of novelist Ford Madox Ford and great-grandfather of Labour Home Secretary Frank Soskice.
Brown's second wife died in October 1890, and he died in Primrose Hill, north London, in 1893. He is buried in the St Pancras and Islington Cemetery in East Finchley. He was given a secular funeral, and the funeral oration was delivered by the American Moncure D. Conway, the secularist after whom Conway Hall was later named.
The Ford Madox Brown, a J D Wetherspoon pub in Oxford Road, Manchester, is named after Ford Madox Brown. It states on the Wetherspoon's website that "This J D Wetherspoon pub is named after the much-travelled artist Ford Madox Brown, a one-time resident of Victoria Park, a suburb south of the pub." The pub opened in 2007.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Ford Madox Brown (16 April 1821 – 6 October 1893) was a British painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work (1852–1865). Brown spent the latter years of his life painting the twelve works known as The Manchester Murals, depicting Mancunian history, for Manchester Town Hall.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Brown was the grandson of the medical theorist John Brown, founder of the Brunonian system of medicine. His great-grandfather was a Scottish labourer. His father Ford Brown served as a purser in the Royal Navy, including a period serving under Sir Isaac Coffin and a period on HMS Arethusa. He left the Navy after the end of the Napoleonic Wars.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In 1818, Ford Brown married Caroline Madox, of an old Kentish family. Brown's parents had limited financial resources, and they moved to Calais to seek cheaper lodgings, where their daughter Elizabeth Coffin was born in 1819 and their son Ford Madox Brown in 1821.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Brown's education was limited, as the family frequently moved between lodgings in the Pas-de-Calais and relatives in Kent, but he showed artistic talent in copying of Old Master prints. His father initially sought a naval career for his son, writing to his former captain Sir Isaac Coffin. The family moved to Bruges in 1835 so Brown could study at the academy under Albert Gregorius. Brown moved to Ghent in 1836 to continue his studies under Pieter van Hanselaere. He moved to Antwerp in 1837 to study under Gustaf Wappers. He continued to study in Antwerp after his mother's death in 1839. His sister died in 1840, and then his father in 1842.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Tate Gallery holds an early example of Brown's work, a portrait of his father. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840, a work inspired by Lord Byron's poem The Giaour (now lost) and then completed a version of The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, with his cousin and future wife Elisabeth Bromley as one of his models. He lived in Montmartre with his new wife and aging father in 1841. He painted Manfred on the Jungfrau, inspired by Lord Byron's poem Manfred while he was in Paris.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1843 he submitted work to the Westminster Cartoon Competition, for compositions to decorate the new Palace of Westminster. His entry, The Body of Harold Brought before William, was not successful. His early works were, however, greatly admired by the young Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who asked him to become his tutor. Through Rossetti, Brown came into contact with the artists who went on to form the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Though closely linked to them, he was never actually a member of the brotherhood itself, but adopted the bright colours and realistic style of William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. He was also influenced by the works of Holbein that he saw in Basel in 1845, and by Friedrich Overbeck and Peter Cornelius, whom he met in Rome in 1845–46.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Brown struggled to make his mark in the 1850s, with his paintings failing to find buyers, and he considered emigrating to India. In 1852 he started work on two of his most significant works.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "One of his most famous images is The Last of England, painted from 1852 to 1855, which was sold in March 1859 for 325 Guineas (2010: £26,700). It depicts a pair of stricken emigrants as they sail away on the ship that will take them from England forever. It was inspired by the departure of the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor Thomas Woolner, who had left for Australia. In an unusual tondo format, the painting is structured with Brown's characteristic linear energy, and emphasis on apparently grotesque and banal details, such as the cabbages hanging from the ship's side. The husband and wife are portraits of Brown and his second wife Emma.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Brown's most important painting was Work (1852–1865), begun in Hampstead in 1852 and which he showed at his retrospective exhibition in 1865. Thomas Plint advanced funds to enable Brown to complete the work, in anticipation of obtaining the finished painting, but died in 1861 before the painting had been completed. In this painting, Brown attempted to depict the totality of the mid-Victorian social experience in a single image, depicting 'navvies' digging up a road (The Mount, off Heath Street in Hampstead, north London) and disrupting the old social hierarchies in the process. The image erupts into proliferating details from the dynamic centre of the action, as the workers tear a hole in the road – and, symbolically, in the social fabric. Each character represents a particular social class and role in the modern urban environment.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Brown wrote a catalogue to accompany the special exhibition of Work. This publication included an extensive explanation of Work that nevertheless leaves many questions unanswered. Brown's concern with the social issues addressed in Work prompted him to open a soup kitchen for Manchester's hungry, and to attempt to aid the city's unemployed to find work by founding a labour exchange.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Brown found patrons in the north of England, including Plint, George Rae from Birkenhead, John Miller from Liverpool, and James Leathart from Newcastle. By the late 1850s he had lost patience with the poor reception he received at the Royal Academy and ceased to show his works there, rejecting an offer from Millais to support his becoming an associate member. He founded the Hogarth Club in 1858, with William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, and his former pupil Rossetti. After a successful period of a few years, the club reached over 80 members, including several prominent members of the Royal Academy, but Brown resigned in 1860, and the club collapsed in 1861.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "From the 1860s, Brown also designed furniture and stained glass. He was a founder partner of William Morris's design company, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., in 1861, which dissolved in 1874 with Morris continuing on his own. He was a close friend of the landscape artist Henry Mark Anthony.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Brown's major achievement after Work was The Manchester Murals, a cycle of twelve paintings in the Great Hall of Manchester Town Hall depicting the history of the city. Brown would be 72 by the time he finished the murals. In total, he took six years perfecting the murals, which were his last major work.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Ford Madox Brown was married twice. His first wife Elizabeth Bromley was his first cousin, the daughter of his mother's sister Mary. They were married in Meopham in Kent in April 1841, shortly before his 20th birthday and less than a year after the sudden death of his sister Elizabeth. They lived in Montmartre in 1841 with Brown's invalid father who died the following summer.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Their first child died young as an infant in November 1842. Their daughter Emma Lucy was born in 1843 and the family moved back to England in 1844. They travelled to Rome in 1845 to alleviate the illness of his wife, who was suffering from consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis). She died in Paris in June 1846, aged 27, on the journey back to England from Rome, and was buried on the western side of Highgate Cemetery. Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal and other members of the Rossetti family were later buried alongside.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Emma Hill became a frequent model for Brown from 1848; for example, she is the wife in The Last of England. She became his mistress, and they shared a house in London, but social convention discouraged him from marrying an illiterate daughter of a bricklayer. Their daughter Catherine Emily was born in 1850, and eventually they were married at St Dunstan-in-the-West in April 1853. Ford leased a house in Fitzroy Square.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Their son, Oliver Madox Brown (1855–1874) (known as Nolly) showed promise both as an artist and poet, but died of blood poisoning before his maturity. The death of Nolly was a crushing blow for Brown, and he kept a room for his son's belongings as a shrine. Another son Arthur was born in September 1856. Brown used Arthur as the model for the baby held by a ragged girl in the foreground of Work, but he died aged only ten months old in July 1857.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "His daughters Lucy Madox Brown and Catherine Madox Brown were also competent artists. Lucy married William Michael Rossetti in 1874. Catherine, married Francis Hueffer; through Catherine, Brown was the grandfather of novelist Ford Madox Ford and great-grandfather of Labour Home Secretary Frank Soskice.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Brown's second wife died in October 1890, and he died in Primrose Hill, north London, in 1893. He is buried in the St Pancras and Islington Cemetery in East Finchley. He was given a secular funeral, and the funeral oration was delivered by the American Moncure D. Conway, the secularist after whom Conway Hall was later named.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The Ford Madox Brown, a J D Wetherspoon pub in Oxford Road, Manchester, is named after Ford Madox Brown. It states on the Wetherspoon's website that \"This J D Wetherspoon pub is named after the much-travelled artist Ford Madox Brown, a one-time resident of Victoria Park, a suburb south of the pub.\" The pub opened in 2007.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
] |
Ford Madox Brown was a British painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work (1852–1865). Brown spent the latter years of his life painting the twelve works known as The Manchester Murals, depicting Mancunian history, for Manchester Town Hall.
|
2002-02-25T15:51:15Z
|
2023-11-26T01:11:57Z
|
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Francis Crick
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Francis Harry Compton Crick OM FRS (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical structure of the DNA molecule.
Crick and Watson's paper in Nature in 1953 laid the groundwork for understanding DNA structure and functions. Together with Maurice Wilkins, they were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material".
Crick was an important theoretical molecular biologist and played a crucial role in research related to revealing the helical structure of DNA. He is widely known for the use of the term "central dogma" to summarise the idea that once information is transferred from nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) to proteins, it cannot flow back to nucleic acids. In other words, the final step in the flow of information from nucleic acids to proteins is irreversible.
During the remainder of his career, he held the post of J.W. Kieckhefer Distinguished Research Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. His later research centered on theoretical neurobiology and attempts to advance the scientific study of human consciousness. He remained in this post until his death; "he was editing a manuscript on his death bed, a scientist until the bitter end" according to Christof Koch.
Crick was the first son of Harry Crick and Annie Elizabeth Crick (née Wilkins). He was born on 8 June 1916 and raised in Weston Favell, then a small village near the English town of Northampton, in which Crick's father and uncle ran the family's boot and shoe factory. His grandfather, Walter Drawbridge Crick, an amateur naturalist, wrote a survey of local foraminifera (single-celled protists with shells), corresponded with Charles Darwin, and had two gastropods (snails or slugs) named after him.
At an early age, Francis was attracted to science and what he could learn about it from books. As a child, he was taken to church by his parents. But by about age 12, he said he did not want to go any more as he preferred a scientific search for answers over religious belief.
Walter Crick, his uncle, lived in a small house on the south side of Abington Avenue; he had a shed at the bottom of his little garden where he taught Crick to blow glass, do chemical experiments and to make photographic prints. When he was eight or nine he transferred to the most junior form of the Northampton Grammar School, on the Billing Road. This was about 1.25 mi (2 km) from his home so he could walk there and back, by Park Avenue South and Abington Park Crescent, but he more often went by bus or, later, by bicycle. The teaching in the higher forms was satisfactory, but not as stimulating. After the age of 14, he was educated at Mill Hill School in London (on a scholarship), where he studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry with his best friend John Shilston. He shared the Walter Knox Prize for Chemistry on Mill Hill School's Foundation Day, Friday, 7 July 1933. He declared that his success was founded on the quality of teaching he received whilst a pupil at Mill Hill.
Crick studied at University College London (UCL), a constituent college of the University of London and earned a Bachelor of Science degree awarded by the University of London in 1937. Crick began a PhD at UCL, but was interrupted by World War II. He later became a PhD student and Honorary Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and mainly worked at the Cavendish Laboratory and the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. He was also an Honorary Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and of University College, London.
Crick began a PhD research project on measuring the viscosity of water at high temperatures (which he later described as "the dullest problem imaginable") in the laboratory of physicist Edward Neville da Costa Andrade at University College London, but with the outbreak of World War II (in particular, an incident during the Battle of Britain when a bomb fell through the roof of the laboratory and destroyed his experimental apparatus), Crick was deflected from a possible career in physics. During his second year as a PhD student, however, he was awarded the Carey Foster Research Prize, a great honour. He did postdoctoral work at the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, now part of the New York University Tandon School of Engineering.
During World War II, he worked for the Admiralty Research Laboratory, from which many notable scientists emerged, including David Bates, Robert Boyd, Thomas Gaskell, George Deacon, John Gunn, Harrie Massey, and Nevill Mott; he worked on the design of magnetic and acoustic mines and was instrumental in designing a new mine that was effective against German minesweepers.
In 1947, aged 31, Crick began studying biology and became part of an important migration of physical scientists into biology research. This migration was made possible by the newly won influence of physicists such as Sir John Randall, who had helped win the war with inventions such as radar. Crick had to adjust from the "elegance and deep simplicity" of physics to the "elaborate chemical mechanisms that natural selection had evolved over billions of years." He described this transition as, "almost as if one had to be born again". According to Crick, the experience of learning physics had taught him something important—hubris—and the conviction that since physics was already a success, great advances should also be possible in other sciences such as biology. Crick felt that this attitude encouraged him to be more daring than typical biologists who tended to concern themselves with the daunting problems of biology and not the past successes of physics.
For the better part of two years, Crick worked on the physical properties of cytoplasm at Cambridge's Strangeways Research Laboratory, headed by Honor Bridget Fell, with a Medical Research Council studentship, until he joined Max Perutz and John Kendrew at the Cavendish Laboratory. The Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge was under the general direction of Sir Lawrence Bragg, who had won the Nobel Prize in 1915 at the age of 25. Bragg was influential in the effort to beat a leading American chemist, Linus Pauling, to the discovery of DNA's structure (after having been pipped at the post by Pauling's success in determining the alpha helix structure of proteins). At the same time Bragg's Cavendish Laboratory was also effectively competing with King's College London, whose Biophysics department was under the direction of Randall. (Randall had refused Crick's application to work at King's College.) Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins of King's College were personal friends, which influenced subsequent scientific events as much as the close friendship between Crick and James Watson. Crick and Wilkins first met at King's College and not, as erroneously recorded by two authors, at the Admiralty during World War II.
Crick married twice and fathered three children; his brother Anthony (born in 1918) predeceased him in 1966.
Spouses:
Children:
Crick died of colon cancer on the morning of 28 July 2004 at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Thornton Hospital in La Jolla; he was cremated and his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean. A public memorial was held on 27 September 2004 at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, near San Diego, California; guest speakers included James Watson, Sydney Brenner, Alex Rich, Seymour Benzer, Aaron Klug, Christof Koch, Pat Churchland, Vilayanur Ramachandran, Tomaso Poggio, Leslie Orgel, Terry Sejnowski, his son Michael Crick, and his younger daughter Jacqueline Nichols. A private memorial for family and colleagues was held on 3 August 2004.
Crick's Nobel Prize medal and diploma from the Nobel committee was sold at auction in June 2013 for $2,270,000. It was bought by Jack Wang, the CEO of Chinese medical company Biomobie. 20% of the sale price of the medal was donated to the Francis Crick Institute in London.
Crick was interested in two fundamental unsolved problems of biology: how molecules make the transition from the non-living to the living, and how the brain makes a conscious mind. He realised that his background made him more qualified for research on the first topic and the field of biophysics. It was at this time of Crick's transition from physics to biology that he was influenced by both Linus Pauling and Erwin Schrödinger. It was clear in theory that covalent bonds in biological molecules could provide the structural stability needed to hold genetic information in cells. It only remained as an exercise of experimental biology to discover exactly which molecule was the genetic molecule. In Crick's view, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Gregor Mendel's genetics and knowledge of the molecular basis of genetics, when combined, revealed the secret of life. Crick had the very optimistic view that life would very soon be created in a test tube. However, some people (such as fellow researcher and colleague Esther Lederberg) thought that Crick was unduly optimistic.
It was clear that some macromolecule such as a protein was likely to be the genetic molecule. However, it was well known that proteins are structural and functional macromolecules, some of which carry out enzymatic reactions of cells. In the 1940s, some evidence had been found pointing to another macromolecule, DNA, the other major component of chromosomes, as a candidate genetic molecule. In the 1944 Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment, Oswald Avery and his collaborators showed that a heritable phenotypic difference could be caused in bacteria by providing them with a particular DNA molecule.
However, other evidence was interpreted as suggesting that DNA was structurally uninteresting and possibly just a molecular scaffold for the apparently more interesting protein molecules. Crick was in the right place, in the right frame of mind, at the right time (1949), to join Max Perutz's project at the University of Cambridge, and he began to work on the X-ray crystallography of proteins. X-ray crystallography theoretically offered the opportunity to reveal the molecular structure of large molecules like proteins and DNA, but there were serious technical problems then preventing X-ray crystallography from being applicable to such large molecules.
Crick taught himself the mathematical theory of X-ray crystallography. During the period of Crick's study of X-ray diffraction, researchers in the Cambridge lab were attempting to determine the most stable helical conformation of amino acid chains in proteins (the alpha helix). Linus Pauling was the first to identify the 3.6 amino acids per helix turn ratio of the alpha helix. Crick was witness to the kinds of errors that his co-workers made in their failed attempts to make a correct molecular model of the alpha helix; these turned out to be important lessons that could be applied, in the future, to the helical structure of DNA. For example, he learned the importance of the structural rigidity that double bonds confer on molecular structures which is relevant both to peptide bonds in proteins and the structure of nucleotides in DNA.
In 1951 and 1952, together with William Cochran and Vladimir Vand, Crick assisted in the development of a mathematical theory of X-ray diffraction by a helical molecule. This theoretical result matched well with X-ray data for proteins that contain sequences of amino acids in the alpha helix conformation. Helical diffraction theory turned out to also be useful for understanding the structure of DNA.
Late in 1951, Crick started working with James Watson at Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, England. Using "Photo 51" (the X-ray diffraction results of Rosalind Franklin and her graduate student Raymond Gosling of King's College London, given to them by Gosling and Franklin's colleague Wilkins), Watson and Crick together developed a model for a helical structure of DNA, which they published in 1953. For this and subsequent work they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 with Wilkins.
When Watson came to Cambridge, Crick was a 35-year-old graduate student (due to his work during WWII) and Watson was only 23, but had already obtained a PhD. They shared an interest in the fundamental problem of learning how genetic information might be stored in molecular form. Watson and Crick talked endlessly about DNA and the idea that it might be possible to guess a good molecular model of its structure. A key piece of experimentally-derived information came from X-ray diffraction images that had been obtained by Wilkins, Franklin, and Gosling. In November 1951, Wilkins came to Cambridge and shared his data with Watson and Crick. Alexander Stokes (another expert in helical diffraction theory) and Wilkins (both at King's College) had reached the conclusion that X-ray diffraction data for DNA indicated that the molecule had a helical structure—but Franklin vehemently disputed this conclusion. Stimulated by their discussions with Wilkins and what Watson learned by attending a talk given by Franklin about her work on DNA, Crick and Watson produced and showed off an erroneous first model of DNA. Their hurry to produce a model of DNA structure was driven in part by the knowledge that they were competing against Linus Pauling. Given Pauling's recent success in discovering the Alpha helix, they feared that Pauling might also be the first to determine the structure of DNA.
Many have speculated about what might have happened had Pauling been able to travel to Britain as planned in May 1952. As it was, his political activities caused his travel to be restricted by the United States government and he did not visit the UK until later, at which point he met none of the DNA researchers in England. At any rate he was preoccupied with proteins at the time, not DNA. Watson and Crick were not officially working on DNA. Crick was writing his PhD thesis; Watson also had other work such as trying to obtain crystals of myoglobin for X-ray diffraction experiments. In 1952, Watson performed X-ray diffraction on tobacco mosaic virus and found results indicating that it had helical structure. Having failed once, Watson and Crick were now somewhat reluctant to try again and for a while they were forbidden to make further efforts to find a molecular model of DNA.
Of great importance to the model building effort of Watson and Crick was Rosalind Franklin's understanding of basic chemistry, which indicated that the hydrophilic phosphate-containing backbones of the nucleotide chains of DNA should be positioned so as to interact with water molecules on the outside of the molecule while the hydrophobic bases should be packed into the core. Franklin shared this chemical knowledge with Watson and Crick when she pointed out to them that their first model (from 1951, with the phosphates inside) was obviously wrong.
Crick described what he saw as the failure of Wilkins and Franklin to cooperate and work towards finding a molecular model of DNA as a major reason why he and Watson eventually made a second attempt to do so. They asked for, and received, permission to do so from both William Lawrence Bragg and Wilkins. To construct their model of DNA, Watson and Crick made use of information from unpublished X-ray diffraction images of Franklin's (shown at meetings and freely shared by Wilkins), including preliminary accounts of Franklin's results/photographs of the X-ray images that were included in a written progress report for the King's College laboratory of Sir John Randall from late 1952.
It is a matter of debate whether Watson and Crick should have had access to Franklin's results without her knowledge or permission, and before she had a chance to formally publish the results of her detailed analysis of her X-ray diffraction data which were included in the progress report. However, Watson and Crick found fault in her steadfast assertion that, according to her data, a helical structure was not the only possible shape for DNA—so they had a dilemma. In an effort to clarify this issue, Max Ferdinand Perutz later published what had been in the progress report, and suggested that nothing was in the report that Franklin herself had not said in her talk (attended by Watson) in late 1951. Further, Perutz explained that the report was to a Medical Research Council (MRC) committee that had been created to "establish contact between the different groups of people working for the Council". Randall's and Perutz's laboratories were both funded by the MRC.
It is also not clear how important Franklin's unpublished results from the progress report actually were for the model-building done by Watson and Crick. After the first crude X-ray diffraction images of DNA were collected in the 1930s, William Astbury had talked about stacks of nucleotides spaced at 3.4 angström (0.34 nanometre) intervals in DNA. A citation to Astbury's earlier X-ray diffraction work was one of only eight references in Franklin's first paper on DNA. Analysis of Astbury's published DNA results and the better X-ray diffraction images collected by Wilkins and Franklin revealed the helical nature of DNA. It was possible to predict the number of bases stacked within a single turn of the DNA helix (10 per turn; a full turn of the helix is 27 angströms [2.7 nm] in the compact A form, 34 angströms [3.4 nm] in the wetter B form). Wilkins shared this information about the B form of DNA with Crick and Watson. Crick did not see Franklin's B form X-ray images (Photo 51) until after the DNA double helix model was published.
One of the few references cited by Watson and Crick when they published their model of DNA was to a published article that included Sven Furberg's DNA model that had the bases on the inside. Thus, the Watson and Crick model was not the first "bases in" model to be proposed. Furberg's results had also provided the correct orientation of the DNA sugars with respect to the bases. During their model building, Crick and Watson learned that an antiparallel orientation of the two nucleotide chain backbones worked best to orient the base pairs in the centre of a double helix. Crick's access to Franklin's progress report of late 1952 is what made Crick confident that DNA was a double helix with antiparallel chains, but there were other chains of reasoning and sources of information that also led to these conclusions.
As a result of leaving King's College for Birkbeck College, Franklin was asked by John Randall to give up her work on DNA. When it became clear to Wilkins and the supervisors of Watson and Crick that Franklin was going to the new job, and that Linus Pauling was working on the structure of DNA, they were willing to share Franklin's data with Watson and Crick, in the hope that they could find a good model of DNA before Pauling was able. Franklin's X-ray diffraction data for DNA and her systematic analysis of DNA's structural features were useful to Watson and Crick in guiding them towards a correct molecular model. The key problem for Watson and Crick, which could not be resolved by the data from King's College, was to guess how the nucleotide bases pack into the core of the DNA double helix.
Another key to finding the correct structure of DNA was the so-called Chargaff ratios, experimentally determined ratios of the nucleotide subunits of DNA: the amount of guanine is equal to cytosine and the amount of adenine is equal to thymine. A visit by Erwin Chargaff to England, in 1952, reinforced the salience of this important fact for Watson and Crick. The significance of these ratios for the structure of DNA were not recognised until Watson, persisting in building structural models, realised that A:T and C:G pairs are structurally similar. In particular, the length of each base pair is the same. Chargaff had also pointed out to Watson that, in the aqueous, saline environment of the cell, the predominant tautomers of the pyrimidine (C and T) bases would be the amine and keto configurations of cytosine and thymine, rather than the imino and enol forms that Crick and Watson had assumed. They consulted Jerry Donohue who confirmed the most likely structures of the nucleotide bases. The base pairs are held together by hydrogen bonds, the same non-covalent interaction that stabilise the protein α-helix. The correct structures were essential for the positioning of the hydrogen bonds. These insights led Watson to deduce the true biological relationships of the A:T and C:G pairs. After the discovery of the hydrogen bonded A:T and C:G pairs, Watson and Crick soon had their anti-parallel, double helical model of DNA, with the hydrogen bonds at the core of the helix providing a way to "unzip" the two complementary strands for easy replication: the last key requirement for a likely model of the genetic molecule. As important as Crick's contributions to the discovery of the double helical DNA model were, he stated that without the chance to collaborate with Watson, he would not have found the structure by himself.
Crick did tentatively attempt to perform some experiments on nucleotide base pairing, but he was more of a theoretical biologist than an experimental biologist. There was another near-discovery of the base pairing rules in early 1952. Crick had started to think about interactions between the bases. He asked John Griffith to try to calculate attractive interactions between the DNA bases from chemical principles and quantum mechanics. Griffith's best guess was that A:T and G:C were attractive pairs. At that time, Crick was not aware of Chargaff's rules and he made little of Griffith's calculations, although it did start him thinking about complementary replication. Identification of the correct base-pairing rules (A-T, G-C) was achieved by Watson "playing" with cardboard cut-out models of the nucleotide bases, much in the manner that Linus Pauling had discovered the protein alpha helix a few years earlier. The Watson and Crick discovery of the DNA double helix structure was made possible by their willingness to combine theory, modelling and experimental results (albeit mostly done by others) to achieve their goal.
The DNA double helix structure proposed by Watson and Crick was based upon "Watson-Crick" bonds between the four bases most frequently found in DNA (A, C, T, G) and RNA (A, C, U, G). However, later research showed that triple-stranded, quadruple-stranded and other more complex DNA molecular structures required Hoogsteen base pairing. The entire field of synthetic biology began with work by researchers such as Erik T. Kool, in which bases other than A, C, T and G are used in a synthetic DNA. In addition to synthetic DNA there are also attempts to construct synthetic codons, synthetic endonucleases, synthetic proteins and synthetic zinc fingers. Using synthetic DNA, instead of there being 4 codons, if there are n new bases there could be as many as n codons. Research is currently being done to see if codons can be expanded to more than 3 bases. These new codons can code for new amino acids. These synthetic molecules can be used not only in medicine, but in creation of new materials.
The discovery was made on 28 February 1953; the first Watson/Crick paper appeared in Nature on 25 April 1953. Sir Lawrence Bragg, the director of the Cavendish Laboratory, where Watson and Crick worked, gave a talk at Guy's Hospital Medical School in London on Thursday 14 May 1953 which resulted in an article by Ritchie Calder in the News Chronicle of London, on Friday 15 May 1953, entitled "Why You Are You. Nearer Secret of Life." The news reached readers of The New York Times the next day; Victor K. McElheny, in researching his biography, "Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution", found a clipping of a six-paragraph New York Times article written from London and dated 16 May 1953 with the headline "Form of 'Life Unit' in Cell Is Scanned". The article ran in an early edition and was then pulled to make space for news deemed more important. (The New York Times subsequently ran a longer article on 12 June 1953). The university's undergraduate newspaper Varsity also ran its own short article on the discovery on Saturday 30 May 1953. Bragg's original announcement of the discovery at a Solvay conference on proteins in Belgium on 8 April 1953 went unreported by the British press.
In a seven-page, handwritten letter to his son at a British boarding school on 19 March 1953 Crick explained his discovery, beginning the letter "My Dear Michael, Jim Watson and I have probably made a most important discovery". The letter was put up for auction at Christie's New York on 10 April 2013 with an estimate of $1 to $2 million, eventually selling for $6,059,750, the largest amount ever paid for a letter at auction.
Sydney Brenner, Jack Dunitz, Dorothy Hodgkin, Leslie Orgel, and Beryl M. Oughton, were some of the first people in April 1953 to see the model of the structure of DNA, constructed by Crick and Watson; at the time they were working at Oxford University's Chemistry Department. All were impressed by the new DNA model, especially Brenner who subsequently worked with Crick at Cambridge in the Cavendish Laboratory and the new Laboratory of Molecular Biology. According to the late Dr. Beryl Oughton, later Rimmer, they all travelled together in two cars once Dorothy Hodgkin announced to them that they were off to Cambridge to see the model of the structure of DNA. Orgel also later worked with Crick at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
Soon after Crick's death, there have been allegations about him having used LSD when he came to the idea of the helix structure of the DNA. While he almost certainly did use LSD, it is unlikely that he did so as early as 1953.
In 1954, at the age of 37, Crick completed his PhD thesis: "X-Ray Diffraction: Polypeptides and Proteins" and received his degree. Crick then worked in the laboratory of David Harker at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, where he continued to develop his skills in the analysis of X-ray diffraction data for proteins, working primarily on ribonuclease and the mechanisms of protein synthesis. David Harker, the American X-ray crystallographer, was described as "the John Wayne of crystallography" by Vittorio Luzzati, a crystallographer at the Centre for Molecular Genetics in Gif-sur-Yvette near Paris, who had worked with Rosalind Franklin.
After the discovery of the double helix model of DNA, Crick's interests quickly turned to the biological implications of the structure. In 1953, Watson and Crick published another article in Nature which stated: "it therefore seems likely that the precise sequence of the bases is the code that carries the genetical information".
In 1956, Crick and Watson speculated on the structure of small viruses. They suggested that spherical viruses such as Tomato bushy stunt virus had icosahedral symmetry and were made from 60 identical subunits.
After his short time in New York, Crick returned to Cambridge where he worked until 1976, at which time he moved to California. Crick engaged in several X-ray diffraction collaborations such as one with Alexander Rich on the structure of collagen. However, Crick was quickly drifting away from continued work related to his expertise in the interpretation of X-ray diffraction patterns of proteins.
George Gamow established a group of scientists interested in the role of RNA as an intermediary between DNA as the genetic storage molecule in the nucleus of cells and the synthesis of proteins in the cytoplasm (the RNA Tie Club). It was clear to Crick that there had to be a code by which a short sequence of nucleotides would specify a particular amino acid in a newly synthesised protein. In 1956, Crick wrote an informal paper about the genetic coding problem for the small group of scientists in Gamow's RNA group. In this article, Crick reviewed the evidence supporting the idea that there was a common set of about 20 amino acids used to synthesize proteins. Crick proposed that there was a corresponding set of small "adaptor molecules" that would hydrogen bond to short sequences of a nucleic acid, and also link to one of the amino acids. He also explored the many theoretical possibilities by which short nucleic acid sequences might code for the 20 amino acids.
During the mid-to-late 1950s Crick was very much intellectually engaged in sorting out the mystery of how proteins are synthesised. By 1958, Crick's thinking had matured and he could list in an orderly way all of the key features of the protein synthesis process:
The adaptor molecules were eventually shown to be tRNAs and the catalytic "ribonucleic-protein complexes" became known as ribosomes. An important step was the realization by Crick and Brenner on 15 April 1960 during a conversation with François Jacob that messenger RNA was not the same thing as ribosomal RNA. Later that summer, Brenner, Jacob, and Matthew Meselson conducted an experiment which was the first to prove the existence of messenger RNA. None of this, however, answered the fundamental theoretical question of the exact nature of the genetic code. In his 1958 article, Crick speculated, as had others, that a triplet of nucleotides could code for an amino acid. Such a code might be "degenerate", with 4×4×4=64 possible triplets of the four nucleotide subunits while there were only 20 amino acids. Some amino acids might have multiple triplet codes. Crick also explored other codes in which, for various reasons, only some of the triplets were used, "magically" producing just the 20 needed combinations. Experimental results were needed; theory alone could not decide the nature of the code. Crick also used the term "central dogma" to summarise an idea that implies that genetic information flow between macromolecules would be essentially one-way:
Some critics thought that by using the word "dogma", Crick was implying that this was a rule that could not be questioned, but all he really meant was that it was a compelling idea without much solid evidence to support it. In his thinking about the biological processes linking DNA genes to proteins, Crick made explicit the distinction between the materials involved, the energy required, and the information flow. Crick was focused on this third component (information) and it became the organising principle of what became known as molecular biology. Crick had by this time become a highly influential theoretical molecular biologist.
Proof that the genetic code is a degenerate triplet code finally came from genetics experiments, some of which were performed by Crick. The details of the code came mostly from work by Marshall Nirenberg and others who synthesised synthetic RNA molecules and used them as templates for in vitro protein synthesis. Nirenberg first announced his results to a small audience in Moscow at a 1961 conference. Crick's reaction was to invite Nirenberg to deliver his talk to a larger audience.
Watson and Crick's use of DNA X-ray diffraction data collected by Franklin and Wilkins has generated an enduring controversy. It arose from the fact that some of Franklin's unpublished data were used without her knowledge or consent by Watson and Crick in their construction of the double helix model of DNA. Of the four DNA researchers, only Franklin had a degree in chemistry; Wilkins and Crick had backgrounds in physics, Watson in biology.
Prior to publication of the double helix structure, Watson and Crick had little direct interaction with Franklin herself. They were, however, aware of her work, more aware than she herself realised. Watson was present at a lecture, given in November 1951, where Franklin presented the two forms of the molecule, type A and type B, and discussed the position of the phosphate units on the external part of the molecule. She also specified the amount of water to be found in the molecule in accordance with other parts of it, data that have considerable importance in terms of the stability of the molecule. She was the first to discover and formulate these facts, which in fact constituted the basis for all later attempts to build a model of the molecule. Before this, both Linus Pauling and Watson and Crick had generated erroneous models with the chains inside and the bases pointing outwards. Her identification of the space group for DNA crystals revealed to Crick that the two DNA strands were antiparallel.
In January 1953, Watson was shown an X-ray photograph of B-DNA (called photograph 51), by Wilkins. Wilkins had been given photograph 51 by Rosalind Franklin's PhD student Raymond Gosling. Wilkins and Gosling had worked together in the Medical Research Council's (MRC) Biophysics Unit before director John Randall appointed Franklin to take over both DNA diffraction work and guidance of Gosling's thesis. It appears that Randall did not communicate effectively with them about Franklin's appointment, contributing to confusion and friction between Wilkins and Franklin.
In the middle of February 1953, Crick's thesis advisor, Max Perutz, gave Crick a copy of a report written for a Medical Research Council biophysics committee visit to King's in December 1952, containing data from the King's group, including some of Franklin's crystallographic calculations.
Franklin was unaware that photograph 51 and other information had been shared with Crick and Watson. She wrote a series of three draft manuscripts, two of which included a double helical DNA backbone. Her two A form manuscripts reached Acta Crystallographica in Copenhagen on 6 March 1953, one day before Crick and Watson had completed their model.
The X-ray diffraction images collected by Gosling and Franklin provided the best evidence for the helical nature of DNA. Franklin's experimental work thus proved crucial in Watson and Crick's discovery. Her experimental results provided estimates of the water content of DNA crystals, and these results were most consistent with the three sugar-phosphate backbones being on the outside of the molecule. Franklin's X-Ray photograph showed that the backbones had to be on the outside. Although she at first insisted vehemently that her data did not force one to conclude that DNA has a helical structure, in the drafts she submitted in 1953 she argues for a double helical DNA backbone. Her identification of the space group for DNA crystals revealed to Crick that the DNA strands were antiparallel, which helped Watson and Crick decide to look for DNA models with two antiparallel polynucleotide strands.
In summary, Watson and Crick had three sources for Franklin's unpublished data: 1) her 1951 seminar, attended by Watson, 2) discussions with Wilkins, who worked in the same laboratory with Franklin, 3) a research progress report that was intended to promote coordination of Medical Research Council-supported laboratories. Watson, Crick, Wilkins and Franklin all worked in MRC laboratories.
Crick and Watson felt that they had benefited from collaborating with Wilkins. They offered him a co-authorship on the article that first described the double helix structure of DNA. Wilkins turned down the offer, a fact that may have led to the terse character of the acknowledgement of experimental work done at King's College in the eventual published paper. Rather than make any of the DNA researchers at King's College co-authors on the Watson and Crick double helix article, the solution that was arrived at was to publish two additional papers from King's College along with the helix paper. Brenda Maddox suggests that because of the importance of her experimental results in Watson and Crick's model building and theoretical analysis, Franklin should have had her name on the original Watson and Crick paper in Nature. Franklin and Gosling submitted their own joint "second" paper to Nature at the same time as Wilkins, Stokes, and Wilson submitted theirs (i.e. the "third" paper on DNA).
Watson's portrayal of Franklin in The Double Helix was negative and gave the appearance that she was Wilkins' assistant and was unable to interpret her own DNA data.
The X-ray diffraction images collected by Franklin provided the best evidence for the helical nature of DNA. While Franklin's experimental work proved important to Crick and Watson's development of a correct model, she herself could not realise it at the time. When she left King's College, Director Sir John Randall insisted that all DNA work belonged exclusively to King's and ordered Franklin to not even think about it. Franklin subsequently did superb work in J. D. Bernal's Lab at Birkbeck College with the tobacco mosaic virus extending ideas on helical construction.
Crick was often described as very talkative, with Watson – in The Double Helix – implying lack of modesty. His personality combined with his scientific accomplishments produced many opportunities for Crick to stimulate reactions from others, both inside and outside the scientific world, which was the centre of his intellectual and professional life. Crick spoke rapidly, and rather loudly, and had an infectious and reverberating laugh, and a lively sense of humour. One colleague from the Salk Institute described him as "a brainstorming intellectual powerhouse with a mischievous smile. ... Francis was never mean-spirited, just incisive. He detected microscopic flaws in logic. In a room full of smart scientists, Francis continually reearned his position as the heavyweight champ."
Crick occasionally expressed his views on eugenics, usually in private letters. For example, Crick advocated a form of positive eugenics in which wealthy parents would be encouraged to have more children. He once remarked, "In the long run, it is unavoidable that society will begin to worry about the character of the next generation ... It is not a subject at the moment which we can tackle easily because people have so many religious beliefs and until we have a more uniform view of ourselves I think it would be risky to try and do anything in the way of eugenics ... I would be astonished if, in the next 100 or 200 years, society did not come round to the view that they would have to try to improve the next generation in some extent or one way or another."
Biologist Nancy Hopkins says when she was an undergraduate in the 1960s, Crick put his hands on her breasts during a lab visit. She described the incident: "Before I could rise and shake hands, he had zoomed across the room, stood behind me, put his hands on my breasts and said, 'What are you working on?'"
Crick referred to himself as a humanist, which he defined as the belief "that human problems can and must be faced in terms of human moral and intellectual resources without invoking supernatural authority." He publicly called for humanism to replace religion as a guiding force for humanity, writing:
The human dilemma is hardly new. We find ourselves through no wish of our own on this slowly revolving planet in an obscure corner of a vast universe. Our questioning intelligence will not let us live in cow-like content with our lot. We have a deep need to know why we are here. What is the world made of? More important, what are we made of? In the past religion answered these questions, often in considerable detail. Now we know that almost all these answers are highly likely to be nonsense, having sprung from man's ignorance and his enormous capacity for self-deception ... The simple fables of the religions of the world have come to seem like tales told to children. Even understood symbolically they are often perverse, if not rather unpleasant ... Humanists, then, live in a mysterious, exciting and intellectually expanding world, which, once glimpsed, makes the old worlds of the religions seem fake-cosy and stale
Crick was especially critical of Christianity:
I do not respect Christian beliefs. I think they are ridiculous. If we could get rid of them we could more easily get down to the serious problem of trying to find out what the world is all about.
Crick once joked, "Christianity may be OK between consenting adults in private but should not be taught to young children."
In his book Of Molecules and Men, Crick expressed his views on the relationship between science and religion. After suggesting that it would become possible for a computer to be programmed so as to have a soul, he wondered: at what point during biological evolution did the first organism have a soul? At what moment does a baby get a soul? Crick stated his view that the idea of a non-material soul that could enter a body and then persist after death is just that, an imagined idea. For Crick, the mind is a product of physical brain activity and the brain had evolved by natural means over millions of years. He felt that it was important that evolution by natural selection be taught in schools and that it was regrettable that English schools had compulsory religious instruction. He also considered that a new scientific world view was rapidly being established, and predicted that once the detailed workings of the brain were eventually revealed, erroneous Christian concepts about the nature of humans and the world would no longer be tenable; traditional conceptions of the "soul" would be replaced by a new understanding of the physical basis of mind. He was sceptical of organised religion, referring to himself as a sceptic and an agnostic with "a strong inclination towards atheism".
In 1960, Crick accepted an honorary fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge, one factor being that the new college did not have a chapel. Some time later a large donation was made to establish a chapel and the College Council decided to accept it. Crick resigned his fellowship in protest.
In October 1969, Crick participated in a celebration of the 100th year of the journal Nature in which he attempted to make some predictions about what the next 30 years would hold for molecular biology. His speculations were later published in Nature. Near the end of the article, Crick briefly mentioned the search for life on other planets, but he held little hope that extraterrestrial life would be found by the year 2000. He also discussed what he described as a possible new direction for research, what he called "biochemical theology". Crick wrote "so many people pray that one finds it hard to believe that they do not get some satisfaction from it".
Crick suggested that it might be possible to find chemical changes in the brain that were molecular correlates of the act of prayer. He speculated that there might be a detectable change in the level of some neurotransmitter or neurohormone when people pray. He might have been imagining substances such as dopamine that are released by the brain under certain conditions and produce rewarding sensations. Crick's suggestion that there might someday be a new science of "biochemical theology" seems to have been realised under an alternative name: there is now the new field of neurotheology. Crick's view of the relationship between science and religion continued to play a role in his work as he made the transition from molecular biology research into theoretical neuroscience.
Crick asked in 1998 "and if some of the Bible is manifestly wrong, why should any of the rest of it be accepted automatically? ... And what would be more important than to find our true place in the universe by removing one by one these unfortunate vestiges of earlier beliefs?"
In 2003 he was one of 22 Nobel laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.
Crick was a firm critic of young Earth creationism. In the 1987 United States Supreme Court case Edwards v. Aguillard, Crick joined a group of other Nobel laureates who advised, "'Creation-science' simply has no place in the public-school science classroom." Crick was also an advocate for the establishment of Darwin Day as a British national holiday.
During the 1960s, Crick became concerned with the origins of the genetic code. In 1966, Crick took the place of Leslie Orgel at a meeting where Orgel was to talk about the origin of life. Crick speculated about possible stages by which an initially simple code with a few amino acid types might have evolved into the more complex code used by existing organisms. At that time, proteins were thought to be the only kind of enzyme, and ribozymes had not yet been identified. Many molecular biologists were puzzled by the problem of the origin of a protein replicating system that is as complex as that which exists in organisms currently inhabiting Earth. In the early 1970s, Crick and Orgel further speculated about the possibility that the production of living systems from molecules may have been a very rare event in the universe, but once it had developed it could be spread by intelligent life forms using space travel technology, a process they called "directed panspermia". In a retrospective article, Crick and Orgel noted that they had been unduly pessimistic about the chances of abiogenesis on Earth when they had assumed that some kind of self-replicating protein system was the molecular origin of life.
In 1976, Crick addressed the origin of protein synthesis in a paper with Sydney Brenner, Aaron Klug, and George Pieczenik. In this paper, they speculate that code constraints on nucleotide sequences allow protein synthesis without the need for a ribosome. It, however, requires a five base binding between the mRNA and tRNA with a flip of the anti-codon creating a triplet coding, even though it is a five-base physical interaction. Thomas H. Jukes pointed out that the code constraints on the mRNA sequence required for this translation mechanism is still preserved.
Crick's period at Cambridge was the pinnacle of his long scientific career, but he left Cambridge in 1977 after 30 years, having been offered (and having refused) the Mastership of Gonville and Caius. James Watson claimed at a Cambridge conference marking the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA in 2003:
Now perhaps it's a pretty well kept secret that one of the most uninspiring acts of the University of Cambridge over this past century was to turn down Francis Crick when he applied to be the Professor of Genetics, in 1958. Now there may have been a series of arguments, which led them to reject Francis. It was really saying, don't push us to the frontier.
The apparently "pretty well kept secret" had already been recorded in Soraya De Chadarevian's Designs For Life: Molecular Biology After World War II, published by Cambridge University Press in 2002. His major contribution to molecular biology in Cambridge is well documented in The History of the University of Cambridge: Volume 4 (1870 to 1990), which was published by CUP in 1992.
According to the University of Cambridge's genetics department official website, the electors of the professorship could not reach consensus, prompting the intervention of then University Vice-Chancellor Lord Adrian. Lord Adrian first offered the professorship to a compromise candidate, Guido Pontecorvo, who refused, and is said to have offered it then to Crick, who also refused.
In 1976, Crick took a sabbatical year at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. Crick had been a nonresident fellow of the Institute since 1960. Crick wrote, "I felt at home in Southern California." After the sabbatical, Crick left Cambridge to continue working at the Salk Institute. He was also an adjunct professor at the University of California, San Diego. He taught himself neuroanatomy and studied many other areas of neuroscience research. It took him several years to disengage from molecular biology because exciting discoveries continued to be made, including the discovery of alternative splicing and the discovery of restriction enzymes, which helped make possible genetic engineering. Eventually, in the 1980s, Crick was able to devote his full attention to his other interest, consciousness. His autobiographical book, What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery, includes a description of why he left molecular biology and switched to neuroscience.
Upon taking up work in theoretical neuroscience, Crick was struck by several things:
Crick hoped he might aid progress in neuroscience by promoting constructive interactions between specialists from the many different subdisciplines concerned with consciousness. He also collaborated with neurophilosophers such as Patricia Churchland. In 1983, as a result of their studies of computer models of neural networks, Crick and Mitchison proposed that the function of REM sleep and dreaming is to remove certain modes of interactions in networks of cells in the mammalian cerebral cortex; they called this hypothetical process "reverse learning" or "unlearning". In the final phase of his career, Crick established a collaboration with Christof Koch that led to publication of a series of articles on consciousness during the period spanning from 1990 to 2005. Crick made the strategic decision to focus his theoretical investigation of consciousness on how the brain generates visual awareness within a few hundred milliseconds of viewing a scene. Crick and Koch proposed that consciousness seems so mysterious because it involves very short-term memory processes that are as yet poorly understood. In his book The Astonishing Hypothesis, Crick described how neurobiology had reached a mature enough stage so that consciousness could be the subject of a unified effort to study it at the molecular, cellular and behavioural levels. Crick was sceptical about the value of computational models of mental function that are not based on details about brain structure and function.
Crick was aware that research on consciousness was a difficult task, as he wrote to Martynas Yčas in April 1996:
I don't think we shall fully understand consciousness by the end of this century, but it's possible we can get a glimpse of the answer by then. Whether it will all fall into place, as molecular biology did, without a vital force, or whether we need a radical formulation, only time will tell. Best wishes, Yours, Francis. P.S. By the way, I've not been knighted.
In addition to his third share of the 1962 Nobel prize for Physiology or Medicine, he received many awards and honours, including the Royal and Copley medals of the Royal Society (1972 and 1975), and also the Order of Merit (on 27 November 1991); he refused an offer of a CBE in 1963, but was often referred to in error as 'Sir Francis Crick' and even on occasions as 'Lord Crick'. He was elected an EMBO Member in 1964.
The award of Nobel prizes to John Kendrew and Max Perutz, and to Crick, Watson, and Wilkins was satirised in a short sketch in the BBC TV programme That Was The Week That Was with the Nobel Prizes being referred to as 'The Alfred Nobel Peace Pools'.
He was an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1962), the United States National Academy of Sciences (1969), and the American Philosophical Society (1972).
The Francis Crick Medal and Lecture was established in 2003 following an endowment by his former colleague, Sydney Brenner, joint winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. The lecture is delivered annually in any field of biological sciences, with preference given to the areas in which Francis Crick himself worked. Importantly, the lectureship is aimed at younger scientists, ideally under 40, or whose career progression corresponds to this age. As of 2019, Crick lectures have been delivered by Julie Ahringer, Dario Alessi, Ewan Birney, Simon Boulton, Jason Chin, Simon Fisher, Matthew Hurles, Gilean McVean, Duncan Odom, Geraint Rees, Sarah Teichmann, M. Madan Babu and Daniel Wolpert.
The Francis Crick Institute is a £660 million biomedical research centre located in north London, United Kingdom. The Francis Crick Institute is a partnership between Cancer Research UK, Imperial College London, King's College London, the Medical Research Council, University College London (UCL) and the Wellcome Trust. Completed in 2016, it is the largest centre for biomedical research and innovation in Europe.
The University of Cambridge Graduate School of Biological, Medical and Veterinary Sciences hosts The Francis Crick Graduate Lectures. The first two lectures were by John Gurdon and Tim Hunt.
Crick papers
Audio and video files
About his work
About his life
Miscellaneous
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Francis Harry Compton Crick OM FRS (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical structure of the DNA molecule.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Crick and Watson's paper in Nature in 1953 laid the groundwork for understanding DNA structure and functions. Together with Maurice Wilkins, they were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine \"for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Crick was an important theoretical molecular biologist and played a crucial role in research related to revealing the helical structure of DNA. He is widely known for the use of the term \"central dogma\" to summarise the idea that once information is transferred from nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) to proteins, it cannot flow back to nucleic acids. In other words, the final step in the flow of information from nucleic acids to proteins is irreversible.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "During the remainder of his career, he held the post of J.W. Kieckhefer Distinguished Research Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. His later research centered on theoretical neurobiology and attempts to advance the scientific study of human consciousness. He remained in this post until his death; \"he was editing a manuscript on his death bed, a scientist until the bitter end\" according to Christof Koch.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Crick was the first son of Harry Crick and Annie Elizabeth Crick (née Wilkins). He was born on 8 June 1916 and raised in Weston Favell, then a small village near the English town of Northampton, in which Crick's father and uncle ran the family's boot and shoe factory. His grandfather, Walter Drawbridge Crick, an amateur naturalist, wrote a survey of local foraminifera (single-celled protists with shells), corresponded with Charles Darwin, and had two gastropods (snails or slugs) named after him.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "At an early age, Francis was attracted to science and what he could learn about it from books. As a child, he was taken to church by his parents. But by about age 12, he said he did not want to go any more as he preferred a scientific search for answers over religious belief.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Walter Crick, his uncle, lived in a small house on the south side of Abington Avenue; he had a shed at the bottom of his little garden where he taught Crick to blow glass, do chemical experiments and to make photographic prints. When he was eight or nine he transferred to the most junior form of the Northampton Grammar School, on the Billing Road. This was about 1.25 mi (2 km) from his home so he could walk there and back, by Park Avenue South and Abington Park Crescent, but he more often went by bus or, later, by bicycle. The teaching in the higher forms was satisfactory, but not as stimulating. After the age of 14, he was educated at Mill Hill School in London (on a scholarship), where he studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry with his best friend John Shilston. He shared the Walter Knox Prize for Chemistry on Mill Hill School's Foundation Day, Friday, 7 July 1933. He declared that his success was founded on the quality of teaching he received whilst a pupil at Mill Hill.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Crick studied at University College London (UCL), a constituent college of the University of London and earned a Bachelor of Science degree awarded by the University of London in 1937. Crick began a PhD at UCL, but was interrupted by World War II. He later became a PhD student and Honorary Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and mainly worked at the Cavendish Laboratory and the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. He was also an Honorary Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and of University College, London.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Crick began a PhD research project on measuring the viscosity of water at high temperatures (which he later described as \"the dullest problem imaginable\") in the laboratory of physicist Edward Neville da Costa Andrade at University College London, but with the outbreak of World War II (in particular, an incident during the Battle of Britain when a bomb fell through the roof of the laboratory and destroyed his experimental apparatus), Crick was deflected from a possible career in physics. During his second year as a PhD student, however, he was awarded the Carey Foster Research Prize, a great honour. He did postdoctoral work at the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, now part of the New York University Tandon School of Engineering.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "During World War II, he worked for the Admiralty Research Laboratory, from which many notable scientists emerged, including David Bates, Robert Boyd, Thomas Gaskell, George Deacon, John Gunn, Harrie Massey, and Nevill Mott; he worked on the design of magnetic and acoustic mines and was instrumental in designing a new mine that was effective against German minesweepers.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 1947, aged 31, Crick began studying biology and became part of an important migration of physical scientists into biology research. This migration was made possible by the newly won influence of physicists such as Sir John Randall, who had helped win the war with inventions such as radar. Crick had to adjust from the \"elegance and deep simplicity\" of physics to the \"elaborate chemical mechanisms that natural selection had evolved over billions of years.\" He described this transition as, \"almost as if one had to be born again\". According to Crick, the experience of learning physics had taught him something important—hubris—and the conviction that since physics was already a success, great advances should also be possible in other sciences such as biology. Crick felt that this attitude encouraged him to be more daring than typical biologists who tended to concern themselves with the daunting problems of biology and not the past successes of physics.",
"title": "Post-World War Two life and work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "For the better part of two years, Crick worked on the physical properties of cytoplasm at Cambridge's Strangeways Research Laboratory, headed by Honor Bridget Fell, with a Medical Research Council studentship, until he joined Max Perutz and John Kendrew at the Cavendish Laboratory. The Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge was under the general direction of Sir Lawrence Bragg, who had won the Nobel Prize in 1915 at the age of 25. Bragg was influential in the effort to beat a leading American chemist, Linus Pauling, to the discovery of DNA's structure (after having been pipped at the post by Pauling's success in determining the alpha helix structure of proteins). At the same time Bragg's Cavendish Laboratory was also effectively competing with King's College London, whose Biophysics department was under the direction of Randall. (Randall had refused Crick's application to work at King's College.) Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins of King's College were personal friends, which influenced subsequent scientific events as much as the close friendship between Crick and James Watson. Crick and Wilkins first met at King's College and not, as erroneously recorded by two authors, at the Admiralty during World War II.",
"title": "Post-World War Two life and work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Crick married twice and fathered three children; his brother Anthony (born in 1918) predeceased him in 1966.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Spouses:",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Children:",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Crick died of colon cancer on the morning of 28 July 2004 at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Thornton Hospital in La Jolla; he was cremated and his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean. A public memorial was held on 27 September 2004 at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, near San Diego, California; guest speakers included James Watson, Sydney Brenner, Alex Rich, Seymour Benzer, Aaron Klug, Christof Koch, Pat Churchland, Vilayanur Ramachandran, Tomaso Poggio, Leslie Orgel, Terry Sejnowski, his son Michael Crick, and his younger daughter Jacqueline Nichols. A private memorial for family and colleagues was held on 3 August 2004.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Crick's Nobel Prize medal and diploma from the Nobel committee was sold at auction in June 2013 for $2,270,000. It was bought by Jack Wang, the CEO of Chinese medical company Biomobie. 20% of the sale price of the medal was donated to the Francis Crick Institute in London.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Crick was interested in two fundamental unsolved problems of biology: how molecules make the transition from the non-living to the living, and how the brain makes a conscious mind. He realised that his background made him more qualified for research on the first topic and the field of biophysics. It was at this time of Crick's transition from physics to biology that he was influenced by both Linus Pauling and Erwin Schrödinger. It was clear in theory that covalent bonds in biological molecules could provide the structural stability needed to hold genetic information in cells. It only remained as an exercise of experimental biology to discover exactly which molecule was the genetic molecule. In Crick's view, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Gregor Mendel's genetics and knowledge of the molecular basis of genetics, when combined, revealed the secret of life. Crick had the very optimistic view that life would very soon be created in a test tube. However, some people (such as fellow researcher and colleague Esther Lederberg) thought that Crick was unduly optimistic.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "It was clear that some macromolecule such as a protein was likely to be the genetic molecule. However, it was well known that proteins are structural and functional macromolecules, some of which carry out enzymatic reactions of cells. In the 1940s, some evidence had been found pointing to another macromolecule, DNA, the other major component of chromosomes, as a candidate genetic molecule. In the 1944 Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment, Oswald Avery and his collaborators showed that a heritable phenotypic difference could be caused in bacteria by providing them with a particular DNA molecule.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "However, other evidence was interpreted as suggesting that DNA was structurally uninteresting and possibly just a molecular scaffold for the apparently more interesting protein molecules. Crick was in the right place, in the right frame of mind, at the right time (1949), to join Max Perutz's project at the University of Cambridge, and he began to work on the X-ray crystallography of proteins. X-ray crystallography theoretically offered the opportunity to reveal the molecular structure of large molecules like proteins and DNA, but there were serious technical problems then preventing X-ray crystallography from being applicable to such large molecules.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Crick taught himself the mathematical theory of X-ray crystallography. During the period of Crick's study of X-ray diffraction, researchers in the Cambridge lab were attempting to determine the most stable helical conformation of amino acid chains in proteins (the alpha helix). Linus Pauling was the first to identify the 3.6 amino acids per helix turn ratio of the alpha helix. Crick was witness to the kinds of errors that his co-workers made in their failed attempts to make a correct molecular model of the alpha helix; these turned out to be important lessons that could be applied, in the future, to the helical structure of DNA. For example, he learned the importance of the structural rigidity that double bonds confer on molecular structures which is relevant both to peptide bonds in proteins and the structure of nucleotides in DNA.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In 1951 and 1952, together with William Cochran and Vladimir Vand, Crick assisted in the development of a mathematical theory of X-ray diffraction by a helical molecule. This theoretical result matched well with X-ray data for proteins that contain sequences of amino acids in the alpha helix conformation. Helical diffraction theory turned out to also be useful for understanding the structure of DNA.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Late in 1951, Crick started working with James Watson at Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, England. Using \"Photo 51\" (the X-ray diffraction results of Rosalind Franklin and her graduate student Raymond Gosling of King's College London, given to them by Gosling and Franklin's colleague Wilkins), Watson and Crick together developed a model for a helical structure of DNA, which they published in 1953. For this and subsequent work they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 with Wilkins.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "When Watson came to Cambridge, Crick was a 35-year-old graduate student (due to his work during WWII) and Watson was only 23, but had already obtained a PhD. They shared an interest in the fundamental problem of learning how genetic information might be stored in molecular form. Watson and Crick talked endlessly about DNA and the idea that it might be possible to guess a good molecular model of its structure. A key piece of experimentally-derived information came from X-ray diffraction images that had been obtained by Wilkins, Franklin, and Gosling. In November 1951, Wilkins came to Cambridge and shared his data with Watson and Crick. Alexander Stokes (another expert in helical diffraction theory) and Wilkins (both at King's College) had reached the conclusion that X-ray diffraction data for DNA indicated that the molecule had a helical structure—but Franklin vehemently disputed this conclusion. Stimulated by their discussions with Wilkins and what Watson learned by attending a talk given by Franklin about her work on DNA, Crick and Watson produced and showed off an erroneous first model of DNA. Their hurry to produce a model of DNA structure was driven in part by the knowledge that they were competing against Linus Pauling. Given Pauling's recent success in discovering the Alpha helix, they feared that Pauling might also be the first to determine the structure of DNA.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Many have speculated about what might have happened had Pauling been able to travel to Britain as planned in May 1952. As it was, his political activities caused his travel to be restricted by the United States government and he did not visit the UK until later, at which point he met none of the DNA researchers in England. At any rate he was preoccupied with proteins at the time, not DNA. Watson and Crick were not officially working on DNA. Crick was writing his PhD thesis; Watson also had other work such as trying to obtain crystals of myoglobin for X-ray diffraction experiments. In 1952, Watson performed X-ray diffraction on tobacco mosaic virus and found results indicating that it had helical structure. Having failed once, Watson and Crick were now somewhat reluctant to try again and for a while they were forbidden to make further efforts to find a molecular model of DNA.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Of great importance to the model building effort of Watson and Crick was Rosalind Franklin's understanding of basic chemistry, which indicated that the hydrophilic phosphate-containing backbones of the nucleotide chains of DNA should be positioned so as to interact with water molecules on the outside of the molecule while the hydrophobic bases should be packed into the core. Franklin shared this chemical knowledge with Watson and Crick when she pointed out to them that their first model (from 1951, with the phosphates inside) was obviously wrong.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Crick described what he saw as the failure of Wilkins and Franklin to cooperate and work towards finding a molecular model of DNA as a major reason why he and Watson eventually made a second attempt to do so. They asked for, and received, permission to do so from both William Lawrence Bragg and Wilkins. To construct their model of DNA, Watson and Crick made use of information from unpublished X-ray diffraction images of Franklin's (shown at meetings and freely shared by Wilkins), including preliminary accounts of Franklin's results/photographs of the X-ray images that were included in a written progress report for the King's College laboratory of Sir John Randall from late 1952.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "It is a matter of debate whether Watson and Crick should have had access to Franklin's results without her knowledge or permission, and before she had a chance to formally publish the results of her detailed analysis of her X-ray diffraction data which were included in the progress report. However, Watson and Crick found fault in her steadfast assertion that, according to her data, a helical structure was not the only possible shape for DNA—so they had a dilemma. In an effort to clarify this issue, Max Ferdinand Perutz later published what had been in the progress report, and suggested that nothing was in the report that Franklin herself had not said in her talk (attended by Watson) in late 1951. Further, Perutz explained that the report was to a Medical Research Council (MRC) committee that had been created to \"establish contact between the different groups of people working for the Council\". Randall's and Perutz's laboratories were both funded by the MRC.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "It is also not clear how important Franklin's unpublished results from the progress report actually were for the model-building done by Watson and Crick. After the first crude X-ray diffraction images of DNA were collected in the 1930s, William Astbury had talked about stacks of nucleotides spaced at 3.4 angström (0.34 nanometre) intervals in DNA. A citation to Astbury's earlier X-ray diffraction work was one of only eight references in Franklin's first paper on DNA. Analysis of Astbury's published DNA results and the better X-ray diffraction images collected by Wilkins and Franklin revealed the helical nature of DNA. It was possible to predict the number of bases stacked within a single turn of the DNA helix (10 per turn; a full turn of the helix is 27 angströms [2.7 nm] in the compact A form, 34 angströms [3.4 nm] in the wetter B form). Wilkins shared this information about the B form of DNA with Crick and Watson. Crick did not see Franklin's B form X-ray images (Photo 51) until after the DNA double helix model was published.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "One of the few references cited by Watson and Crick when they published their model of DNA was to a published article that included Sven Furberg's DNA model that had the bases on the inside. Thus, the Watson and Crick model was not the first \"bases in\" model to be proposed. Furberg's results had also provided the correct orientation of the DNA sugars with respect to the bases. During their model building, Crick and Watson learned that an antiparallel orientation of the two nucleotide chain backbones worked best to orient the base pairs in the centre of a double helix. Crick's access to Franklin's progress report of late 1952 is what made Crick confident that DNA was a double helix with antiparallel chains, but there were other chains of reasoning and sources of information that also led to these conclusions.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "As a result of leaving King's College for Birkbeck College, Franklin was asked by John Randall to give up her work on DNA. When it became clear to Wilkins and the supervisors of Watson and Crick that Franklin was going to the new job, and that Linus Pauling was working on the structure of DNA, they were willing to share Franklin's data with Watson and Crick, in the hope that they could find a good model of DNA before Pauling was able. Franklin's X-ray diffraction data for DNA and her systematic analysis of DNA's structural features were useful to Watson and Crick in guiding them towards a correct molecular model. The key problem for Watson and Crick, which could not be resolved by the data from King's College, was to guess how the nucleotide bases pack into the core of the DNA double helix.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Another key to finding the correct structure of DNA was the so-called Chargaff ratios, experimentally determined ratios of the nucleotide subunits of DNA: the amount of guanine is equal to cytosine and the amount of adenine is equal to thymine. A visit by Erwin Chargaff to England, in 1952, reinforced the salience of this important fact for Watson and Crick. The significance of these ratios for the structure of DNA were not recognised until Watson, persisting in building structural models, realised that A:T and C:G pairs are structurally similar. In particular, the length of each base pair is the same. Chargaff had also pointed out to Watson that, in the aqueous, saline environment of the cell, the predominant tautomers of the pyrimidine (C and T) bases would be the amine and keto configurations of cytosine and thymine, rather than the imino and enol forms that Crick and Watson had assumed. They consulted Jerry Donohue who confirmed the most likely structures of the nucleotide bases. The base pairs are held together by hydrogen bonds, the same non-covalent interaction that stabilise the protein α-helix. The correct structures were essential for the positioning of the hydrogen bonds. These insights led Watson to deduce the true biological relationships of the A:T and C:G pairs. After the discovery of the hydrogen bonded A:T and C:G pairs, Watson and Crick soon had their anti-parallel, double helical model of DNA, with the hydrogen bonds at the core of the helix providing a way to \"unzip\" the two complementary strands for easy replication: the last key requirement for a likely model of the genetic molecule. As important as Crick's contributions to the discovery of the double helical DNA model were, he stated that without the chance to collaborate with Watson, he would not have found the structure by himself.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Crick did tentatively attempt to perform some experiments on nucleotide base pairing, but he was more of a theoretical biologist than an experimental biologist. There was another near-discovery of the base pairing rules in early 1952. Crick had started to think about interactions between the bases. He asked John Griffith to try to calculate attractive interactions between the DNA bases from chemical principles and quantum mechanics. Griffith's best guess was that A:T and G:C were attractive pairs. At that time, Crick was not aware of Chargaff's rules and he made little of Griffith's calculations, although it did start him thinking about complementary replication. Identification of the correct base-pairing rules (A-T, G-C) was achieved by Watson \"playing\" with cardboard cut-out models of the nucleotide bases, much in the manner that Linus Pauling had discovered the protein alpha helix a few years earlier. The Watson and Crick discovery of the DNA double helix structure was made possible by their willingness to combine theory, modelling and experimental results (albeit mostly done by others) to achieve their goal.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The DNA double helix structure proposed by Watson and Crick was based upon \"Watson-Crick\" bonds between the four bases most frequently found in DNA (A, C, T, G) and RNA (A, C, U, G). However, later research showed that triple-stranded, quadruple-stranded and other more complex DNA molecular structures required Hoogsteen base pairing. The entire field of synthetic biology began with work by researchers such as Erik T. Kool, in which bases other than A, C, T and G are used in a synthetic DNA. In addition to synthetic DNA there are also attempts to construct synthetic codons, synthetic endonucleases, synthetic proteins and synthetic zinc fingers. Using synthetic DNA, instead of there being 4 codons, if there are n new bases there could be as many as n codons. Research is currently being done to see if codons can be expanded to more than 3 bases. These new codons can code for new amino acids. These synthetic molecules can be used not only in medicine, but in creation of new materials.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The discovery was made on 28 February 1953; the first Watson/Crick paper appeared in Nature on 25 April 1953. Sir Lawrence Bragg, the director of the Cavendish Laboratory, where Watson and Crick worked, gave a talk at Guy's Hospital Medical School in London on Thursday 14 May 1953 which resulted in an article by Ritchie Calder in the News Chronicle of London, on Friday 15 May 1953, entitled \"Why You Are You. Nearer Secret of Life.\" The news reached readers of The New York Times the next day; Victor K. McElheny, in researching his biography, \"Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution\", found a clipping of a six-paragraph New York Times article written from London and dated 16 May 1953 with the headline \"Form of 'Life Unit' in Cell Is Scanned\". The article ran in an early edition and was then pulled to make space for news deemed more important. (The New York Times subsequently ran a longer article on 12 June 1953). The university's undergraduate newspaper Varsity also ran its own short article on the discovery on Saturday 30 May 1953. Bragg's original announcement of the discovery at a Solvay conference on proteins in Belgium on 8 April 1953 went unreported by the British press.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In a seven-page, handwritten letter to his son at a British boarding school on 19 March 1953 Crick explained his discovery, beginning the letter \"My Dear Michael, Jim Watson and I have probably made a most important discovery\". The letter was put up for auction at Christie's New York on 10 April 2013 with an estimate of $1 to $2 million, eventually selling for $6,059,750, the largest amount ever paid for a letter at auction.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Sydney Brenner, Jack Dunitz, Dorothy Hodgkin, Leslie Orgel, and Beryl M. Oughton, were some of the first people in April 1953 to see the model of the structure of DNA, constructed by Crick and Watson; at the time they were working at Oxford University's Chemistry Department. All were impressed by the new DNA model, especially Brenner who subsequently worked with Crick at Cambridge in the Cavendish Laboratory and the new Laboratory of Molecular Biology. According to the late Dr. Beryl Oughton, later Rimmer, they all travelled together in two cars once Dorothy Hodgkin announced to them that they were off to Cambridge to see the model of the structure of DNA. Orgel also later worked with Crick at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Soon after Crick's death, there have been allegations about him having used LSD when he came to the idea of the helix structure of the DNA. While he almost certainly did use LSD, it is unlikely that he did so as early as 1953.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In 1954, at the age of 37, Crick completed his PhD thesis: \"X-Ray Diffraction: Polypeptides and Proteins\" and received his degree. Crick then worked in the laboratory of David Harker at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, where he continued to develop his skills in the analysis of X-ray diffraction data for proteins, working primarily on ribonuclease and the mechanisms of protein synthesis. David Harker, the American X-ray crystallographer, was described as \"the John Wayne of crystallography\" by Vittorio Luzzati, a crystallographer at the Centre for Molecular Genetics in Gif-sur-Yvette near Paris, who had worked with Rosalind Franklin.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "After the discovery of the double helix model of DNA, Crick's interests quickly turned to the biological implications of the structure. In 1953, Watson and Crick published another article in Nature which stated: \"it therefore seems likely that the precise sequence of the bases is the code that carries the genetical information\".",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In 1956, Crick and Watson speculated on the structure of small viruses. They suggested that spherical viruses such as Tomato bushy stunt virus had icosahedral symmetry and were made from 60 identical subunits.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "After his short time in New York, Crick returned to Cambridge where he worked until 1976, at which time he moved to California. Crick engaged in several X-ray diffraction collaborations such as one with Alexander Rich on the structure of collagen. However, Crick was quickly drifting away from continued work related to his expertise in the interpretation of X-ray diffraction patterns of proteins.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "George Gamow established a group of scientists interested in the role of RNA as an intermediary between DNA as the genetic storage molecule in the nucleus of cells and the synthesis of proteins in the cytoplasm (the RNA Tie Club). It was clear to Crick that there had to be a code by which a short sequence of nucleotides would specify a particular amino acid in a newly synthesised protein. In 1956, Crick wrote an informal paper about the genetic coding problem for the small group of scientists in Gamow's RNA group. In this article, Crick reviewed the evidence supporting the idea that there was a common set of about 20 amino acids used to synthesize proteins. Crick proposed that there was a corresponding set of small \"adaptor molecules\" that would hydrogen bond to short sequences of a nucleic acid, and also link to one of the amino acids. He also explored the many theoretical possibilities by which short nucleic acid sequences might code for the 20 amino acids.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "During the mid-to-late 1950s Crick was very much intellectually engaged in sorting out the mystery of how proteins are synthesised. By 1958, Crick's thinking had matured and he could list in an orderly way all of the key features of the protein synthesis process:",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The adaptor molecules were eventually shown to be tRNAs and the catalytic \"ribonucleic-protein complexes\" became known as ribosomes. An important step was the realization by Crick and Brenner on 15 April 1960 during a conversation with François Jacob that messenger RNA was not the same thing as ribosomal RNA. Later that summer, Brenner, Jacob, and Matthew Meselson conducted an experiment which was the first to prove the existence of messenger RNA. None of this, however, answered the fundamental theoretical question of the exact nature of the genetic code. In his 1958 article, Crick speculated, as had others, that a triplet of nucleotides could code for an amino acid. Such a code might be \"degenerate\", with 4×4×4=64 possible triplets of the four nucleotide subunits while there were only 20 amino acids. Some amino acids might have multiple triplet codes. Crick also explored other codes in which, for various reasons, only some of the triplets were used, \"magically\" producing just the 20 needed combinations. Experimental results were needed; theory alone could not decide the nature of the code. Crick also used the term \"central dogma\" to summarise an idea that implies that genetic information flow between macromolecules would be essentially one-way:",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Some critics thought that by using the word \"dogma\", Crick was implying that this was a rule that could not be questioned, but all he really meant was that it was a compelling idea without much solid evidence to support it. In his thinking about the biological processes linking DNA genes to proteins, Crick made explicit the distinction between the materials involved, the energy required, and the information flow. Crick was focused on this third component (information) and it became the organising principle of what became known as molecular biology. Crick had by this time become a highly influential theoretical molecular biologist.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Proof that the genetic code is a degenerate triplet code finally came from genetics experiments, some of which were performed by Crick. The details of the code came mostly from work by Marshall Nirenberg and others who synthesised synthetic RNA molecules and used them as templates for in vitro protein synthesis. Nirenberg first announced his results to a small audience in Moscow at a 1961 conference. Crick's reaction was to invite Nirenberg to deliver his talk to a larger audience.",
"title": "Research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Watson and Crick's use of DNA X-ray diffraction data collected by Franklin and Wilkins has generated an enduring controversy. It arose from the fact that some of Franklin's unpublished data were used without her knowledge or consent by Watson and Crick in their construction of the double helix model of DNA. Of the four DNA researchers, only Franklin had a degree in chemistry; Wilkins and Crick had backgrounds in physics, Watson in biology.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Prior to publication of the double helix structure, Watson and Crick had little direct interaction with Franklin herself. They were, however, aware of her work, more aware than she herself realised. Watson was present at a lecture, given in November 1951, where Franklin presented the two forms of the molecule, type A and type B, and discussed the position of the phosphate units on the external part of the molecule. She also specified the amount of water to be found in the molecule in accordance with other parts of it, data that have considerable importance in terms of the stability of the molecule. She was the first to discover and formulate these facts, which in fact constituted the basis for all later attempts to build a model of the molecule. Before this, both Linus Pauling and Watson and Crick had generated erroneous models with the chains inside and the bases pointing outwards. Her identification of the space group for DNA crystals revealed to Crick that the two DNA strands were antiparallel.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "In January 1953, Watson was shown an X-ray photograph of B-DNA (called photograph 51), by Wilkins. Wilkins had been given photograph 51 by Rosalind Franklin's PhD student Raymond Gosling. Wilkins and Gosling had worked together in the Medical Research Council's (MRC) Biophysics Unit before director John Randall appointed Franklin to take over both DNA diffraction work and guidance of Gosling's thesis. It appears that Randall did not communicate effectively with them about Franklin's appointment, contributing to confusion and friction between Wilkins and Franklin.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "In the middle of February 1953, Crick's thesis advisor, Max Perutz, gave Crick a copy of a report written for a Medical Research Council biophysics committee visit to King's in December 1952, containing data from the King's group, including some of Franklin's crystallographic calculations.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Franklin was unaware that photograph 51 and other information had been shared with Crick and Watson. She wrote a series of three draft manuscripts, two of which included a double helical DNA backbone. Her two A form manuscripts reached Acta Crystallographica in Copenhagen on 6 March 1953, one day before Crick and Watson had completed their model.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The X-ray diffraction images collected by Gosling and Franklin provided the best evidence for the helical nature of DNA. Franklin's experimental work thus proved crucial in Watson and Crick's discovery. Her experimental results provided estimates of the water content of DNA crystals, and these results were most consistent with the three sugar-phosphate backbones being on the outside of the molecule. Franklin's X-Ray photograph showed that the backbones had to be on the outside. Although she at first insisted vehemently that her data did not force one to conclude that DNA has a helical structure, in the drafts she submitted in 1953 she argues for a double helical DNA backbone. Her identification of the space group for DNA crystals revealed to Crick that the DNA strands were antiparallel, which helped Watson and Crick decide to look for DNA models with two antiparallel polynucleotide strands.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "In summary, Watson and Crick had three sources for Franklin's unpublished data: 1) her 1951 seminar, attended by Watson, 2) discussions with Wilkins, who worked in the same laboratory with Franklin, 3) a research progress report that was intended to promote coordination of Medical Research Council-supported laboratories. Watson, Crick, Wilkins and Franklin all worked in MRC laboratories.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Crick and Watson felt that they had benefited from collaborating with Wilkins. They offered him a co-authorship on the article that first described the double helix structure of DNA. Wilkins turned down the offer, a fact that may have led to the terse character of the acknowledgement of experimental work done at King's College in the eventual published paper. Rather than make any of the DNA researchers at King's College co-authors on the Watson and Crick double helix article, the solution that was arrived at was to publish two additional papers from King's College along with the helix paper. Brenda Maddox suggests that because of the importance of her experimental results in Watson and Crick's model building and theoretical analysis, Franklin should have had her name on the original Watson and Crick paper in Nature. Franklin and Gosling submitted their own joint \"second\" paper to Nature at the same time as Wilkins, Stokes, and Wilson submitted theirs (i.e. the \"third\" paper on DNA).",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Watson's portrayal of Franklin in The Double Helix was negative and gave the appearance that she was Wilkins' assistant and was unable to interpret her own DNA data.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The X-ray diffraction images collected by Franklin provided the best evidence for the helical nature of DNA. While Franklin's experimental work proved important to Crick and Watson's development of a correct model, she herself could not realise it at the time. When she left King's College, Director Sir John Randall insisted that all DNA work belonged exclusively to King's and ordered Franklin to not even think about it. Franklin subsequently did superb work in J. D. Bernal's Lab at Birkbeck College with the tobacco mosaic virus extending ideas on helical construction.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Crick was often described as very talkative, with Watson – in The Double Helix – implying lack of modesty. His personality combined with his scientific accomplishments produced many opportunities for Crick to stimulate reactions from others, both inside and outside the scientific world, which was the centre of his intellectual and professional life. Crick spoke rapidly, and rather loudly, and had an infectious and reverberating laugh, and a lively sense of humour. One colleague from the Salk Institute described him as \"a brainstorming intellectual powerhouse with a mischievous smile. ... Francis was never mean-spirited, just incisive. He detected microscopic flaws in logic. In a room full of smart scientists, Francis continually reearned his position as the heavyweight champ.\"",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Crick occasionally expressed his views on eugenics, usually in private letters. For example, Crick advocated a form of positive eugenics in which wealthy parents would be encouraged to have more children. He once remarked, \"In the long run, it is unavoidable that society will begin to worry about the character of the next generation ... It is not a subject at the moment which we can tackle easily because people have so many religious beliefs and until we have a more uniform view of ourselves I think it would be risky to try and do anything in the way of eugenics ... I would be astonished if, in the next 100 or 200 years, society did not come round to the view that they would have to try to improve the next generation in some extent or one way or another.\"",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Biologist Nancy Hopkins says when she was an undergraduate in the 1960s, Crick put his hands on her breasts during a lab visit. She described the incident: \"Before I could rise and shake hands, he had zoomed across the room, stood behind me, put his hands on my breasts and said, 'What are you working on?'\"",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Crick referred to himself as a humanist, which he defined as the belief \"that human problems can and must be faced in terms of human moral and intellectual resources without invoking supernatural authority.\" He publicly called for humanism to replace religion as a guiding force for humanity, writing:",
"title": "Views on religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The human dilemma is hardly new. We find ourselves through no wish of our own on this slowly revolving planet in an obscure corner of a vast universe. Our questioning intelligence will not let us live in cow-like content with our lot. We have a deep need to know why we are here. What is the world made of? More important, what are we made of? In the past religion answered these questions, often in considerable detail. Now we know that almost all these answers are highly likely to be nonsense, having sprung from man's ignorance and his enormous capacity for self-deception ... The simple fables of the religions of the world have come to seem like tales told to children. Even understood symbolically they are often perverse, if not rather unpleasant ... Humanists, then, live in a mysterious, exciting and intellectually expanding world, which, once glimpsed, makes the old worlds of the religions seem fake-cosy and stale",
"title": "Views on religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Crick was especially critical of Christianity:",
"title": "Views on religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "I do not respect Christian beliefs. I think they are ridiculous. If we could get rid of them we could more easily get down to the serious problem of trying to find out what the world is all about.",
"title": "Views on religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Crick once joked, \"Christianity may be OK between consenting adults in private but should not be taught to young children.\"",
"title": "Views on religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "In his book Of Molecules and Men, Crick expressed his views on the relationship between science and religion. After suggesting that it would become possible for a computer to be programmed so as to have a soul, he wondered: at what point during biological evolution did the first organism have a soul? At what moment does a baby get a soul? Crick stated his view that the idea of a non-material soul that could enter a body and then persist after death is just that, an imagined idea. For Crick, the mind is a product of physical brain activity and the brain had evolved by natural means over millions of years. He felt that it was important that evolution by natural selection be taught in schools and that it was regrettable that English schools had compulsory religious instruction. He also considered that a new scientific world view was rapidly being established, and predicted that once the detailed workings of the brain were eventually revealed, erroneous Christian concepts about the nature of humans and the world would no longer be tenable; traditional conceptions of the \"soul\" would be replaced by a new understanding of the physical basis of mind. He was sceptical of organised religion, referring to himself as a sceptic and an agnostic with \"a strong inclination towards atheism\".",
"title": "Views on religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "In 1960, Crick accepted an honorary fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge, one factor being that the new college did not have a chapel. Some time later a large donation was made to establish a chapel and the College Council decided to accept it. Crick resigned his fellowship in protest.",
"title": "Views on religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In October 1969, Crick participated in a celebration of the 100th year of the journal Nature in which he attempted to make some predictions about what the next 30 years would hold for molecular biology. His speculations were later published in Nature. Near the end of the article, Crick briefly mentioned the search for life on other planets, but he held little hope that extraterrestrial life would be found by the year 2000. He also discussed what he described as a possible new direction for research, what he called \"biochemical theology\". Crick wrote \"so many people pray that one finds it hard to believe that they do not get some satisfaction from it\".",
"title": "Views on religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Crick suggested that it might be possible to find chemical changes in the brain that were molecular correlates of the act of prayer. He speculated that there might be a detectable change in the level of some neurotransmitter or neurohormone when people pray. He might have been imagining substances such as dopamine that are released by the brain under certain conditions and produce rewarding sensations. Crick's suggestion that there might someday be a new science of \"biochemical theology\" seems to have been realised under an alternative name: there is now the new field of neurotheology. Crick's view of the relationship between science and religion continued to play a role in his work as he made the transition from molecular biology research into theoretical neuroscience.",
"title": "Views on religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Crick asked in 1998 \"and if some of the Bible is manifestly wrong, why should any of the rest of it be accepted automatically? ... And what would be more important than to find our true place in the universe by removing one by one these unfortunate vestiges of earlier beliefs?\"",
"title": "Views on religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "In 2003 he was one of 22 Nobel laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.",
"title": "Views on religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Crick was a firm critic of young Earth creationism. In the 1987 United States Supreme Court case Edwards v. Aguillard, Crick joined a group of other Nobel laureates who advised, \"'Creation-science' simply has no place in the public-school science classroom.\" Crick was also an advocate for the establishment of Darwin Day as a British national holiday.",
"title": "Views on religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "During the 1960s, Crick became concerned with the origins of the genetic code. In 1966, Crick took the place of Leslie Orgel at a meeting where Orgel was to talk about the origin of life. Crick speculated about possible stages by which an initially simple code with a few amino acid types might have evolved into the more complex code used by existing organisms. At that time, proteins were thought to be the only kind of enzyme, and ribozymes had not yet been identified. Many molecular biologists were puzzled by the problem of the origin of a protein replicating system that is as complex as that which exists in organisms currently inhabiting Earth. In the early 1970s, Crick and Orgel further speculated about the possibility that the production of living systems from molecules may have been a very rare event in the universe, but once it had developed it could be spread by intelligent life forms using space travel technology, a process they called \"directed panspermia\". In a retrospective article, Crick and Orgel noted that they had been unduly pessimistic about the chances of abiogenesis on Earth when they had assumed that some kind of self-replicating protein system was the molecular origin of life.",
"title": "Directed panspermia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In 1976, Crick addressed the origin of protein synthesis in a paper with Sydney Brenner, Aaron Klug, and George Pieczenik. In this paper, they speculate that code constraints on nucleotide sequences allow protein synthesis without the need for a ribosome. It, however, requires a five base binding between the mRNA and tRNA with a flip of the anti-codon creating a triplet coding, even though it is a five-base physical interaction. Thomas H. Jukes pointed out that the code constraints on the mRNA sequence required for this translation mechanism is still preserved.",
"title": "Directed panspermia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Crick's period at Cambridge was the pinnacle of his long scientific career, but he left Cambridge in 1977 after 30 years, having been offered (and having refused) the Mastership of Gonville and Caius. James Watson claimed at a Cambridge conference marking the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA in 2003:",
"title": "Neuroscience and other interests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Now perhaps it's a pretty well kept secret that one of the most uninspiring acts of the University of Cambridge over this past century was to turn down Francis Crick when he applied to be the Professor of Genetics, in 1958. Now there may have been a series of arguments, which led them to reject Francis. It was really saying, don't push us to the frontier.",
"title": "Neuroscience and other interests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "The apparently \"pretty well kept secret\" had already been recorded in Soraya De Chadarevian's Designs For Life: Molecular Biology After World War II, published by Cambridge University Press in 2002. His major contribution to molecular biology in Cambridge is well documented in The History of the University of Cambridge: Volume 4 (1870 to 1990), which was published by CUP in 1992.",
"title": "Neuroscience and other interests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "According to the University of Cambridge's genetics department official website, the electors of the professorship could not reach consensus, prompting the intervention of then University Vice-Chancellor Lord Adrian. Lord Adrian first offered the professorship to a compromise candidate, Guido Pontecorvo, who refused, and is said to have offered it then to Crick, who also refused.",
"title": "Neuroscience and other interests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "In 1976, Crick took a sabbatical year at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. Crick had been a nonresident fellow of the Institute since 1960. Crick wrote, \"I felt at home in Southern California.\" After the sabbatical, Crick left Cambridge to continue working at the Salk Institute. He was also an adjunct professor at the University of California, San Diego. He taught himself neuroanatomy and studied many other areas of neuroscience research. It took him several years to disengage from molecular biology because exciting discoveries continued to be made, including the discovery of alternative splicing and the discovery of restriction enzymes, which helped make possible genetic engineering. Eventually, in the 1980s, Crick was able to devote his full attention to his other interest, consciousness. His autobiographical book, What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery, includes a description of why he left molecular biology and switched to neuroscience.",
"title": "Neuroscience and other interests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Upon taking up work in theoretical neuroscience, Crick was struck by several things:",
"title": "Neuroscience and other interests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Crick hoped he might aid progress in neuroscience by promoting constructive interactions between specialists from the many different subdisciplines concerned with consciousness. He also collaborated with neurophilosophers such as Patricia Churchland. In 1983, as a result of their studies of computer models of neural networks, Crick and Mitchison proposed that the function of REM sleep and dreaming is to remove certain modes of interactions in networks of cells in the mammalian cerebral cortex; they called this hypothetical process \"reverse learning\" or \"unlearning\". In the final phase of his career, Crick established a collaboration with Christof Koch that led to publication of a series of articles on consciousness during the period spanning from 1990 to 2005. Crick made the strategic decision to focus his theoretical investigation of consciousness on how the brain generates visual awareness within a few hundred milliseconds of viewing a scene. Crick and Koch proposed that consciousness seems so mysterious because it involves very short-term memory processes that are as yet poorly understood. In his book The Astonishing Hypothesis, Crick described how neurobiology had reached a mature enough stage so that consciousness could be the subject of a unified effort to study it at the molecular, cellular and behavioural levels. Crick was sceptical about the value of computational models of mental function that are not based on details about brain structure and function.",
"title": "Neuroscience and other interests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Crick was aware that research on consciousness was a difficult task, as he wrote to Martynas Yčas in April 1996:",
"title": "Neuroscience and other interests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "I don't think we shall fully understand consciousness by the end of this century, but it's possible we can get a glimpse of the answer by then. Whether it will all fall into place, as molecular biology did, without a vital force, or whether we need a radical formulation, only time will tell. Best wishes, Yours, Francis. P.S. By the way, I've not been knighted.",
"title": "Neuroscience and other interests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "In addition to his third share of the 1962 Nobel prize for Physiology or Medicine, he received many awards and honours, including the Royal and Copley medals of the Royal Society (1972 and 1975), and also the Order of Merit (on 27 November 1991); he refused an offer of a CBE in 1963, but was often referred to in error as 'Sir Francis Crick' and even on occasions as 'Lord Crick'. He was elected an EMBO Member in 1964.",
"title": "Awards and honours"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "The award of Nobel prizes to John Kendrew and Max Perutz, and to Crick, Watson, and Wilkins was satirised in a short sketch in the BBC TV programme That Was The Week That Was with the Nobel Prizes being referred to as 'The Alfred Nobel Peace Pools'.",
"title": "Awards and honours"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "He was an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1962), the United States National Academy of Sciences (1969), and the American Philosophical Society (1972).",
"title": "Awards and honours"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "The Francis Crick Medal and Lecture was established in 2003 following an endowment by his former colleague, Sydney Brenner, joint winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. The lecture is delivered annually in any field of biological sciences, with preference given to the areas in which Francis Crick himself worked. Importantly, the lectureship is aimed at younger scientists, ideally under 40, or whose career progression corresponds to this age. As of 2019, Crick lectures have been delivered by Julie Ahringer, Dario Alessi, Ewan Birney, Simon Boulton, Jason Chin, Simon Fisher, Matthew Hurles, Gilean McVean, Duncan Odom, Geraint Rees, Sarah Teichmann, M. Madan Babu and Daniel Wolpert.",
"title": "Awards and honours"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "The Francis Crick Institute is a £660 million biomedical research centre located in north London, United Kingdom. The Francis Crick Institute is a partnership between Cancer Research UK, Imperial College London, King's College London, the Medical Research Council, University College London (UCL) and the Wellcome Trust. Completed in 2016, it is the largest centre for biomedical research and innovation in Europe.",
"title": "Awards and honours"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "The University of Cambridge Graduate School of Biological, Medical and Veterinary Sciences hosts The Francis Crick Graduate Lectures. The first two lectures were by John Gurdon and Tim Hunt.",
"title": "Awards and honours"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "Crick papers",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Audio and video files",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "About his work",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "About his life",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "Miscellaneous",
"title": "External links"
}
] |
Francis Harry Compton Crick was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical structure of the DNA molecule. Crick and Watson's paper in Nature in 1953 laid the groundwork for understanding DNA structure and functions. Together with Maurice Wilkins, they were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material". Crick was an important theoretical molecular biologist and played a crucial role in research related to revealing the helical structure of DNA. He is widely known for the use of the term "central dogma" to summarise the idea that once information is transferred from nucleic acids to proteins, it cannot flow back to nucleic acids. In other words, the final step in the flow of information from nucleic acids to proteins is irreversible. During the remainder of his career, he held the post of J.W. Kieckhefer Distinguished Research Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. His later research centered on theoretical neurobiology and attempts to advance the scientific study of human consciousness. He remained in this post until his death; "he was editing a manuscript on his death bed, a scientist until the bitter end" according to Christof Koch.
|
2001-11-05T20:15:28Z
|
2023-12-29T04:35:33Z
|
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11,463 |
Francis van Aarssens
|
Baron Francis van Aarssens or Baron François van Aerssen (27 September 1572 - 27 December 1641), from 1611 on lord of Sommelsdijk, was a diplomat and statesman of the United Provinces.
He was born in Brussels, the son of Cornelis van Aarsens, also a statesman. His talents commended him to the notice of Advocate Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, who sent him, at the age of 26 years, as a diplomatic agent of the states-general to the court of France. He took a considerable part in the negotiations of the Twelve Years' Truce in 1609.
His conduct of affairs having displeased the French king, he was recalled from his post by Oldenbarneveldt in 1614, after the French ambassador Benjamin Aubery du Maurier had demanded Aarsens' recall. Such was the hatred he henceforth conceived against his former benefactor, that he did his very utmost to effect Oldebarneveldt's ruin. However, he was not a member of the court that convicted Oldenbarnevelt in the Trial of Oldenbarnevelt, Grotius and Hogerbeets, as Chisholm mistakenly reports.
He afterwards became the confidential counselor of Maurice, Prince of Orange, and afterwards of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, in their conduct of the foreign affairs of the republic. He was sent on special embassies to Venice, Germany and England, and displayed so much diplomatic skill and finesse that Cardinal Richelieu ranked him among the three greatest politicians of his time. He died, aged 69, in The Hague.
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"text": "Baron Francis van Aarssens or Baron François van Aerssen (27 September 1572 - 27 December 1641), from 1611 on lord of Sommelsdijk, was a diplomat and statesman of the United Provinces.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "He was born in Brussels, the son of Cornelis van Aarsens, also a statesman. His talents commended him to the notice of Advocate Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, who sent him, at the age of 26 years, as a diplomatic agent of the states-general to the court of France. He took a considerable part in the negotiations of the Twelve Years' Truce in 1609.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "His conduct of affairs having displeased the French king, he was recalled from his post by Oldenbarneveldt in 1614, after the French ambassador Benjamin Aubery du Maurier had demanded Aarsens' recall. Such was the hatred he henceforth conceived against his former benefactor, that he did his very utmost to effect Oldebarneveldt's ruin. However, he was not a member of the court that convicted Oldenbarnevelt in the Trial of Oldenbarnevelt, Grotius and Hogerbeets, as Chisholm mistakenly reports.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "He afterwards became the confidential counselor of Maurice, Prince of Orange, and afterwards of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, in their conduct of the foreign affairs of the republic. He was sent on special embassies to Venice, Germany and England, and displayed so much diplomatic skill and finesse that Cardinal Richelieu ranked him among the three greatest politicians of his time. He died, aged 69, in The Hague.",
"title": "Biography"
}
] |
Baron Francis van Aarssens or Baron François van Aerssen, from 1611 on lord of Sommelsdijk, was a diplomat and statesman of the United Provinces.
|
2023-02-04T00:01:55Z
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|
11,464 |
Frigate
|
A frigate (/ˈfrɪɡət/) is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat.
The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and manoeuverability, intended to be used in scouting, escort and patrol roles. The term was applied loosely to ships varying greatly in design. In the second quarter of the 18th century, the 'true frigate' was developed in France. This type of vessel was characterised by possessing only one armed deck, with an unarmed deck below it used for berthing the crew.
Late in the 19th century (British and French prototypes were constructed in 1858), armoured frigates were developed as powerful ironclad warships, the term frigate was used because of their single gun deck. Later developments in ironclad ships rendered the frigate designation obsolete and the term fell out of favour. During the Second World War the name 'frigate' was reintroduced to describe a seagoing escort ship intermediate in size between a corvette and a destroyer. After World War II, a wide variety of ships have been classified as frigates. Often there has been little consistency in usage. While some navies have regarded frigates as principally large ocean-going anti-submarine warfare (ASW) combatants, others have used the term to describe ships that are otherwise recognisable as corvettes, destroyers, and even nuclear-powered guided-missile cruisers. Some European navies use the term "frigate" for both their destroyers and frigates. The rank "frigate captain" derives from the name of this type of ship.
The term "frigate" (Italian: fregata; Dutch: fregat; Spanish/Catalan/Portuguese/Sicilian: fragata; French: frégate) originated in the Mediterranean in the late 15th century, referring to a lighter galley-type warship with oars, sails and a light armament, built for speed and maneuverability.
The etymology of the word remains uncertain, although it may have originated as a corruption of aphractus, a Latin word for an open vessel with no lower deck. Aphractus, in turn, derived from the Ancient Greek phrase ἄφρακτος ναῦς (aphraktos naus) – "undefended ship". In 1583, during the Eighty Years' War of 1568–1648, Habsburg Spain recovered the southern Netherlands from the Protestant rebels. This soon resulted in the use of the occupied ports as bases for privateers, the "Dunkirkers", to attack the shipping of the Dutch and their allies. To achieve this the Dunkirkers developed small, maneuverable, sailing vessels that came to be referred to as frigates. The success of these Dunkirker vessels influenced the ship design of other navies contending with them, but because most regular navies required ships of greater endurance than the Dunkirker frigates could provide, the term soon came to apply less exclusively to any relatively fast and elegant sail-only warship. In French, the term "frigate" gave rise to a verb – frégater, meaning 'to build long and low', and to an adjective, adding more confusion. Even the huge English Sovereign of the Seas could be described as "a delicate frigate" by a contemporary after her upper decks were reduced in 1651.
The navy of the Dutch Republic became the first navy to build the larger ocean-going frigates. The Dutch navy had three principal tasks in the struggle against Spain: to protect Dutch merchant ships at sea, to blockade the ports of Spanish-held Flanders to damage trade and halt enemy privateering, and to fight the Spanish fleet and prevent troop landings. The first two tasks required speed, shallowness of draft for the shallow waters around the Netherlands, and the ability to carry sufficient supplies to maintain a blockade. The third task required heavy armament, sufficient to stand up to the Spanish fleet. The first of the larger battle-capable frigates were built around 1600 at Hoorn in Holland. By the later stages of the Eighty Years' War the Dutch had switched entirely from the heavier ships still used by the English and Spanish to the lighter frigates, carrying around 40 guns and weighing around 300 tons.
The effectiveness of the Dutch frigates became most evident in the Battle of the Downs in 1639, encouraging most other navies, especially the English, to adopt similar designs. The fleets built by the Commonwealth of England in the 1650s generally consisted of ships described as "frigates", the largest of which were two-decker "great frigates" of the third rate. Carrying 60 guns, these vessels were as big and capable as "great ships" of the time; however, most other frigates at the time were used as "cruisers": independent fast ships. The term "frigate" implied a long hull-design, which relates directly to speed (see hull speed) and which also, in turn, helped the development of the broadside tactic in naval warfare.
At this time, a further design evolved, reintroducing oars and resulting in galley frigates such as HMS Charles Galley of 1676, which was rated as a 32-gun fifth-rate but also had a bank of 40 oars set below the upper deck that could propel the ship in the absence of a favourable wind. In Danish, the word "fregat" often applies to warships carrying as few as 16 guns, such as HMS Falcon, which the British classified as a sloop. Under the rating system of the Royal Navy, by the middle of the 18th century, the term "frigate" was technically restricted to single-decked ships of the fifth rate, though small 28-gun frigates classed as sixth rate.
The classic sailing frigate, or 'true frigate', well-known today for its role in the Napoleonic Wars, can be traced back to French developments in the second quarter of the 18th century. The French-built Médée of 1740 is often regarded as the first example of this type. These ships were square-rigged and carried all their main guns on a single continuous upper deck. The lower deck, known as the "gun deck", now carried no armament, and functioned as a "berth deck" where the crew lived, and was in fact placed below the waterline of the new frigates. The typical earlier cruiser had a partially armed lower deck, from which it was known as a 'half-battery' or demi-batterie ship. Removing the guns from this deck allowed the height of the hull upperworks to be lowered, giving the resulting 'true-frigate' much improved sailing qualities. The unarmed deck meant that the frigate's guns were carried comparatively high above the waterline; as a result, when seas were too rough for two-deckers to open their lower deck gunports, frigates were still able to fight with all their guns (see the action of 13 January 1797, for an example when this was decisive).
The Royal Navy captured a number of the new French frigates, including Médée, during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) and were impressed by them, particularly for their inshore handling capabilities. They soon built copies (ordered in 1747), based on a French privateer named Tygre, and started to adapt the type to their own needs, setting the standard for other frigates as the leading naval power. The first British frigates carried 28 guns including an upper deck battery of twenty-four 9-pounder guns (the remaining four smaller guns were carried on the quarterdeck) but soon developed into fifth-rate ships of 32 or 36 guns including an upper deck battery of twenty-six 12-pounder guns, with the remaining six or ten smaller guns carried on the quarterdeck and forecastle. Technically, 'rated ships' with fewer than 28 guns could not be classed as frigates but as "post ships"; however, in common parlance most post ships were often described as "frigates", the same casual misuse of the term being extended to smaller two-decked ships that were too small to stand in the line of battle.
A total of fifty-nine French sailing frigates were built between 1777 and 1790, with a standard design averaging a hull length of 135 ft (41 m) and an average draught of 13 ft (4.0 m). The new frigates recorded sailing speeds of up to 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph), significantly faster than their predecessor vessels.
In 1778, the British Admiralty introduced a larger "heavy" frigate, with a main battery of twenty-six or twenty-eight 18-pounder guns (with smaller guns carried on the quarterdeck and forecastle). This move may reflect the naval conditions at the time, with both France and Spain as enemies the usual British preponderance in ship numbers was no longer the case and there was pressure on the British to produce cruisers of individually greater force. In reply, the first French 18-pounder frigates were laid down in 1781. The 18-pounder frigate eventually became the standard frigate of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The British produced larger, 38-gun, and slightly smaller, 36-gun, versions and also a 32-gun design that can be considered an 'economy version'. The 32-gun frigates also had the advantage that they could be built by the many smaller, less-specialised shipbuilders.
Frigates could (and usually did) additionally carry smaller carriage-mounted guns on their quarterdecks and forecastles (the superstructures above the upper deck). In 1778 the Carron Iron Company of Scotland produced a naval gun which would revolutionise the armament of smaller naval vessels, including the frigate. The carronade was a large calibre, short-barrelled naval cannon which was light, quick to reload and needed a smaller crew than a conventional long gun. Due to its lightness it could be mounted on the forecastle and quarterdeck of frigates. It greatly increased the firepower, measured in weight of metal (the combined weight of all projectiles fired in one broadside), of these vessels. The disadvantages of the carronade were that it had a much shorter range and was less accurate than a long gun. The British quickly saw the advantages of the new weapon and soon employed it on a wide scale. The US Navy also copied the design soon after its appearance. The French and other nations eventually adopted variations of the weapon in succeeding decades. The typical heavy frigate had a main armament of 18-pounder long guns, plus 32-pounder carronades mounted on its upper decks.
The first 'super-heavy frigates', armed with 24-pounder long guns, were built by the naval architect F H Chapman for the Swedish navy in 1782. Because of a shortage of ships-of-the-line, the Swedes wanted these frigates, the Bellona class, to be able to stand in the battle line in an emergency. In the 1790s the French built a small number of large 24-pounder frigates, such as Forte and Egyptienne, they also cut-down (reduced the height of the hull to give only one continuous gun deck) a number of older ships-of-the-line (including Diadème) to produce super-heavy frigates; the resulting ship was known as a rasée. It is not known whether the French were seeking to produce very potent cruisers or merely to address stability problems in old ships. The British, alarmed by the prospect of these powerful heavy frigates, responded by rasée-ing three of their smaller 64-gun battleships, including Indefatigable, which went on to have a very successful career as a frigate. At this time the British also built a few 24-pounder-armed large frigates, the most successful of which was HMS Endymion (1,277 tons).
In 1797, three of the United States Navy's first six major ships were rated as 44-gun frigates, which operationally carried fifty-six to sixty 24-pounder long guns and 32-pounder or 42-pounder carronades on two decks; they were exceptionally powerful. These ships were so large, at around 1,500 tons, and well-armed that they were often regarded as equal to ships of the line, and after a series of losses at the outbreak of the War of 1812, Royal Navy fighting instructions ordered British frigates (usually of 38 guns or less) to never engage the large American frigates at any less than a 2:1 advantage. USS Constitution, preserved as a museum ship by the US Navy, is the oldest commissioned warship afloat, and is a surviving example of a frigate from the Age of Sail. Constitution and her sister ships President and United States were created in a response to deal with the Barbary Coast pirates and in conjunction with the Naval Act of 1794. Joshua Humphreys proposed that only live oak, a tree that grew only in America, should be used to build these ships.
The British, wounded by repeated defeats in single-ship actions, responded to the success of the American 44s in three ways. They built a class of conventional 40-gun, 24-pounder armed frigates on the lines of Endymion. They cut down three old 74-gun Ships-of-the-Line into rasées, producing frigates with a 32-pounder main armament, supplemented by 42-pounder carronades. These had an armament that far exceeded the power of the American ships. Finally, Leander and Newcastle, 1,500-ton spar-decked frigates (with an enclosed waist, giving a continuous line of guns from bow to stern at the level of the quarterdeck/forecastle), were built, which were an almost exact match in size and firepower to the American 44-gun frigates.
Frigates were perhaps the hardest-worked of warship types during the Age of Sail. While smaller than a ship-of-the-line, they were formidable opponents for the large numbers of sloops and gunboats, not to mention privateers or merchantmen. Able to carry six months' stores, they had very long range; and vessels larger than frigates were considered too valuable to operate independently.
Frigates scouted for the fleet, went on commerce-raiding missions and patrols, and conveyed messages and dignitaries. Usually, frigates would fight in small numbers or singly against other frigates. They would avoid contact with ships-of-the-line; even in the midst of a fleet engagement it was bad etiquette for a ship of the line to fire on an enemy frigate which had not fired first. Frigates were involved in fleet battles, often as "repeating frigates". In the smoke and confusion of battle, signals made by the fleet commander, whose flagship might be in the thick of the fighting, might be missed by the other ships of the fleet. Frigates were therefore stationed to windward or leeward of the main line of battle, and had to maintain a clear line of sight to the commander's flagship. Signals from the flagship were then repeated by the frigates, which themselves standing out of the line and clear from the smoke and disorder of battle, could be more easily seen by the other ships of the fleet. If damage or loss of masts prevented the flagship from making clear conventional signals, the repeating frigates could interpret them and hoist their own in the correct manner, passing on the commander's instructions clearly. For officers in the Royal Navy, a frigate was a desirable posting. Frigates often saw action, which meant a greater chance of glory, promotion, and prize money.
Unlike larger ships that were placed in ordinary, frigates were kept in service in peacetime as a cost-saving measure and to provide experience to frigate captains and officers which would be useful in wartime. Frigates could also carry marines for boarding enemy ships or for operations on shore; in 1832, the frigate USS Potomac landed a party of 282 sailors and Marines ashore in the US Navy's first Sumatran expedition. Frigates remained a crucial element of navies until the mid-19th century. The first ironclads were classified as "frigates" because of the number of guns they carried. However, terminology changed as iron and steam became the norm, and the role of the frigate was assumed first by the protected cruiser and then by the light cruiser.
Frigates are often the vessel of choice in historical naval novels due to their relative freedom compared to ships-of-the-line (kept for fleet actions) and smaller vessels (generally assigned to a home port and less widely ranging). For example, the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey–Maturin series, C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series and Alexander Kent's Richard Bolitho series. The motion picture Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World features a reconstructed historic frigate, HMS Rose, to depict Aubrey's frigate HMS Surprise.
Vessels classed as frigates continued to play a great role in navies with the adoption of steam power in the 19th century. In the 1830s, navies experimented with large paddle steamers equipped with large guns mounted on one deck, which were termed "paddle frigates".
From the mid-1840s on, frigates which more closely resembled the traditional sailing frigate were built with steam engines and screw propellers. These "screw frigates", built first of wood and later of iron, continued to perform the traditional role of the frigate until late in the 19th century.
From 1859, armour was added to ships based on existing frigate and ship of the line designs. The additional weight of the armour on these first ironclad warships meant that they could have only one gun deck, and they were technically frigates, even though they were more powerful than existing ships-of-the-line and occupied the same strategic role. The phrase "armoured frigate" remained in use for some time to denote a sail-equipped, broadside-firing type of ironclad.
During the 1880s, as warship design shifted from iron to steel and cruising warships without sails started to appear, the term "frigate" fell out of use. Vessels with armoured sides were designated as "battleships" or "armoured cruisers", while "protected cruisers" only possessed an armoured deck, and unarmoured vessels, including frigates and sloops, were classified as "unprotected cruisers".
Modern frigates are related to earlier frigates only by name. The term "frigate" was readopted during the Second World War by the British Royal Navy to describe an anti-submarine escort vessel that was larger than a corvette (based on a mercantile design), while smaller than a destroyer. Equal in size and capability to the American destroyer escort, frigates are usually less expensive to build and maintain. Small anti-submarine escorts designed for naval use from scratch had previously been classified as sloops by the Royal Navy, and the Black Swan-class sloops of 1939–1945 (propelled by steam turbines as opposed to cheaper triple-expansion steam engines) were as large as the new types of frigate, and more heavily armed. 22 of these were reclassified as frigates after the war, as were the remaining 24 smaller Castle-class corvettes.
The frigate was introduced to remedy some of the shortcomings inherent in the Flower-class corvette design: limited armament, a hull form not suited to open-ocean work, a single shaft which limited speed and maneuverability, and a lack of range. The frigate was designed and built to the same mercantile construction standards (scantlings) as the corvette, allowing manufacture by yards unused to warship construction. The first frigates of the River class (1941) were essentially two sets of corvette machinery in one larger hull, armed with the latest Hedgehog anti-submarine weapon.
The frigate possessed less offensive firepower and speed than a destroyer, including an escort destroyer, but such qualities were not required for anti-submarine warfare. Submarines were slow while submerged, and ASDIC sets did not operate effectively at speeds of over 20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h). Rather, the frigate was an austere and weatherly vessel suitable for mass-construction and fitted with the latest innovations in anti-submarine warfare. As the frigate was intended purely for convoy duties, and not to deploy with the fleet, it had limited range and speed.
It was not until the Royal Navy's Bay class of 1944 that a British design classified as a "frigate" was produced for fleet use, although it still suffered from limited speed. These anti-aircraft frigates, built on incomplete Loch-class frigate hulls, were similar to the United States Navy's destroyer escorts (DE), although the latter had greater speed and offensive armament to better suit them to fleet deployments. The destroyer escort concept came from design studies by the General Board of the United States Navy in 1940, as modified by requirements established by a British commission in 1941 prior to the American entry into the war, for deep-water escorts. The American-built destroyer escorts serving in the British Royal Navy were rated as Captain-class frigates. The U.S. Navy's two Canadian-built Asheville-class and 96 British-influenced, American-built Tacoma-class frigates that followed originally were classified as "patrol gunboats" (PG) in the U.S. Navy but on 15 April 1943 were all reclassified as patrol frigates (PF).
The introduction of the surface-to-air missile after World War II made relatively small ships effective for anti-aircraft warfare: the "guided-missile frigate". In the USN, these vessels were called "ocean escorts" and designated "DE" or "DEG" until 1975 – a holdover from the World War II destroyer escort or "DE". The Royal Canadian Navy and British Royal Navy maintained the use of the term "frigate"; likewise, the French Navy refers to missile-equipped ships, up to cruiser-sized ships (Suffren, Tourville, and Horizon classes), by the name of "frégate", while smaller units are named aviso. The Soviet Navy used the term "guard-ship" (сторожевой корабль).
From the 1950s to the 1970s, the United States Navy commissioned ships classed as guided-missile frigates (hull classification symbol DLG or DLGN, literally meaning guided-missile destroyer leaders), which were actually anti-aircraft warfare cruisers built on destroyer-style hulls. These had one or two twin launchers per ship for the RIM-2 Terrier missile, upgraded to the RIM-67 Standard ER missile in the 1980s. This type of ship was intended primarily to defend aircraft carriers against anti-ship cruise missiles, augmenting and eventually replacing converted World War II cruisers (CAG/CLG/CG) in this role. The guided-missile frigates also had an anti-submarine capability that most of the World War II cruiser conversions lacked. Some of these ships – Bainbridge and Truxtun along with the California and Virginia classes – were nuclear-powered (DLGN). These "frigates" were roughly mid-way in size between cruisers and destroyers. This was similar to the use of the term "frigate" during the age of sail during which it referred to a medium-sized warship, but it was inconsistent with conventions used by other contemporary navies which regarded frigates as being smaller than destroyers. During the 1975 ship reclassification, the large American frigates were redesignated as guided-missile cruisers or destroyers (CG/CGN/DDG), while ocean escorts (the American classification for ships smaller than destroyers, with hull symbol DE/DEG (destroyer escort)) such as the Knox-class were reclassified as frigates (FF/FFG), sometimes called "fast frigates". In the late 1970s, as a gradual successor to the Knox frigates, the US Navy introduced the 51-ship Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigates (FFG), the last of which was decommissioned in 2015, although some serve in other navies. By 1995 the older guided-missile cruisers and destroyers were replaced by the Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
One of the most successful post-1945 designs was the British Leander-class frigate, which was used by several navies. Laid down in 1959, the Leander class was based on the previous Type 12 anti-submarine frigate but equipped for anti-aircraft use as well. They were used by the UK into the 1990s, at which point some were sold onto other navies. The Leander design, or improved versions of it, were licence-built for other navies as well. Nearly all modern frigates are equipped with some form of offensive or defensive missiles, and as such are rated as guided-missile frigates (FFG). Improvements in surface-to-air missiles (e.g., the Eurosam Aster 15) allow modern guided-missile frigates to form the core of many modern navies and to be used as a fleet defence platform, without the need for specialised anti-air warfare frigates.
Modern destroyers and frigates have sufficient endurance and seaworthiness for long voyages and so are considered blue water vessels, while corvettes (even the largest ones capable of carrying an anti-submarine warfare helicopter) are typically deployed in coastal or littoral zones so are regarded as brown-water or green-water vessels. According to Dr. Sidharth Kaushal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, describing the difference between 21st century destroyers and frigates, the larger "destroyers can more easily carry and generate the power for more powerful high-resolution radar and a larger number of vertical launch cells. They can thus provide theatre wide air and missile defence for forces such as a carrier battle group and typically serve this function". By contrast the smaller "frigates are thus usually used as escort vessels to protect sea lines of communication or as an auxiliary component of a strike group". The largest and powerful destroyers are often classified as cruisers, such as the Ticonderoga-class cruisers, due to their extra armament and facilities to serve as fleet flagships.
The Royal Navy Type 61 (Salisbury class) were "air direction" frigates equipped to track aircraft. To this end they had reduced armament compared to the Type 41 (Leopard-class) air-defence frigates built on the same hull. Multi-role frigates like the MEKO 200, Anzac and Halifax classes are designed for navies needing warships deployed in a variety of situations that a general frigate class would not be able to fulfill and not requiring the need for deploying destroyers.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, some frigates are specialised for anti-submarine warfare. Increasing submarine speeds towards the end of World War II (see German Type XXI submarine) greatly reduced the margin of speed superiority of frigate over submarine. The frigate could no longer be slow and powered by mercantile machinery and consequently postwar frigates, such as the Whitby class, were faster.
Such ships carry improved sonar equipment, such as the variable depth sonar or towed array, and specialised weapons such as torpedoes, forward-throwing weapons such as Limbo and missile-carried anti-submarine torpedoes such as ASROC or Ikara. The Royal Navy's original Type 22 frigate is an example of a specialised anti-submarine warfare frigate, though it also has Sea Wolf surface-to-air missiles for point defense plus Exocet surface-to-surface missiles for limited offensive capability.
Especially for anti-submarine warfare, most modern frigates have a landing deck and hangar aft to operate helicopters, eliminating the need for the frigate to close with unknown sub-surface threats, and using fast helicopters to attack nuclear submarines which may be faster than surface warships. For this task the helicopter is equipped with sensors such as sonobuoys, wire-mounted dipping sonar and magnetic anomaly detectors to identify possible threats, and torpedoes or depth-charges to attack them.
With their onboard radar helicopters can also be used to reconnoitre over-the-horizon targets and, if equipped with anti-ship missiles such as Penguin or Sea Skua, to attack them. The helicopter is also invaluable for search and rescue operation and has largely replaced the use of small boats or the jackstay rig for such duties as transferring personnel, mail and cargo between ships or to shore. With helicopters these tasks can be accomplished faster and less dangerously, and without the need for the frigate to slow down or change course.
Frigates designed in the 1960s and 1970s, such as the US Navy's Knox-class frigate, West Germany's Bremen-class frigate, and Royal Navy's Type 22 frigate were equipped with a small number of short-ranged surface-to-air missiles (Sea Sparrow or Sea Wolf) for point defense only.
By contrast newer frigates starting with the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate are specialised for "zone-defense" air defence, because of the major developments in fighter jets and ballistic missiles. Recent examples include the De Zeven Provinciën-class air defence and command frigate of the Royal Netherlands Navy. These ships are armed with VL Standard Missile 2 Block IIIA, one or two Goalkeeper CIWS systems, (HNLMS Evertsen has two Goalkeepers, the rest of the ships have the capacity for another one.) VL Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles, a special SMART-L radar and a Thales Active Phased Array Radar (APAR), all of which are for air defence. Another example is the Iver Huitfeldt class of the Royal Danish Navy.
Stealth technology has been introduced in modern frigate design by the French La Fayette class design. Frigate shapes are designed to offer a minimal radar cross section, which also lends them good air penetration; the maneuverability of these frigates has been compared to that of sailing ships. Examples are the Italian and French Horizon class with the Aster 15 and Aster 30 missile for anti-missile capabilities, the German F125 and Sachsen-class frigates, the Turkish TF2000 type frigates with the MK-41 VLS, the Indian Shivalik, Talwar and Nilgiri classes with the Brahmos missile system and the Malaysian Maharaja Lela class with the Naval Strike Missile.
The modern French Navy applies the term first-class frigate and second-class frigate to both destroyers and frigates in service. Pennant numbers remain divided between F-series numbers for those ships internationally recognised as frigates and D-series pennant numbers for those more traditionally recognised as destroyers. This can result in some confusion as certain classes are referred to as frigates in French service while similar ships in other navies are referred to as destroyers. This also results in some recent classes of French ships such as the Horizon class being among the largest in the world to carry the rating of frigate. The Frégates de Taille Intermédiaire (FTI), which means frigates of intermediate size, is a French military program to design and create a planned class of frigates to be used by the French Navy. At the moment, the program consists of five ships, with commissioning planned from 2023 onwards.
In the German Navy, frigates were used to replace aging destroyers; however in size and role the new German frigates exceed the former class of destroyers. The future German F125-class frigates are the largest class of frigates worldwide with a displacement of more than 7,200 tons. The same was done in the Spanish Navy, which went ahead with the deployment of the first Aegis frigates, the Álvaro de Bazán-class frigates. The Myanmar Navy is producing modern frigates with a reduced radar cross section known as the Kyan Sittha-class frigate. Before the Kyan Sittha class, the Myanmar Navy also produced an Aung Zeya-class frigate. Although the size of the Myanmar Navy is quite small, it is producing modern guided-missile frigates with the help of Russia, China, and India. However, the fleets of the Myanmar Navy are still expanding with several on-going shipbuilding programmes, including one 135 m (442 ft 11 in), 4,000-tonne frigate with the vertical missile launch systems. The four planned Tamandaré-class frigates of the Brazilian Navy will be responsible for introducing ships with stealth technology in the national navy and the Latin American region, with the first boat expected to be launched in 2024.
Some new classes of ships similar to corvettes are optimized for high-speed deployment and combat with small craft rather than combat between equal opponents; an example is the U.S. littoral combat ship (LCS). As of 2015, all Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates in the United States Navy have been decommissioned, and their role partially being assumed by the new LCS. While the LCS class ships are smaller than the frigate class they will replace, they offer a similar degree of weaponry while requiring less than half the crew complement and offering a top speed of over 40 knots (74 km/h; 46 mph). A major advantage for the LCS ships is that they are designed around specific mission modules allowing them to fulfill a variety of roles. The modular system also allows for most upgrades to be performed ashore and installed later into the ship, keeping the ships available for deployment for the maximum time.
The latest U.S. deactivation plans mean that this is the first time that the U.S. Navy has been without a frigate class of ships since 1943 (technically USS Constitution is rated as a frigate and is still in commission, but does not count towards Navy force levels). The remaining 20 LCSs to be acquired from 2019 and onwards that will be enhanced will be designated as frigates, and existing ships given modifications may also have their classification changed to FF as well.
A few frigates have survived as museum ships. They are:
These ships are classified by their respective nations as frigates, but are considered destroyers internationally due to size, armament, and role.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A frigate (/ˈfrɪɡət/) is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and manoeuverability, intended to be used in scouting, escort and patrol roles. The term was applied loosely to ships varying greatly in design. In the second quarter of the 18th century, the 'true frigate' was developed in France. This type of vessel was characterised by possessing only one armed deck, with an unarmed deck below it used for berthing the crew.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Late in the 19th century (British and French prototypes were constructed in 1858), armoured frigates were developed as powerful ironclad warships, the term frigate was used because of their single gun deck. Later developments in ironclad ships rendered the frigate designation obsolete and the term fell out of favour. During the Second World War the name 'frigate' was reintroduced to describe a seagoing escort ship intermediate in size between a corvette and a destroyer. After World War II, a wide variety of ships have been classified as frigates. Often there has been little consistency in usage. While some navies have regarded frigates as principally large ocean-going anti-submarine warfare (ASW) combatants, others have used the term to describe ships that are otherwise recognisable as corvettes, destroyers, and even nuclear-powered guided-missile cruisers. Some European navies use the term \"frigate\" for both their destroyers and frigates. The rank \"frigate captain\" derives from the name of this type of ship.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The term \"frigate\" (Italian: fregata; Dutch: fregat; Spanish/Catalan/Portuguese/Sicilian: fragata; French: frégate) originated in the Mediterranean in the late 15th century, referring to a lighter galley-type warship with oars, sails and a light armament, built for speed and maneuverability.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The etymology of the word remains uncertain, although it may have originated as a corruption of aphractus, a Latin word for an open vessel with no lower deck. Aphractus, in turn, derived from the Ancient Greek phrase ἄφρακτος ναῦς (aphraktos naus) – \"undefended ship\". In 1583, during the Eighty Years' War of 1568–1648, Habsburg Spain recovered the southern Netherlands from the Protestant rebels. This soon resulted in the use of the occupied ports as bases for privateers, the \"Dunkirkers\", to attack the shipping of the Dutch and their allies. To achieve this the Dunkirkers developed small, maneuverable, sailing vessels that came to be referred to as frigates. The success of these Dunkirker vessels influenced the ship design of other navies contending with them, but because most regular navies required ships of greater endurance than the Dunkirker frigates could provide, the term soon came to apply less exclusively to any relatively fast and elegant sail-only warship. In French, the term \"frigate\" gave rise to a verb – frégater, meaning 'to build long and low', and to an adjective, adding more confusion. Even the huge English Sovereign of the Seas could be described as \"a delicate frigate\" by a contemporary after her upper decks were reduced in 1651.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The navy of the Dutch Republic became the first navy to build the larger ocean-going frigates. The Dutch navy had three principal tasks in the struggle against Spain: to protect Dutch merchant ships at sea, to blockade the ports of Spanish-held Flanders to damage trade and halt enemy privateering, and to fight the Spanish fleet and prevent troop landings. The first two tasks required speed, shallowness of draft for the shallow waters around the Netherlands, and the ability to carry sufficient supplies to maintain a blockade. The third task required heavy armament, sufficient to stand up to the Spanish fleet. The first of the larger battle-capable frigates were built around 1600 at Hoorn in Holland. By the later stages of the Eighty Years' War the Dutch had switched entirely from the heavier ships still used by the English and Spanish to the lighter frigates, carrying around 40 guns and weighing around 300 tons.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The effectiveness of the Dutch frigates became most evident in the Battle of the Downs in 1639, encouraging most other navies, especially the English, to adopt similar designs. The fleets built by the Commonwealth of England in the 1650s generally consisted of ships described as \"frigates\", the largest of which were two-decker \"great frigates\" of the third rate. Carrying 60 guns, these vessels were as big and capable as \"great ships\" of the time; however, most other frigates at the time were used as \"cruisers\": independent fast ships. The term \"frigate\" implied a long hull-design, which relates directly to speed (see hull speed) and which also, in turn, helped the development of the broadside tactic in naval warfare.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "At this time, a further design evolved, reintroducing oars and resulting in galley frigates such as HMS Charles Galley of 1676, which was rated as a 32-gun fifth-rate but also had a bank of 40 oars set below the upper deck that could propel the ship in the absence of a favourable wind. In Danish, the word \"fregat\" often applies to warships carrying as few as 16 guns, such as HMS Falcon, which the British classified as a sloop. Under the rating system of the Royal Navy, by the middle of the 18th century, the term \"frigate\" was technically restricted to single-decked ships of the fifth rate, though small 28-gun frigates classed as sixth rate.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The classic sailing frigate, or 'true frigate', well-known today for its role in the Napoleonic Wars, can be traced back to French developments in the second quarter of the 18th century. The French-built Médée of 1740 is often regarded as the first example of this type. These ships were square-rigged and carried all their main guns on a single continuous upper deck. The lower deck, known as the \"gun deck\", now carried no armament, and functioned as a \"berth deck\" where the crew lived, and was in fact placed below the waterline of the new frigates. The typical earlier cruiser had a partially armed lower deck, from which it was known as a 'half-battery' or demi-batterie ship. Removing the guns from this deck allowed the height of the hull upperworks to be lowered, giving the resulting 'true-frigate' much improved sailing qualities. The unarmed deck meant that the frigate's guns were carried comparatively high above the waterline; as a result, when seas were too rough for two-deckers to open their lower deck gunports, frigates were still able to fight with all their guns (see the action of 13 January 1797, for an example when this was decisive).",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Royal Navy captured a number of the new French frigates, including Médée, during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) and were impressed by them, particularly for their inshore handling capabilities. They soon built copies (ordered in 1747), based on a French privateer named Tygre, and started to adapt the type to their own needs, setting the standard for other frigates as the leading naval power. The first British frigates carried 28 guns including an upper deck battery of twenty-four 9-pounder guns (the remaining four smaller guns were carried on the quarterdeck) but soon developed into fifth-rate ships of 32 or 36 guns including an upper deck battery of twenty-six 12-pounder guns, with the remaining six or ten smaller guns carried on the quarterdeck and forecastle. Technically, 'rated ships' with fewer than 28 guns could not be classed as frigates but as \"post ships\"; however, in common parlance most post ships were often described as \"frigates\", the same casual misuse of the term being extended to smaller two-decked ships that were too small to stand in the line of battle.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "A total of fifty-nine French sailing frigates were built between 1777 and 1790, with a standard design averaging a hull length of 135 ft (41 m) and an average draught of 13 ft (4.0 m). The new frigates recorded sailing speeds of up to 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph), significantly faster than their predecessor vessels.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1778, the British Admiralty introduced a larger \"heavy\" frigate, with a main battery of twenty-six or twenty-eight 18-pounder guns (with smaller guns carried on the quarterdeck and forecastle). This move may reflect the naval conditions at the time, with both France and Spain as enemies the usual British preponderance in ship numbers was no longer the case and there was pressure on the British to produce cruisers of individually greater force. In reply, the first French 18-pounder frigates were laid down in 1781. The 18-pounder frigate eventually became the standard frigate of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The British produced larger, 38-gun, and slightly smaller, 36-gun, versions and also a 32-gun design that can be considered an 'economy version'. The 32-gun frigates also had the advantage that they could be built by the many smaller, less-specialised shipbuilders.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Frigates could (and usually did) additionally carry smaller carriage-mounted guns on their quarterdecks and forecastles (the superstructures above the upper deck). In 1778 the Carron Iron Company of Scotland produced a naval gun which would revolutionise the armament of smaller naval vessels, including the frigate. The carronade was a large calibre, short-barrelled naval cannon which was light, quick to reload and needed a smaller crew than a conventional long gun. Due to its lightness it could be mounted on the forecastle and quarterdeck of frigates. It greatly increased the firepower, measured in weight of metal (the combined weight of all projectiles fired in one broadside), of these vessels. The disadvantages of the carronade were that it had a much shorter range and was less accurate than a long gun. The British quickly saw the advantages of the new weapon and soon employed it on a wide scale. The US Navy also copied the design soon after its appearance. The French and other nations eventually adopted variations of the weapon in succeeding decades. The typical heavy frigate had a main armament of 18-pounder long guns, plus 32-pounder carronades mounted on its upper decks.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The first 'super-heavy frigates', armed with 24-pounder long guns, were built by the naval architect F H Chapman for the Swedish navy in 1782. Because of a shortage of ships-of-the-line, the Swedes wanted these frigates, the Bellona class, to be able to stand in the battle line in an emergency. In the 1790s the French built a small number of large 24-pounder frigates, such as Forte and Egyptienne, they also cut-down (reduced the height of the hull to give only one continuous gun deck) a number of older ships-of-the-line (including Diadème) to produce super-heavy frigates; the resulting ship was known as a rasée. It is not known whether the French were seeking to produce very potent cruisers or merely to address stability problems in old ships. The British, alarmed by the prospect of these powerful heavy frigates, responded by rasée-ing three of their smaller 64-gun battleships, including Indefatigable, which went on to have a very successful career as a frigate. At this time the British also built a few 24-pounder-armed large frigates, the most successful of which was HMS Endymion (1,277 tons).",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In 1797, three of the United States Navy's first six major ships were rated as 44-gun frigates, which operationally carried fifty-six to sixty 24-pounder long guns and 32-pounder or 42-pounder carronades on two decks; they were exceptionally powerful. These ships were so large, at around 1,500 tons, and well-armed that they were often regarded as equal to ships of the line, and after a series of losses at the outbreak of the War of 1812, Royal Navy fighting instructions ordered British frigates (usually of 38 guns or less) to never engage the large American frigates at any less than a 2:1 advantage. USS Constitution, preserved as a museum ship by the US Navy, is the oldest commissioned warship afloat, and is a surviving example of a frigate from the Age of Sail. Constitution and her sister ships President and United States were created in a response to deal with the Barbary Coast pirates and in conjunction with the Naval Act of 1794. Joshua Humphreys proposed that only live oak, a tree that grew only in America, should be used to build these ships.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The British, wounded by repeated defeats in single-ship actions, responded to the success of the American 44s in three ways. They built a class of conventional 40-gun, 24-pounder armed frigates on the lines of Endymion. They cut down three old 74-gun Ships-of-the-Line into rasées, producing frigates with a 32-pounder main armament, supplemented by 42-pounder carronades. These had an armament that far exceeded the power of the American ships. Finally, Leander and Newcastle, 1,500-ton spar-decked frigates (with an enclosed waist, giving a continuous line of guns from bow to stern at the level of the quarterdeck/forecastle), were built, which were an almost exact match in size and firepower to the American 44-gun frigates.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Frigates were perhaps the hardest-worked of warship types during the Age of Sail. While smaller than a ship-of-the-line, they were formidable opponents for the large numbers of sloops and gunboats, not to mention privateers or merchantmen. Able to carry six months' stores, they had very long range; and vessels larger than frigates were considered too valuable to operate independently.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Frigates scouted for the fleet, went on commerce-raiding missions and patrols, and conveyed messages and dignitaries. Usually, frigates would fight in small numbers or singly against other frigates. They would avoid contact with ships-of-the-line; even in the midst of a fleet engagement it was bad etiquette for a ship of the line to fire on an enemy frigate which had not fired first. Frigates were involved in fleet battles, often as \"repeating frigates\". In the smoke and confusion of battle, signals made by the fleet commander, whose flagship might be in the thick of the fighting, might be missed by the other ships of the fleet. Frigates were therefore stationed to windward or leeward of the main line of battle, and had to maintain a clear line of sight to the commander's flagship. Signals from the flagship were then repeated by the frigates, which themselves standing out of the line and clear from the smoke and disorder of battle, could be more easily seen by the other ships of the fleet. If damage or loss of masts prevented the flagship from making clear conventional signals, the repeating frigates could interpret them and hoist their own in the correct manner, passing on the commander's instructions clearly. For officers in the Royal Navy, a frigate was a desirable posting. Frigates often saw action, which meant a greater chance of glory, promotion, and prize money.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Unlike larger ships that were placed in ordinary, frigates were kept in service in peacetime as a cost-saving measure and to provide experience to frigate captains and officers which would be useful in wartime. Frigates could also carry marines for boarding enemy ships or for operations on shore; in 1832, the frigate USS Potomac landed a party of 282 sailors and Marines ashore in the US Navy's first Sumatran expedition. Frigates remained a crucial element of navies until the mid-19th century. The first ironclads were classified as \"frigates\" because of the number of guns they carried. However, terminology changed as iron and steam became the norm, and the role of the frigate was assumed first by the protected cruiser and then by the light cruiser.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Frigates are often the vessel of choice in historical naval novels due to their relative freedom compared to ships-of-the-line (kept for fleet actions) and smaller vessels (generally assigned to a home port and less widely ranging). For example, the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey–Maturin series, C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series and Alexander Kent's Richard Bolitho series. The motion picture Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World features a reconstructed historic frigate, HMS Rose, to depict Aubrey's frigate HMS Surprise.",
"title": "Age of sail"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Vessels classed as frigates continued to play a great role in navies with the adoption of steam power in the 19th century. In the 1830s, navies experimented with large paddle steamers equipped with large guns mounted on one deck, which were termed \"paddle frigates\".",
"title": "Age of steam"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "From the mid-1840s on, frigates which more closely resembled the traditional sailing frigate were built with steam engines and screw propellers. These \"screw frigates\", built first of wood and later of iron, continued to perform the traditional role of the frigate until late in the 19th century.",
"title": "Age of steam"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "From 1859, armour was added to ships based on existing frigate and ship of the line designs. The additional weight of the armour on these first ironclad warships meant that they could have only one gun deck, and they were technically frigates, even though they were more powerful than existing ships-of-the-line and occupied the same strategic role. The phrase \"armoured frigate\" remained in use for some time to denote a sail-equipped, broadside-firing type of ironclad.",
"title": "Age of steam"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "During the 1880s, as warship design shifted from iron to steel and cruising warships without sails started to appear, the term \"frigate\" fell out of use. Vessels with armoured sides were designated as \"battleships\" or \"armoured cruisers\", while \"protected cruisers\" only possessed an armoured deck, and unarmoured vessels, including frigates and sloops, were classified as \"unprotected cruisers\".",
"title": "Age of steam"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Modern frigates are related to earlier frigates only by name. The term \"frigate\" was readopted during the Second World War by the British Royal Navy to describe an anti-submarine escort vessel that was larger than a corvette (based on a mercantile design), while smaller than a destroyer. Equal in size and capability to the American destroyer escort, frigates are usually less expensive to build and maintain. Small anti-submarine escorts designed for naval use from scratch had previously been classified as sloops by the Royal Navy, and the Black Swan-class sloops of 1939–1945 (propelled by steam turbines as opposed to cheaper triple-expansion steam engines) were as large as the new types of frigate, and more heavily armed. 22 of these were reclassified as frigates after the war, as were the remaining 24 smaller Castle-class corvettes.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The frigate was introduced to remedy some of the shortcomings inherent in the Flower-class corvette design: limited armament, a hull form not suited to open-ocean work, a single shaft which limited speed and maneuverability, and a lack of range. The frigate was designed and built to the same mercantile construction standards (scantlings) as the corvette, allowing manufacture by yards unused to warship construction. The first frigates of the River class (1941) were essentially two sets of corvette machinery in one larger hull, armed with the latest Hedgehog anti-submarine weapon.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The frigate possessed less offensive firepower and speed than a destroyer, including an escort destroyer, but such qualities were not required for anti-submarine warfare. Submarines were slow while submerged, and ASDIC sets did not operate effectively at speeds of over 20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h). Rather, the frigate was an austere and weatherly vessel suitable for mass-construction and fitted with the latest innovations in anti-submarine warfare. As the frigate was intended purely for convoy duties, and not to deploy with the fleet, it had limited range and speed.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "It was not until the Royal Navy's Bay class of 1944 that a British design classified as a \"frigate\" was produced for fleet use, although it still suffered from limited speed. These anti-aircraft frigates, built on incomplete Loch-class frigate hulls, were similar to the United States Navy's destroyer escorts (DE), although the latter had greater speed and offensive armament to better suit them to fleet deployments. The destroyer escort concept came from design studies by the General Board of the United States Navy in 1940, as modified by requirements established by a British commission in 1941 prior to the American entry into the war, for deep-water escorts. The American-built destroyer escorts serving in the British Royal Navy were rated as Captain-class frigates. The U.S. Navy's two Canadian-built Asheville-class and 96 British-influenced, American-built Tacoma-class frigates that followed originally were classified as \"patrol gunboats\" (PG) in the U.S. Navy but on 15 April 1943 were all reclassified as patrol frigates (PF).",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The introduction of the surface-to-air missile after World War II made relatively small ships effective for anti-aircraft warfare: the \"guided-missile frigate\". In the USN, these vessels were called \"ocean escorts\" and designated \"DE\" or \"DEG\" until 1975 – a holdover from the World War II destroyer escort or \"DE\". The Royal Canadian Navy and British Royal Navy maintained the use of the term \"frigate\"; likewise, the French Navy refers to missile-equipped ships, up to cruiser-sized ships (Suffren, Tourville, and Horizon classes), by the name of \"frégate\", while smaller units are named aviso. The Soviet Navy used the term \"guard-ship\" (сторожевой корабль).",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "From the 1950s to the 1970s, the United States Navy commissioned ships classed as guided-missile frigates (hull classification symbol DLG or DLGN, literally meaning guided-missile destroyer leaders), which were actually anti-aircraft warfare cruisers built on destroyer-style hulls. These had one or two twin launchers per ship for the RIM-2 Terrier missile, upgraded to the RIM-67 Standard ER missile in the 1980s. This type of ship was intended primarily to defend aircraft carriers against anti-ship cruise missiles, augmenting and eventually replacing converted World War II cruisers (CAG/CLG/CG) in this role. The guided-missile frigates also had an anti-submarine capability that most of the World War II cruiser conversions lacked. Some of these ships – Bainbridge and Truxtun along with the California and Virginia classes – were nuclear-powered (DLGN). These \"frigates\" were roughly mid-way in size between cruisers and destroyers. This was similar to the use of the term \"frigate\" during the age of sail during which it referred to a medium-sized warship, but it was inconsistent with conventions used by other contemporary navies which regarded frigates as being smaller than destroyers. During the 1975 ship reclassification, the large American frigates were redesignated as guided-missile cruisers or destroyers (CG/CGN/DDG), while ocean escorts (the American classification for ships smaller than destroyers, with hull symbol DE/DEG (destroyer escort)) such as the Knox-class were reclassified as frigates (FF/FFG), sometimes called \"fast frigates\". In the late 1970s, as a gradual successor to the Knox frigates, the US Navy introduced the 51-ship Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigates (FFG), the last of which was decommissioned in 2015, although some serve in other navies. By 1995 the older guided-missile cruisers and destroyers were replaced by the Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "One of the most successful post-1945 designs was the British Leander-class frigate, which was used by several navies. Laid down in 1959, the Leander class was based on the previous Type 12 anti-submarine frigate but equipped for anti-aircraft use as well. They were used by the UK into the 1990s, at which point some were sold onto other navies. The Leander design, or improved versions of it, were licence-built for other navies as well. Nearly all modern frigates are equipped with some form of offensive or defensive missiles, and as such are rated as guided-missile frigates (FFG). Improvements in surface-to-air missiles (e.g., the Eurosam Aster 15) allow modern guided-missile frigates to form the core of many modern navies and to be used as a fleet defence platform, without the need for specialised anti-air warfare frigates.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Modern destroyers and frigates have sufficient endurance and seaworthiness for long voyages and so are considered blue water vessels, while corvettes (even the largest ones capable of carrying an anti-submarine warfare helicopter) are typically deployed in coastal or littoral zones so are regarded as brown-water or green-water vessels. According to Dr. Sidharth Kaushal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, describing the difference between 21st century destroyers and frigates, the larger \"destroyers can more easily carry and generate the power for more powerful high-resolution radar and a larger number of vertical launch cells. They can thus provide theatre wide air and missile defence for forces such as a carrier battle group and typically serve this function\". By contrast the smaller \"frigates are thus usually used as escort vessels to protect sea lines of communication or as an auxiliary component of a strike group\". The largest and powerful destroyers are often classified as cruisers, such as the Ticonderoga-class cruisers, due to their extra armament and facilities to serve as fleet flagships.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The Royal Navy Type 61 (Salisbury class) were \"air direction\" frigates equipped to track aircraft. To this end they had reduced armament compared to the Type 41 (Leopard-class) air-defence frigates built on the same hull. Multi-role frigates like the MEKO 200, Anzac and Halifax classes are designed for navies needing warships deployed in a variety of situations that a general frigate class would not be able to fulfill and not requiring the need for deploying destroyers.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "At the opposite end of the spectrum, some frigates are specialised for anti-submarine warfare. Increasing submarine speeds towards the end of World War II (see German Type XXI submarine) greatly reduced the margin of speed superiority of frigate over submarine. The frigate could no longer be slow and powered by mercantile machinery and consequently postwar frigates, such as the Whitby class, were faster.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Such ships carry improved sonar equipment, such as the variable depth sonar or towed array, and specialised weapons such as torpedoes, forward-throwing weapons such as Limbo and missile-carried anti-submarine torpedoes such as ASROC or Ikara. The Royal Navy's original Type 22 frigate is an example of a specialised anti-submarine warfare frigate, though it also has Sea Wolf surface-to-air missiles for point defense plus Exocet surface-to-surface missiles for limited offensive capability.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Especially for anti-submarine warfare, most modern frigates have a landing deck and hangar aft to operate helicopters, eliminating the need for the frigate to close with unknown sub-surface threats, and using fast helicopters to attack nuclear submarines which may be faster than surface warships. For this task the helicopter is equipped with sensors such as sonobuoys, wire-mounted dipping sonar and magnetic anomaly detectors to identify possible threats, and torpedoes or depth-charges to attack them.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "With their onboard radar helicopters can also be used to reconnoitre over-the-horizon targets and, if equipped with anti-ship missiles such as Penguin or Sea Skua, to attack them. The helicopter is also invaluable for search and rescue operation and has largely replaced the use of small boats or the jackstay rig for such duties as transferring personnel, mail and cargo between ships or to shore. With helicopters these tasks can be accomplished faster and less dangerously, and without the need for the frigate to slow down or change course.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Frigates designed in the 1960s and 1970s, such as the US Navy's Knox-class frigate, West Germany's Bremen-class frigate, and Royal Navy's Type 22 frigate were equipped with a small number of short-ranged surface-to-air missiles (Sea Sparrow or Sea Wolf) for point defense only.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "By contrast newer frigates starting with the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate are specialised for \"zone-defense\" air defence, because of the major developments in fighter jets and ballistic missiles. Recent examples include the De Zeven Provinciën-class air defence and command frigate of the Royal Netherlands Navy. These ships are armed with VL Standard Missile 2 Block IIIA, one or two Goalkeeper CIWS systems, (HNLMS Evertsen has two Goalkeepers, the rest of the ships have the capacity for another one.) VL Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles, a special SMART-L radar and a Thales Active Phased Array Radar (APAR), all of which are for air defence. Another example is the Iver Huitfeldt class of the Royal Danish Navy.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Stealth technology has been introduced in modern frigate design by the French La Fayette class design. Frigate shapes are designed to offer a minimal radar cross section, which also lends them good air penetration; the maneuverability of these frigates has been compared to that of sailing ships. Examples are the Italian and French Horizon class with the Aster 15 and Aster 30 missile for anti-missile capabilities, the German F125 and Sachsen-class frigates, the Turkish TF2000 type frigates with the MK-41 VLS, the Indian Shivalik, Talwar and Nilgiri classes with the Brahmos missile system and the Malaysian Maharaja Lela class with the Naval Strike Missile.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The modern French Navy applies the term first-class frigate and second-class frigate to both destroyers and frigates in service. Pennant numbers remain divided between F-series numbers for those ships internationally recognised as frigates and D-series pennant numbers for those more traditionally recognised as destroyers. This can result in some confusion as certain classes are referred to as frigates in French service while similar ships in other navies are referred to as destroyers. This also results in some recent classes of French ships such as the Horizon class being among the largest in the world to carry the rating of frigate. The Frégates de Taille Intermédiaire (FTI), which means frigates of intermediate size, is a French military program to design and create a planned class of frigates to be used by the French Navy. At the moment, the program consists of five ships, with commissioning planned from 2023 onwards.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In the German Navy, frigates were used to replace aging destroyers; however in size and role the new German frigates exceed the former class of destroyers. The future German F125-class frigates are the largest class of frigates worldwide with a displacement of more than 7,200 tons. The same was done in the Spanish Navy, which went ahead with the deployment of the first Aegis frigates, the Álvaro de Bazán-class frigates. The Myanmar Navy is producing modern frigates with a reduced radar cross section known as the Kyan Sittha-class frigate. Before the Kyan Sittha class, the Myanmar Navy also produced an Aung Zeya-class frigate. Although the size of the Myanmar Navy is quite small, it is producing modern guided-missile frigates with the help of Russia, China, and India. However, the fleets of the Myanmar Navy are still expanding with several on-going shipbuilding programmes, including one 135 m (442 ft 11 in), 4,000-tonne frigate with the vertical missile launch systems. The four planned Tamandaré-class frigates of the Brazilian Navy will be responsible for introducing ships with stealth technology in the national navy and the Latin American region, with the first boat expected to be launched in 2024.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Some new classes of ships similar to corvettes are optimized for high-speed deployment and combat with small craft rather than combat between equal opponents; an example is the U.S. littoral combat ship (LCS). As of 2015, all Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates in the United States Navy have been decommissioned, and their role partially being assumed by the new LCS. While the LCS class ships are smaller than the frigate class they will replace, they offer a similar degree of weaponry while requiring less than half the crew complement and offering a top speed of over 40 knots (74 km/h; 46 mph). A major advantage for the LCS ships is that they are designed around specific mission modules allowing them to fulfill a variety of roles. The modular system also allows for most upgrades to be performed ashore and installed later into the ship, keeping the ships available for deployment for the maximum time.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The latest U.S. deactivation plans mean that this is the first time that the U.S. Navy has been without a frigate class of ships since 1943 (technically USS Constitution is rated as a frigate and is still in commission, but does not count towards Navy force levels). The remaining 20 LCSs to be acquired from 2019 and onwards that will be enhanced will be designated as frigates, and existing ships given modifications may also have their classification changed to FF as well.",
"title": "Modern era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "A few frigates have survived as museum ships. They are:",
"title": "Frigates in preservation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "These ships are classified by their respective nations as frigates, but are considered destroyers internationally due to size, armament, and role.",
"title": "Operators"
}
] |
A frigate is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and manoeuverability, intended to be used in scouting, escort and patrol roles. The term was applied loosely to ships varying greatly in design. In the second quarter of the 18th century, the 'true frigate' was developed in France. This type of vessel was characterised by possessing only one armed deck, with an unarmed deck below it used for berthing the crew. Late in the 19th century, armoured frigates were developed as powerful ironclad warships, the term frigate was used because of their single gun deck. Later developments in ironclad ships rendered the frigate designation obsolete and the term fell out of favour. During the Second World War the name 'frigate' was reintroduced to describe a seagoing escort ship intermediate in size between a corvette and a destroyer. After World War II, a wide variety of ships have been classified as frigates. Often there has been little consistency in usage. While some navies have regarded frigates as principally large ocean-going anti-submarine warfare (ASW) combatants, others have used the term to describe ships that are otherwise recognisable as corvettes, destroyers, and even nuclear-powered guided-missile cruisers. Some European navies use the term "frigate" for both their destroyers and frigates. The rank "frigate captain" derives from the name of this type of ship.
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2001-11-08T23:58:47Z
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2023-12-26T08:10:28Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frigate
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11,466 |
Francisco Franco
|
Francisco Franco Bahamonde (Spanish: [fɾanˈθisko ˈfɾaŋko βa.aˈmonde]; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish military general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975 as a dictator, assuming the title Caudillo. This period in Spanish history, from the Nationalist victory to Franco's death, is commonly known as Francoist Spain or as the Francoist dictatorship.
Born in Ferrol, Galicia, into an upper-class military family, Franco served in the Spanish Army as a cadet in the Toledo Infantry Academy from 1907 to 1910. While serving in Morocco, he rose through the ranks to become a brigadier general in 1926 at age 33. Two years later, Franco became the director of the General Military Academy in Zaragoza. As a conservative and monarchist, Franco regretted the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Second Republic in 1931, and was devastated by the closing of his academy; nevertheless, he continued his service in the Republican Army. His career was boosted after the right-wing CEDA and PRR won the 1933 election, empowering him to lead the suppression of the 1934 uprising in Asturias. Franco was briefly elevated to Chief of Army Staff before the 1936 election moved the leftist Popular Front into power, relegating him to the Canary Islands.
Initially reluctant, he joined the July 1936 military coup, which, after failing to take Spain, sparked the Spanish Civil War. During the war, he commanded Spain's African colonial army and later, following the deaths of much of the rebel leadership, became his faction's only leader, being appointed generalissimo and head of state in 1936. He consolidated all nationalist parties into the FET y de las JONS (creating a one-party state) and developed a cult of personality around his rule by founding the Movimiento Nacional. Three years later the Nationalists declared victory, which extended Franco's dictatorship over Spain through a period of repression of political opponents. His dictatorship's use of forced labour, concentration camps and executions led to between 30,000 and 50,000 deaths. Combined with wartime killings, this brings the death toll of the White Terror to between 100,000 and 200,000. During World War II, he maintained Spanish neutrality, but supported the Axis—in recompense to Italy and Germany for their support during the Civil War—damaging the country's international reputation in various ways. During the start of the Cold War, Franco lifted Spain out of its mid-20th century economic depression through technocratic and economically liberal policies, presiding over a period of accelerated growth known as the "Spanish miracle". At the same time, his regime transitioned from a totalitarian state to an authoritarian one with limited pluralism. He became a leader in the anti-communist movement, garnering support from the West, particularly the United States. As the dictatorship relaxed its hard-line policies, Luis Carrero Blanco became Franco's éminence grise, whose role expanded after Franco began struggling with Parkinson's disease in the 1960s. In 1973, Franco resigned as prime minister—separated from the office of head of state since 1967—due to his advanced age and illness. Nevertheless, he remained in power as the head of state and as commander-in-chief. Franco died in 1975, aged 82, and was entombed in the Valle de los Caídos. He restored the monarchy in his final years, being succeeded by Juan Carlos, King of Spain, who led the Spanish transition to democracy.
The legacy of Franco in Spanish history remains controversial, as the nature of his dictatorship changed over time. His reign was marked by both brutal repression, with tens of thousands killed, and economic prosperity, which greatly improved the quality of life in Spain. His dictatorial style proved adaptable enough to allow social and economic reform, but still centred on highly centralised government, authoritarianism, nationalism, national Catholicism, anti-freemasonry and anti-communism.
Francisco Franco Bahamonde was born on 4 December 1892 in the Calle Frutos Saavedra in Ferrol, Galicia, into a seafaring family. He was baptised thirteen days later at the military church of San Francisco, with the baptismal name Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo.
After relocating to Galicia, the Franco family was involved in the Spanish Navy, and over the span of two centuries produced naval officers for six uninterrupted generations (including several admirals), down to Franco's father Nicolás Franco Salgado-Araújo [es] (22 November 1855 – 22 February 1942).
His mother, María del Pilar Bahamonde y Pardo de Andrade (15 October 1865 – 28 February 1934), was from an upper-middle-class Roman Catholic family. Her father, Ladislao Bahamonde Ortega, was the commissar of naval equipment at the Port of El Ferrol. Franco's parents married in 1890 in the Church of San Francisco in El Ferrol. The young Franco spent much of his childhood with his two brothers, Nicolás and Ramón, and his two sisters, María del Pilar and María de la Paz. His brother Nicolás was a naval officer and diplomat who married María Isabel Pascual del Pobil. Ramón was an internationally known aviator and a Freemason, originally with leftist political leanings. He was also the second sibling to die, killed in an air accident on a military mission in 1938.
Franco's father was a naval officer who reached the rank of vice admiral (intendente general). When Franco was fourteen, his father moved to Madrid following a reassignment and ultimately abandoned his family, marrying another woman. While Franco did not suffer any great abuse by his father's hand, he would never overcome his antipathy for his father and largely ignored him for the rest of his life. Years after becoming dictator, under the pseudonym Jaime de Andrade, Franco wrote a brief novel called Raza, whose protagonist is believed by Stanley Payne to represent the idealised man Franco wished his father had been. Conversely, Franco strongly identified with his mother (who always wore widow's black once she realised her husband had abandoned her) and learned from her moderation, austerity, self-control, family solidarity and respect for Catholicism, though he would also inherit his father's harshness, coldness and implacability.
Francisco followed his father into the Navy, but as a result of the Spanish–American War the country lost much of its navy as well as most of its colonies. Not needing any more officers, the Naval Academy admitted no new entrants from 1906 to 1913. To his father's chagrin, Francisco decided to try the Spanish Army. In 1907, he entered the Infantry Academy in Toledo. At the age of fourteen, Franco was one of the youngest members of his class, with most boys being between sixteen and eighteen. He was short and was bullied for his small size. His grades were average; though his good memory meant he seldom struggled academically, his small stature was a hindrance in physical tests. He graduated in July 1910 as a second lieutenant, standing 251st out of 312 cadets in his class, though this might have had less to do with his grades than with his small size and young age. Stanley Payne observes that by the time civil war began, Franco had already become a major general and would soon be a generalissimo, while none of his higher-ranking fellow cadets had managed to get beyond the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Franco was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant in June 1912 at age 19. Two years later, he obtained a commission to Morocco. Spanish efforts to occupy the new African protectorate provoked the Second Melillan campaign in 1909 against native Moroccans, the first of several Riffian rebellions. Their tactics resulted in heavy losses among Spanish military officers, and also provided an opportunity to earn promotion through merit on the battlefield. It was said that officers would receive either la caja o la faja (a coffin or a general's sash). Franco quickly gained a reputation as an effective officer.
In 1913, Franco transferred into the newly formed regulares: Moroccan colonial troops with Spanish officers, who acted as elite shock troops. In 1916, aged 23 with the rank of captain, Franco was shot in the abdomen by guerrilla gunfire during an assault on Moroccan positions at El Biutz, in the hills near Ceuta; this was the only time he was wounded in ten years of fighting. The wound was serious, and he was not expected to live. His recovery was seen by his Moroccan troops as a spiritual event – they believed Franco to be blessed with baraka or protected by God. He was recommended for promotion to major and to receive Spain's highest honour for gallantry, the coveted Cruz Laureada de San Fernando. Both proposals were denied, with the 23-year-old Franco's young age being given as the reason for denial. Franco appealed the decision to the king, who reversed it. Franco also received the Cross of Maria Cristina, First Class.
With that he was promoted to major at the end of February 1917 at age 24. This made him the youngest major in the Spanish army. From 1917 to 1920, he served in Spain. In 1920, Lieutenant Colonel José Millán Astray, a histrionic but charismatic officer, founded the Spanish Foreign Legion, along similar lines as the French Foreign Legion. Franco became the Legion's second-in-command and returned to Africa. In the Rif War, the poorly commanded and overextended Spanish Army was defeated by the Republic of the Rif under the leadership of the Abd el-Krim brothers, who crushed a Spanish offensive on 24 July 1921, at Annual. The Legion and supporting units relieved the Spanish city of Melilla after a three-day forced march led by Franco. In 1923, now a lieutenant colonel, he was made commander of the Legion.
On 22 October 1923, Franco married María del Carmen Polo y Martínez-Valdès (11 June 1900 – 6 February 1988). Following his honeymoon Franco was summoned to Madrid to be presented to King Alfonso XIII. This and other occasions of royal attention would mark him during the Republic as a monarchical officer.
Disappointed with the plans for a strategic retreat from the interior to the African coastline by Primo de Rivera, Franco wrote in the April 1924 issue of Revista de Tropas Coloniales (Colonial Troops Magazine) that he would disobey orders of retreat given by a superior. He also held a tense meeting with Primo de Rivera in July 1924. According to fellow africanista, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, Franco visited him on 21 September 1924 to propose that he organize a coup d'état against Primo. In the end, Franco complied with Primo's orders, taking part in the retreat of Spanish soldiers from Xaouen [es] in late 1924, and thus earning a promotion to colonel.
Franco led the first wave of troops ashore at Al Hoceima (Spanish: Alhucemas) in 1925. This landing in the heartland of Abd el-Krim's tribe, combined with the French invasion from the south, spelled the beginning of the end for the short-lived Republic of the Rif. Franco was eventually recognised for his leadership, and he was promoted to brigadier general on 3 February 1926, making him the youngest general in Europe at age 33, according to Payne and Palacios. On 14 September 1926, Franco and Polo had a daughter, María del Carmen. Franco would have a close relationship with his daughter and was a proud parent, though his traditionalist attitudes and increasing responsibilities meant he left much of the child-rearing to his wife. In 1928 Franco was appointed director of the newly created General Military Academy of Zaragoza, a new college for all Spanish army cadets, replacing the former separate institutions for young men seeking to become officers in infantry, cavalry, artillery, and other branches of the army. Franco was removed as Director of the Zaragoza Military Academy in 1931; when the Civil War began, the colonels, majors, and captains of the Spanish Army who had attended the academy when he was its director displayed unconditional loyalty to him as Caudillo.
The municipal elections of 12 April 1931 were largely seen as a plebiscite on the monarchy. The Republican-Socialist alliance failed to win the majority of the municipalities in Spain but had a landslide victory in all the large cities and in almost all the provincial capitals. The monarchists and the army deserted Alfonso XIII and consequently the king decided to leave the country and go into exile, giving way to the Second Spanish Republic. Although Franco believed that the majority of the Spanish people still supported the crown, and although he regretted the end of the monarchy, he did not object, nor did he challenge the legitimacy of the republic. The closing of the academy in June by the provisional War Minister Manuel Azaña however was a major setback for Franco and provoked his first clash with the Spanish Republic. Azaña found Franco's farewell speech to the cadets insulting. In his speech Franco stressed the Republic's need for discipline and respect. Azaña entered an official reprimand into Franco's personnel file and for six months Franco was without a post and under surveillance.
In December 1931, a new reformist, liberal, and democratic constitution was declared. It included strong provisions enforcing a broad secularisation of the Catholic country, which included the abolishing of Catholic schools and charities, which many moderate committed Catholics opposed. At this point, once the constituent assembly had fulfilled its mandate of approving a new constitution, it should have arranged for regular parliamentary elections and adjourned, according to historian Carlton J. H. Hayes. Fearing the increasing popular opposition, the Radical and Socialist majority postponed the regular elections, thereby prolonging their stay in power for two more years. This way the republican government of Manuel Azaña initiated numerous reforms to what in their view would "modernize" the country.
Franco was a subscriber to the journal of Acción Española, a monarchist organisation, and a firm believer in a supposed Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik conspiracy, or contubernio (conspiracy). The conspiracy suggested that Jews, Freemasons, Communists, and other leftists alike sought the destruction of Christian Europe, with Spain being the principal target.
On 5 February 1932, Franco was given a command in A Coruña. Franco avoided involvement in José Sanjurjo's attempted coup that year, and even wrote a hostile letter to Sanjurjo expressing his anger over the attempt. As a result of Azaña's military reform, in January 1933 Franco was relegated from first to 24th in the list of brigadiers. The same year, on 17 February he was given the military command of the Balearic Islands. The post was above his rank, but Franco was still unhappy that he was stuck in a position he disliked. The prime minister wrote in his diary that it was probably more prudent to have Franco away from Madrid.
In 1932, the Jesuits, who were in charge of many schools throughout the country, were banned and had all their property confiscated. The army was further reduced, and landowners were expropriated. Home rule was granted to Catalonia, with a local parliament and a president of its own. In June 1933 Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Dilectissima Nobis (Our Dearly Beloved), "On Oppression of the Church of Spain", in which he criticised the anti-clericalism of the Republican government.
The elections held in October 1933 resulted in a centre-right majority. The political party with the most votes was the Confederación Español de Derechas Autónomas ("CEDA"), but president Alcalá-Zamora declined to invite the leader of the CEDA, Gil Robles, to form a government. Instead, he invited the Radical Republican Party's Alejandro Lerroux to do so. Despite receiving the most votes, CEDA was denied cabinet positions for nearly a year. After a year of intense pressure, CEDA, the largest party in the congress, was finally successful in forcing the acceptance of three ministries. The entrance of CEDA in the government, despite being normal in a parliamentary democracy, was not well accepted by the left. The Socialists triggered an insurrection that they had been preparing for nine months. The leftist Republican parties did not directly join the insurrection, but their leadership issued statements that they were "breaking all relations" with the Republican government. The Catalan Bloc Obrer i Camperol (BOC) advocated the need to form a broad workers' front and took the lead in forming a new and more encompassing Alianza Obrera, which included the Catalan UGT and the Catalan sector of the PSOE, with the goal of defeating fascism and advancing the socialist revolution. The Alianza Obrera declared a general strike "against fascism" in Catalonia in 1934. A Catalan state was proclaimed by Catalan nationalist leader Lluis Companys, but it lasted just ten hours. Despite an attempt at a general stoppage in Madrid, other strikes did not endure. This left the striking Asturian miners to fight alone.
In several mining towns in Asturias, local unions gathered small arms and were determined to see the strike through. It began on the evening of 4 October, with the miners occupying several towns, attacking and seizing local Civil and Assault Guard barracks. Thirty-four priests, six young seminarists with ages between 18 and 21, and several businessmen and civil guards were summarily executed by the revolutionaries in Mieres and Sama, 58 religious buildings including churches, convents and part of the university at Oviedo were burned and destroyed, and over 100 priests were killed in the diocese. Franco, already General of Division and aide to the war minister, Diego Hidalgo, was put in command of the operations directed to suppress the violent insurgency. Troops of the Spanish Army of Africa carried this out, with General Eduardo López Ochoa as commander in the field. After two weeks of heavy fighting (and a death toll estimated between 1,200 and 2,000), the rebellion was suppressed.
The insurgency in Asturias in October 1934 sparked a new era of violent anti-Christian persecutions with the massacre of 34 priests, initiating the practice of atrocities against the clergy, and sharpened the antagonism between Left and Right. Franco and López Ochoa (who, prior to the campaign in Asturias, had been seen as a left-leaning officer) emerged as officers prepared to use "troops against Spanish civilians as if they were a foreign enemy". Franco described the rebellion to a journalist in Oviedo as, "a frontier war and its fronts are socialism, communism and whatever attacks civilisation to replace it with barbarism." Though the colonial units sent to the north by the government at Franco's recommendation consisted of the Spanish Foreign Legion and the Moroccan Regulares Indigenas, the right-wing press portrayed the Asturian rebels as lackeys of a foreign Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy.
With this rebellion against legitimate established political authority, the socialists also repudiated the representative institutional system as the anarchists had done. The Spanish historian Salvador de Madariaga, an Azaña supporter, and an exiled vocal opponent of Francisco Franco is the author of a sharp critical reflection against the participation of the left in the revolt: "The uprising of 1934 is unforgivable. The argument that Mr Gil Robles tried to destroy the Constitution to establish fascism was, at once, hypocritical and false. With the rebellion of 1934, the Spanish left lost even the shadow of moral authority to condemn the rebellion of 1936."
At the start of the Civil War, López Ochoa was assassinated; his head was severed and paraded around the streets on a pole, with a card reading, 'This is the butcher of Asturias'. Sometime after these events, Franco was briefly commander-in-chief of the Army of Africa (from 15 February onwards), and from 19 May 1935, on, Chief of the General Staff.
At the end of 1935, President Alcalá-Zamora manipulated a petty-corruption issue into a major scandal in parliament, and eliminated Alejandro Lerroux, the head of the Radical Republican Party, from the premiership. Subsequently, Alcalá-Zamora vetoed the logical replacement, a majority centre-right coalition, led by the CEDA, which would reflect the composition of the parliament. He then arbitrarily appointed an interim prime minister and after a short period announced the dissolution of parliament and new elections.
Two wide coalitions formed: the Popular Front on the left, ranging from Republican Union to Communists, and the Frente Nacional on the right, ranging from the centre radicals to the conservative Carlists. On 16 February 1936 the elections ended in a virtual draw, but in the evening leftist mobs started to interfere in the balloting and in the registration of votes, distorting the results. Stanley G. Payne claims that the process was blatant electoral fraud, with widespread violation of the laws and the constitution. In line with Payne's point of view, in 2017 two Spanish scholars, Manuel Álvarez Tardío and Roberto Villa García published the result of a major research work in which they concluded that the 1936 elections were rigged, a view disputed by Paul Preston, and other scholars such as Iker Itoiz Ciáurriz, who denounces their conclusions as revisionist "classic Francoist anti-republican tropes".
On 19 February, the cabinet presided over by Portela Valladares resigned, with a new cabinet being quickly set up, composed chiefly of members of the Republican Left and the Republican Union and presided over by Manuel Azaña.
José Calvo Sotelo, who made anti-communism the focus of his parliamentary speeches, began spreading violent propaganda—advocating for a military coup d'état, formulating a catastrophist discourse of a dichotomous choice between "communism" or a markedly totalitarian "National" State, and setting the mood of the masses for a military rebellion. The diffusion of the myth about an alleged Communist coup d'état as well a pretended state of "social chaos" became pretexts for a coup. Franco himself along with General Emilio Mola had stirred an anti-Communist campaign in Morocco.
On 23 February, Franco was sent to the Canary Islands to serve as the islands' military commander, an appointment perceived by him as a destierro (banishment). Meanwhile, a conspiracy led by General Mola was taking shape.
Interested in the parliamentary immunity granted by a seat at the Cortes, Franco intended to stand as candidate of the Right Bloc alongside José Antonio Primo de Rivera for the by-election in the province of Cuenca programmed for 3 May 1936, after the results of the February 1936 election were annulled in the constituency. But Primo de Rivera refused to run alongside a military officer (Franco in particular) and Franco himself ultimately desisted on 26 April, one day before the decision of the election authority. By that time, PSOE politician Indalecio Prieto had already deemed Franco as a "possible caudillo for a military uprising".
Disenchantment with Azaña's rule continued to grow and was dramatically voiced by Miguel de Unamuno, a republican and one of Spain's most respected intellectuals, who in June 1936 told a reporter who published his statement in El Adelanto that President Manuel Azaña should "...debiera suicidarse como acto patriótico" ("commit suicide as a patriotic act").
In June 1936, Franco was contacted, and a secret meeting was held within La Esperanza forest on Tenerife to discuss starting a military coup. An obelisk (which has subsequently been removed) commemorating this historic meeting was erected at the site in a clearing at Las Raíces in Tenerife.
Outwardly, Franco maintained an ambiguous attitude until nearly July. On 23 June 1936, he wrote to the head of the government, Casares Quiroga, offering to quell the discontent in the Spanish Republican Army, but received no reply. The other rebels were determined to go ahead con Paquito o sin Paquito (with Paquito or without Paquito; Paquito being a diminutive of Paco, which in turn is short for Francisco), as it was put by José Sanjurjo, the honorary leader of the military uprising. After various postponements, 18 July was fixed as the date of the uprising. The situation reached a point of no return and as presented to Franco by Mola, the coup was unavoidable, and he had to choose a side. He decided to join the rebels and was given the task of commanding the Army of Africa. A privately owned DH 89 De Havilland Dragon Rapide, flown by two British pilots, Cecil Bebb and Hugh Pollard, was chartered in England on 11 July to take Franco to Africa.
The coup underway was precipitated by the assassination of the right-wing opposition leader Calvo Sotelo in retaliation for the murder of assault guard José Castillo, which had been committed by a group headed by a civil guard and composed of assault guards and members of the socialist militias. On 17 July, one day earlier than planned, the Army of Africa rebelled, detaining their commanders. On 18 July, Franco published a manifesto and left for Africa, where he arrived the next day to take command.
A week later the rebels, who soon called themselves the Nationalists, controlled a third of Spain; most naval units remained under control of the Republican loyalist forces, which left Franco isolated. The coup had failed in the attempt to bring a swift victory, but the Spanish Civil War had begun.
Franco rose to power during the Spanish Civil War, which began in July 1936 and officially ended with the victory of his Nationalist forces in April 1939. Although it is impossible to calculate precise statistics concerning the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, Payne writes that if civilian fatalities above the norm are added to the total number of deaths for victims of violence, the number of deaths attributable to the civil war would reach approximately 344,000. During the war, rape, torture, and summary executions committed by soldiers under Franco's command were used as a means of retaliation and to repress political dissent.
The war was marked by foreign intervention on behalf of both sides. Franco's Nationalists were supported by Fascist Italy, which sent the Corpo Truppe Volontarie and by Nazi Germany, which sent the Condor Legion. Italian aircraft stationed on Majorca bombed Barcelona 13 times, dropping 44 tons of bombs aimed at civilians. These attacks were requested by General Franco as retribution against the Catalan population. Similarly, both Italian and German planes bombed the Basque town of Guernica at Franco's request. The Republican opposition was supported by communists, socialists, and anarchists within Spain as well as the Soviet Union and volunteers who fought in the International Brigades.
Following the pronunciamiento of 18 July 1936, Franco assumed the leadership of the 30,000 soldiers of the Spanish Army of Africa. The first days of the insurgency were marked by an imperative need to secure control over the Spanish Moroccan Protectorate. On one side, Franco had to win the support of the native Moroccan population and their (nominal) authorities, and, on the other, he had to ensure his control over the army. His method was the summary execution of some 200 senior officers loyal to the Republic (one of them his own cousin). His loyal bodyguard was shot by Manuel Blanco. Franco's first problem was how to move his troops to the Iberian Peninsula, since most units of the Navy had remained in control of the Republic and were blocking the Strait of Gibraltar. He requested help from Benito Mussolini, who responded with an offer of arms and planes. In Germany Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr military intelligence service, persuaded Hitler to support the Nationalists; Hitler sent 20 Ju 52 transport aircraft and six Heinkel biplane fighters, on the condition that they were not to be used in hostilities unless the Republicans attacked first. Mussolini sent 12 Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 transport/bombers, and a few fighter aircraft. From 20 July onward Franco was able, with this small squadron of aircraft, to initiate an air bridge that carried 1,500 soldiers of the Army of Africa to Seville, where these troops helped to ensure rebel control of the city. He successfully negotiated with Germany, and Italy for more military support, and above all for more aircraft. On 25 July and aircraft began to arrive in Tetouan and on 5 August Franco was able to break the blockade, successfully deploying a convoy of fishing boats and merchant ships carrying some 3,000 soldiers; between 29 July and 15 August about 15,000 more men were moved.
On 26 July, just eight days after the revolt had started, foreign allies of the Republican government convened an international communist conference at Prague to arrange plans to help the Popular Front forces in Spain. Communist parties throughout the world quickly launched a full scale propaganda campaign in support of the Popular Front. The Communist International (Comintern) immediately reinforced its activity, sending to Spain its Secretary-General, the Bulgarian Georgi Dimitrov, and Palmiro Togliatti the chief of the Communist Party of Italy. From August onward, aid from the Soviet Union began; by February 1937 two ships per day arrived at Spain's Mediterranean ports carrying munitions, rifles, machine guns, hand grenades, artillery, and trucks. With the cargo came Soviet agents, technicians, instructors and propagandists.
The Communist International immediately started to organise the International Brigades, volunteer military units which included the Garibaldi Brigade from Italy and the Lincoln Battalion from the United States. The International Brigades were usually deployed as shock troops, and as a result they suffered high casualties.
In early August, the situation in western Andalucia was stable enough to allow Franco to organise a column (some 15,000 men at its height), under the command of then Lieutenant-Colonel Juan Yagüe, which would march through Extremadura towards Madrid. On 11 August Mérida was taken, and on 15 August Badajoz, thus joining both nationalist-controlled areas. Additionally, Mussolini ordered a voluntary army, the Corpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV) of fully motorised units (some 12,000 Italians), to Seville, and Hitler added to them a professional squadron from the Luftwaffe (2JG/88) with about 24 planes. All these planes had the Nationalist Spanish insignia painted on them, but were flown by Italian and German nationals. The backbone of Franco's air force in those days was the Italian SM.79 and SM.81 bombers, the biplane Fiat CR.32 fighter and the German Junkers Ju 52 cargo-bomber and the Heinkel He 51 biplane fighter.
On 21 September, with the head of the column at the town of Maqueda (some 80 km away from Madrid), Franco ordered a detour to free the besieged garrison at the Alcázar of Toledo, which was achieved on 27 September. This controversial decision gave the Popular Front time to strengthen its defences in Madrid and hold the city that year, but with Soviet support. Kennan alleges that once Stalin had decided to assist the Spanish Republicans, the operation was put in place with remarkable speed and energy. The first load of arms and tanks arrived as early as 26 September and was secretly unloaded at night. Advisers accompanied the armaments. Soviet officers were in effective charge of military operations on the Madrid front. Kennan believes that this operation was originally conducted in good faith with no other purpose than saving the Republic.
Hitler's policy for Spain was shrewd and pragmatic. The minutes of a conference with his foreign minister and army chiefs at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin on 10 November 1937 summarised his views on foreign policy regarding the Spanish Civil War: "On the other hand, a 100 percent victory for Franco was not desirable either, from the German point of view; rather were we interested in a continuance of the war and in the keeping up of the tension in the Mediterranean." Hitler distrusted Franco; according to the comments he made at the conference he wanted the war to continue, but he did not want Franco to achieve total victory. He felt that with Franco in undisputed control of Spain, the possibility of Italy intervening further or of its continuing to occupy the Balearic Islands would be prevented.
By February 1937 the Soviet Union's military help started to taper off, to be replaced by limited economic aid.
The designated leader of the uprising, General José Sanjurjo, died on 20 July 1936 in a plane crash. In the nationalist zone, "political life ceased". Initially, only military command mattered: this was divided into regional commands (Emilio Mola in the North, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano in Seville commanding Andalucia, Franco with an independent command, and Miguel Cabanellas in Zaragoza commanding Aragon). The Spanish Army of Morocco was itself split into two columns, one commanded by General Juan Yagüe and the other commanded by Colonel José Varela.
From 24 July a coordinating junta, the National Defence Junta, was established, based at Burgos. Nominally led by Cabanellas, as the most senior general, it initially included Mola, three other generals, and two colonels; Franco was later added in early August. On 21 September it was decided that Franco was to be commander-in-chief (this unified command was opposed only by Cabanellas), and, after some discussion, with no more than a lukewarm agreement from Queipo de Llano and from Mola, also head of government. He was, doubtlessly, helped to this primacy by the fact that, in late July, Hitler had decided that all of Germany's aid to the Nationalists would go to Franco.
Mola had been somewhat discredited as the main planner of the attempted coup that had now degenerated into a civil war, and was strongly identified with the Carlist monarchists and not at all with the Falange, a party with Fascist leanings and connections ("phalanx", a far-right Spanish political party founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera), nor did he have good relations with Germany. Queipo de Llano and Cabanellas had both previously rebelled against the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera and were therefore discredited in some nationalist circles, and Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera was in prison in Alicante (he would be executed a few months later). The desire to keep a place open for him prevented any other Falangist leader from emerging as a possible head of state. Franco's previous aloofness from politics meant that he had few active enemies in any of the factions that needed to be placated, and he had also cooperated in recent months with both Germany and Italy.
On 1 October 1936, in Burgos, Franco was publicly proclaimed as Generalísimo of the National army and Jefe del Estado (Head of State). When Mola was killed in another air accident a year later on 2 June 1937 (which some believe was an assassination), no military leader was left from those who had organised the conspiracy against the Republic between 1933 and 1935.
Franco personally guided military operations from this time until the end of the war. Franco himself was not a strategic genius, but he was very effective at organisation, administration, logistics and diplomacy. After the failed assault on Madrid in November 1936, Franco settled on a piecemeal approach to winning the war, rather than bold manoeuvring. As with his decision to relieve the garrison at Toledo, this approach has been subject of some debate: some of his decisions, such as in June 1938 when he preferred to advance towards Valencia instead of Catalonia, remain particularly controversial from a military strategic viewpoint. Valencia, Castellon and Alicante saw the last Republican troops defeated by Franco.
Although both Germany and Italy provided military support to Franco, the degree of influence of both powers on his direction of the war seems to have been very limited. Nevertheless, the Italian troops, despite not always being effective, were present in most of the large operations in large numbers. Germany sent insignificant numbers of combat personnel to Spain, but aided the Nationalists with technical instructors and modern matériel; including some 200 tanks and 600 aircraft which helped the Nationalist air force dominate the skies for most of the war.
Franco's direction of the German and Italian forces was limited, particularly in the direction of the Condor Legion, but he was by default their supreme commander, and they declined to interfere in the politics of the Nationalist zone. For reasons of prestige it was decided to continue assisting Franco until the end of the war, and Italian and German troops paraded on the day of the final victory in Madrid.
The Nationalist victory could be accounted for by various factors: the Popular Front government had reckless policies in the weeks prior to the war, where it ignored potential dangers and alienated the opposition, encouraging more people to join the rebellion, while the rebels had superior military cohesion, with Franco providing the necessary leadership to consolidate power and unify the various rightist factions. His foreign diplomacy secured military aid from Italy and Germany and, by some accounts, helped keep Britain and France out of the war.
The rebels made effective use of a smaller navy, acquiring the most powerful ships in the Spanish fleet and maintaining a functional officer corps, while Republican sailors had assassinated a large number of their naval officers who sided with the rebels in 1936, as at Cartagena, and El Ferrol. The Nationalists used their ships aggressively to pursue the opposition, in contrast to the largely passive naval strategy of the Republicans.
Not only did the Nationalists receive more foreign aid to sustain their war effort, but there is evidence that they made more efficient use of such aid. They augmented their forces with arms captured from the Republicans, and successfully integrated over half of Republican prisoners of war into the Nationalist army. The rebels were able to build a larger air force and make more effective use of their air force, particularly in supporting ground operations and bombing; and generally enjoyed air superiority from mid-1937 onwards; this air power contributed greatly to the Nationalist victory.
The Republicans were subject to disunity and infighting, and were hampered by the destructive consequences of the revolution in the Republican zone: mobilisation was impeded, the Republican image was harmed abroad in democracies, and the campaign against religion aroused overwhelming and unwavering Catholic support for the Nationalists.
On 19 April 1937, Franco and Serrano Súñer, with the acquiescence of Generals Mola and Quiepo de Llano, forcibly merged the ideologically distinct national-syndicalist Falange and the Carlist monarchist parties into one party under his rule, dubbed Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS), which became the only legal party in 1939.
Unlike some other fascist movements, the Falangists had developed an official program in 1934, the "Twenty-Seven Points". In 1937, Franco assumed as the tentative doctrine of his regime 26 out of the original 27 points. Franco made himself jefe nacional (National Chief) of the new FET (Falange Española Tradicionalista; Traditionalist Spanish Phalanx) with a secretary, Political Junta and National Council to be named subsequently by himself. Five days later on 24 April the raised-arm salute of the Falange was made the official salute of the Nationalist regime. Also in 1937 the Marcha Real ("Royal March") was restored by decree as the national anthem in the Nationalist zone. It was opposed by the Falangists, who associated it with the monarchy and boycotted it when it was played, often singing their own anthem, Cara al Sol (Facing the Sun) instead. By 1939 the fascist style prevailed, with ritual rallying calls of "Franco, Franco, Franco."
Franco's advisor on Falangist party matters, Ramón Serrano Súñer, who was the brother-in-law of his wife Carmen Polo, and a group of Serrano Súñer's followers dominated the FET JONS, and strove to increase the party's power. Serrano Súñer tried to move the party in a more fascist direction by appointing his acolytes to important positions, and the party became the leading political organisation in Francoist Spain. The FET JONS failed to establish a fascist party regime, however, and was relegated to subordinate status. Franco placed the Carlist Manuel Fal Condé under house arrest and imprisoned hundreds of old Falangists, the so-called "old shirts" (camisas viejas), including the party leader Manuel Hedilla, to help secure his political future. Franco also appeased the Carlists by exploiting the Republicans' anti-clericalism in his propaganda, in particular concerning the "Martyrs of the war". While the Republican forces presented the war as a struggle to defend the Republic against fascism, Franco depicted himself as the defender of "Catholic Spain" against "atheist communism".
By early 1939 only Madrid (see History of Madrid) and a few other areas remained under control of the government forces. On 27 February Chamberlain's Britain and Daladier's France officially recognised the Franco regime. On 28 March 1939, with the help of pro-Franco forces inside the city (the "fifth column" General Mola had mentioned in propaganda broadcasts in 1936), Madrid fell to the Nationalists. The next day, Valencia, which had held out under the guns of the Nationalists for close to two years, also surrendered. Victory was proclaimed on 1 April 1939, when the last of the Republican forces surrendered. On the same day, Franco placed his sword upon the altar of a church and vowed to never take it up again unless Spain itself was threatened with invasion.
Although Germany had recognised the Franco Government, Franco's policy towards Germany was extremely cautious until spectacular German victories at the beginning of the Second World War. An early indication that Franco was going to keep his distance from Germany soon proved true. A rumoured state visit by Franco to Germany did not take place and a further rumour of a visit by Goering to Spain, after he had enjoyed a cruise in the Western Mediterranean, again did not materialise. Instead Goering had to return to Berlin.
During the Civil War and in the aftermath, a period known as the White Terror took place. This saw mass executions of Republican and other Nationalist enemies, standing in contrast to the wartime Red Terror. Historical analysis and investigations estimate the number of executions by the Franco regime during this time to be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead.
Stanley G. Payne says the total number of all kinds of executions in the Republican zone added up to about 56,000, and that those in the Nationalist zone probably amounted to at least 70,000, with an additional 28,000 executions after the war ended. Recent searches conducted with parallel excavations of mass graves in Spain by the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica), ARMH) estimate that more than 35,000 people killed by the nationalist side are still missing in mass graves.
Julián Casanova Ruiz, who was nominated in 2008 to join the panel of experts in the first judicial investigation, conducted by judge Baltasar Garzón, of Francoist crimes, as well as historians Josep Fontana and Hugh Thomas, estimate deaths in the White Terror to be around 150,000 in total. According to Paul Preston, 150,000 wartime civilian executions took place in the Francoist area, as well as 50,000 in the Republican area, in addition to approximately 20,000 civilians executed by the Franco regime after the end of the war. According to Helen Graham, the Spanish working classes became to the Francoist project what the Jews were to the German Volksgemeinschaft.
According to Gabriel Jackson and Antony Beevor, the number of victims of the "White Terror" (executions and hunger or illness in prisons) between 1939 and 1943 was 200,000. Beevor "reckons Franco's ensuing 'white terror' claimed 200,000 lives. The 'red terror' had already killed 38,000." Julius Ruiz concludes that "although the figures remain disputed, a minimum of 37,843 executions were carried out in the Republican zone with a maximum of 150,000 executions (including 50,000 after the war) in Nationalist Spain."
Despite the end of the war, Spanish guerrillas exiled in France, and known as the Maquis", continued to resist Franco in the Pyrenees, carrying out sabotage and robberies against the Francoist regime. Several exiled Republicans also fought in the French resistance against the German occupation in Vichy France during World War II. In 1944, a group of republican veterans from the French resistance invaded the Val d'Aran in northwest Catalonia but were quickly defeated. The activities of the Maquis continued well into the 1950s.
The end of the war led to hundreds of thousands of exiles, mostly to France, but also to Mexico, Chile, Cuba, and the United States. On the other side of the Pyrenees, refugees were confined in internment camps in France, such as Camp Gurs or Camp Vernet, where 12,000 Republicans were housed in squalid conditions (mostly soldiers from the Durruti Division). The 17,000 refugees housed in Gurs were divided into four categories: Brigadists, pilots, Gudaris and ordinary "Spaniards". The Gudaris (Basques) and the pilots easily found local backers and jobs, and were allowed to quit the camp, but the farmers and ordinary people, who could not find relations in France, were encouraged by the French government, in agreement with the Francoist government, to return to Spain. The great majority did so and were turned over to the Francoist authorities in Irún. From there they were transferred to the Miranda de Ebro camp for "purification" according to the Law of Political Responsibilities.
After the proclamation by Marshal Philippe Pétain of the Vichy France regime, the refugees became political prisoners, and the French police attempted to round up those who had been liberated from the camp. Along with other "undesirables", they were sent to the Drancy internment camp before being deported to Nazi Germany. 5,000 Spaniards thus died in Mauthausen concentration camp. The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who had been named by the Chilean President Pedro Aguirre Cerda special consul for immigration in Paris, was given responsibility for what he called "the noblest mission I have ever undertaken": shipping more than 2,000 Spanish refugees, who had been housed by the French in squalid camps, to Chile on an old cargo ship, the Winnipeg.
In September 1939, World War II began. Franco had received important support from Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini during the Spanish Civil War, and he had signed the Anti-Comintern Pact. He made pro-Axis speeches, while offering various kinds of support to Italy and Germany. His spokesman Antonio Tovar commented at a Paris conference entitled 'Bolshevism versus Europe' that "Spain aligned itself definitively on the side of...National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy." However, Franco was reluctant to enter the war due to Spain recovering from its recent civil war and instead pursued a policy of "non-belligerence".
On 23 October 1940, Hitler and Franco met in Hendaye, France to discuss the possibility of Spain's entry on the side of the Axis. Franco's demands, including large supplies of food and fuel, as well as Spanish control of Gibraltar and French North Africa, proved too much for Hitler. At the time Hitler did not want to risk damaging his relations with the new Vichy French government. (An oft-cited remark attributed to Hitler is that the German leader said that he would rather have some of his own teeth pulled out than to have to personally deal further with Franco).
Some historians argue that Franco made demands he knew Hitler would not accede to, in order to stay out of the war. Other historians argue that Franco, as the leader of a destroyed and bankrupt country in chaos following a brutal three-year civil war, simply had little to offer the Axis and that the Spanish armed forces were not ready for a major war. It has also been suggested that Franco decided not to join the war after the resources he requested from Hitler in October 1940 were not forthcoming.
Franco allowed Spanish soldiers to volunteer to fight in the German Army against the Soviet Union (the Blue Division) but forbade Spaniards to fight in the West against the democracies. Franco's common ground with Hitler was particularly weakened by Hitler's attempts to manipulate Christianity, which went against Franco's fervent commitment to defending Catholicism. Contributing to the disagreement was an ongoing dispute over German mining rights in Spain.
According to some scholars, after the Fall of France in June 1940, Spain did adopt a pro-Axis stance (for example, German and Italian ships and U-boats were allowed to use Spanish naval facilities) before returning to a more neutral position in late 1943 when the tide of the war had turned decisively against the Axis Powers, and Italy had changed sides. Franco was initially keen to join the war before the UK could be defeated.
In the winter of 1940 and 1941, Franco toyed with the idea of a "Latin Bloc" formed by Spain, Portugal, Vichy France, the Vatican and Italy, without much consequence. Franco had cautiously decided to enter the war on the Axis side in June 1940, and to prepare his people for war, an anti-British and anti-French campaign was launched in the Spanish media that demanded French Morocco, Cameroon and Gibraltar. On 19 June 1940, Franco pressed along a message to Hitler saying he wanted to enter the war, but Hitler was annoyed at Franco's demand for the French colony of Cameroon, which had been German before World War I, and which Hitler was planning on taking back for Plan Z. Franco seriously considered blocking allied access to the Mediterranean Sea by invading British-held Gibraltar, but he abandoned the idea after learning that the plan would have likely failed due to Gibraltar being too heavily defended. In addition, declaring war on the UK and its allies would no doubt give them an opportunity to capture both the Canary Islands and Spanish Morocco, as well as possibly launch an invasion of mainland Spain itself. Franco was aware that his air force would be quickly defeated if going into action against the Royal Air Force, and the Royal Navy would easily be able to destroy Spain's small navy and blockade the entire Spanish coast to prevent imports of crucial materials such as oil. Spain depended on oil imports from the United States, which were almost certain to be cut off if Spain formally joined the Axis. Franco and Serrano Suñer held a meeting with Mussolini and Ciano in Bordighera, Italy on 12 February 1941. However, an affected Mussolini did not appear to be interested in Franco's help due to the defeats his forces had suffered in North Africa and the Balkans, and he even told Franco that he wished he could find any way to leave the war. When the invasion of the Soviet Union began on 22 June 1941, Franco's foreign minister Ramón Serrano Suñer immediately suggested the formation of a unit of military volunteers to join the invasion. Volunteer Spanish troops (the División Azul, or "Blue Division") fought on the Eastern Front under German command from 1941 to 1944. Some historians have argued that not all of the Blue Division were true volunteers and that Franco expended relatively small but significant resources to aid the Axis powers' battle against the Soviet Union.
Franco was initially disliked by Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, who, during World War II, suggested a joint U.S.-Latin American declaration of war on Spain to overthrow Franco's regime. Hitler may not have really wanted Spain to join the war, as he needed neutral harbours to import materials from countries in Latin America and elsewhere. He felt Spain would be a burden as it would be dependent on Germany for help. By 1941, Vichy French forces were proving their effectiveness in North Africa, reducing the need for Spanish help, and Hitler was wary about opening up a new front on the western coast of Europe as he struggled to reinforce the Italians in Greece and Yugoslavia. Franco signed a revised Anti-Comintern Pact on 25 November 1941. Spain continued to be able to obtain valuable German goods, including military equipment, as part of payment for Spanish raw materials, and traded wolfram with Germany until August 1944 when the Germans withdrew from the Spanish frontier.
Spanish neutrality during World War II was publicly acknowledged by leading Allied statesmen. In November 1942, US President Roosevelt wrote to General Franco: "...your nation and mine are friends in the best sense of the word." In May 1944, Winston Churchill stated in the House of Commons: "In the dark days of the war the attitude of the Spanish Government in not giving our enemies passage through Spain was extremely helpful to us.... I must say that I shall always consider that a service was rendered...by Spain, not only to the United Kingdom and to the British Empire and Commonwealth, but to the cause of the United Nations." According to the personal recollection of US Ambassador to Spain Carlton Hayes, similar gratitude was also expressed by the Provisional French Government at Algiers in 1943. Franco placed no obstacles to Britain's construction of a large air base extending from Gibraltar into Spanish territorial waters and welcomed the Anglo-American landings in North Africa. Spain did not intern any of the 1,200 American airmen who were forced to land in the country, but "gave them refuge and permitted them to leave."
After the war, the Spanish government tried to destroy all evidence of its cooperation with the Axis. In 2010, documents were discovered showing that on 13 May 1941, Franco ordered his provincial governors to compile a list of Jews while he negotiated an alliance with the Axis powers. Franco supplied Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Nazis' Final Solution, with a list of 6,000 Jews in Spain.
On 14 June 1940, Spanish forces in Morocco occupied Tangier (a city under international control) and did not leave until the war's end in 1945.
After the war, Franco allowed many former Nazis, such as Otto Skorzeny and Léon Degrelle, and other fascists, to seek political asylum in Spain.
Franco had a controversial association with Jews before and during World War II. He made antisemitic remarks in a speech in May 1939, and made similar remarks on at least six occasions during World War II. Franco believed in the existence of a "Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik conspiracy", and he deliberately framed the Spanish Civil War as a conflict against Jews and Bolsheviks. In 2010, documents were discovered showing that on 13 May 1941, Franco ordered his provincial governors to compile a list of Jews while he negotiated an alliance with the Axis powers. Franco supplied Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Nazis' Final Solution, with a list of 6,000 Jews in Spain.
Contrarily, according to Anti-Semitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution (2005):
Preston writes that, in the post-war years, "a myth was carefully constructed to claim that Franco's regime had saved many Jews from extermination" as a means to deflect foreign criticism away from allegations of active collaboration with the Nazi regime. As early as 1943, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs concluded that the Allies were likely to win the war. José Félix de Lequerica y Erquiza became Foreign Minister in 1944 and soon developed an "obsession" with the importance of the "Jewish card" in relations with the former Allied powers.
Spain provided visas for thousands of French Jews to transit Spain en route to Portugal to escape the Nazis. Spanish diplomats protected about 4,000 Jews living in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. At least some 20,000 to 30,000 Jews were allowed to pass through Spain in the first half of the War. Jews who were not allowed to enter Spain, however, were sent to the Miranda de Ebro concentration camp or deported to France. In January 1943, after the German embassy in Spain told the Spanish government that it had two months to remove its Jewish citizens from Western Europe, Spain severely limited visas, and only 800 Jews were allowed to enter the country. After the war, Franco exaggerated his contributions to saving Jews in order to improve Spain's image in the world and end its international isolation.
After the war, Franco did not recognise Israeli statehood and maintained strong relations with the Arab world. Israel expressed disinterest in establishing relations, although there were some informal economic ties between the two countries in the later years of Franco's governance. In the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967, Franco's Spain was able to utilise its positive relationship with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Arab world (due to not having recognised the Israeli state) to allow 800 Egyptian Jews, many of Sephardic ancestry, safe passage out of Egypt on Spanish passports. This was undertaken through Francoist Spain's Ambassador to Egypt, Ángel Sagaz Zubelzu, on the understanding that emigrant Jews would not immediately emigrate to Israel and that they would not publicly use the case as political propaganda against Nasser's Egypt. On 16 December 1968, the Spanish government formally revoked the 1492 Edict of Expulsion against Spain's Jewish population.
Franco personally and many in the government openly stated that they believed there was an international conspiracy of Freemasons and Communists against Spain, sometimes including Jews or "Judeo-Masonry" as part of this. While under the leadership of Francisco Franco, the Spanish government explicitly endorsed the Catholic Church as the religion of the nation state and did not endorse liberal ideas such as religious pluralism or separation of Church and State found in the Republican Constitution of 1931. Following the Second World War, the government enacted the "Spanish Bill of Rights" (Fuero de los Españoles), which extended the right to private worship of non-Catholic religions, including Judaism, though it did not permit the erection of religious buildings for this practice and did not allow non-Catholic public ceremonies. With the pivot of Spain's foreign policy towards the United States during the Cold War, the situation changed with the 1967 Law on Religious Freedom, which granted full public religious rights to non-Catholics. The overthrow of Catholicism as the explicit state religion of Spain and the establishment of state-sponsored religious pluralism would be realised in Spain in 1978, with the new Constitution of Spain, three years after Franco's death.
Franco was recognised as the Spanish head of state by the United Kingdom, France and Argentina in February 1939. Already proclaimed Generalísimo of the Nationalists and Jefe del Estado (Head of State) in October 1936, he thereafter assumed the official title of "Su Excelencia el Jefe de Estado" ("His Excellency the Head of State"). He was also referred to in state and official documents as "Caudillo de España" ("the Leader of Spain"), and sometimes called "el Caudillo de la Última Cruzada y de la Hispanidad" ("the Leader of the Last Crusade and of the Hispanic heritage") and "el Caudillo de la Guerra de Liberación contra el Comunismo y sus Cómplices" ("the Leader of the War of Liberation Against Communism and Its Accomplices").
On paper, Franco had more power than any Spanish leader before or since. For the first four years after taking Madrid, he ruled almost exclusively by decree. The "Law of the Head of State," passed in August 1939, "permanently confided" all governing power to Franco; he was not required to even consult the cabinet for most legislation or decrees. According to Payne, Franco possessed far more day-to-day power than Hitler or Stalin possessed at the respective heights of their power. He noted that while Hitler and Stalin maintained rubber-stamp parliaments, this was not the case in Spain in the early years after the war – a situation that nominally made Franco's regime "the most purely arbitrary in the world".
This changed in 1942, when Franco convened a parliament known as the Cortes Españolas. It was elected in accordance with corporatist principles, and had little real power. Notably, it had no control over government spending, and the government was not responsible to it; ministers were appointed and dismissed by Franco alone.
On 26 July 1947, Franco proclaimed Spain a monarchy, but did not designate a monarch. This gesture was largely done to appease the monarchists in the Movimiento Nacional (Carlists and Alfonsoists). Franco left the throne vacant, proclaiming himself as a de facto regent for life. At the same time, Franco appropriated many of the privileges of a king. He wore the uniform of a captain general (a rank traditionally reserved for the king) and resided in El Pardo Palace. In addition he began walking under a canopy, and his portrait appeared on most Spanish coins and postage stamps. He also added "by the grace of God", a phrase usually part of the styles of monarchs, to his style.
Franco initially sought support from various groups. His administration marginalised fascist ideologues in favour of technocrats, many of whom were linked with Opus Dei, who promoted economic modernisation.
Franco adopted Fascist trappings, although Stanley Payne argued that very few scholars consider him to be a "core fascist". Regarding the regime, the Oxford Living Dictionary uses Franco's regime as an example of fascism, and it has also been variously presented as a "fascistized dictatorship", or a "semi-fascist regime". Francisco Cobo Romero writes that, besides neutering left-wing advances by using an essentially antiliberal brand of ultranationalism, "in its attempt to emulate Fascism, Francoism resorted to the sacralization and mystification of the motherland, raising it into an object of cult, and coating it with a liturgic divinization of its leader".
All in all, some authors have pointed at a purported artificialness and failure of FET JONS in order to de-emphasise the Fascist weight within the regime whereas others have embedded those perceived features of "weak party" within the frame of a particular model of "Spanish Fascism". However, new research material has been argued to underpin the "Fascist subject", both on the basis of the existence of a pervasive and fully differentiated Fascist falangist political culture, and on the importance of the Civil War for falangism, which served as an area of experience, of violence, of memory, as well as for the generation of a culture of victory. Under the perspective of a comparative of European fascisms, Javier Rodrigo considers the Francoist regime to be paradigmatic for three reasons: for being the only authoritarian European regime with totalitarian aspirations, for being the regime that deployed the most political violence in times of rhetorical peace, and for being the regime deploying the most effective "memoricidal" apparatus.
With the end of World War II, Spain suffered from the consequences of its isolation from the international economy. Spain was excluded from the Marshall Plan, unlike other neutral countries in Europe. This situation ended in part when, in the light of Cold War tensions and of Spain's strategic location, the United States of America entered into a trade and military alliance with Franco. This historic alliance commenced with the visit of US President Dwight Eisenhower to Spain in 1953, which resulted in the Pact of Madrid. Spain was then admitted to the United Nations in 1955. American military facilities in Spain built since then include Naval Station Rota, Morón Air Base, and Torrejón Air Base.
According to Preston's estimates, Franco's forces killed about 420,000 Spaniards in the theatre of war, through extrajudicial killings during the Civil War, and in state executions immediately following its end in 1939. The first decade of Franco's rule following its end saw continued repression and the killing of an undetermined number of political opponents. In 1941 the prison population of Spain was 233,000, mostly political prisoners. According to Antony Beevor, recent research in more than half of Spain's provinces indicates at least 35,000 official executions in the country after the war, suggesting that the generally accepted figure of 35,000 official executions is low. Accounting for unofficial and random killings, and those who died during the war from execution, suicide, starvation and disease in prison, the total number is probably closer to 200,000.
By the start of the 1950s Franco's state had become less violent, but during his entire rule, non-government trade unions and all political opponents across the political spectrum, from communist and anarchist organisations to liberal democrats and Catalan or Basque separatists, were either suppressed or tightly controlled with all means, up to and including violent police repression. The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and the Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) trade unions were outlawed, and replaced in 1940 by the corporatist Sindicato Vertical. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) were banned in 1939, while the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) went underground. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) went into exile, and in 1959 the ETA armed group was created to wage a low-intensity war against Franco.
Franco's Spanish nationalism promoted a unitary national identity by repressing Spain's cultural diversity. Bullfighting and flamenco were promoted as national traditions while those traditions not considered "Spanish" were suppressed. Franco's view of Spanish tradition was somewhat artificial and arbitrary: while some regional traditions were suppressed, flamenco, an Andalucian tradition, was considered part of a larger, national identity. All cultural activities were subject to censorship, and many, such as the Sardana, the national dance of Catalonia, were plainly forbidden (often in an erratic manner). This cultural policy was relaxed over time, most notably during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Franco also used language politics in an attempt to establish national homogeneity. He promoted the use of Castilian Spanish and suppressed other languages such as Catalan, Galician, and Basque. The legal usage of languages other than Castilian was forbidden. All government, notarial, legal and commercial documents were to be drawn up exclusively in Castilian and any documents written in other languages were deemed null and void. The usage of any other language was forbidden in schools, in advertising, and on road and shop signs. For unofficial use, citizens continued to speak these languages. This was the situation throughout the 1940s and to a lesser extent during the 1950s, but after 1960 the non-Castilian Spanish languages were freely spoken and written, and they reached bookshops and stages, although they never received official status.
Most country towns and rural areas were patrolled by pairs of Guardia Civil, a military police force for civilians, which functioned as Franco's chief means of social control. Larger cities and capitals were mostly under the jurisdiction of the Policia Armada, or the grises ("greys", due to the colour of their uniforms) as they were called.
Student revolts at universities in the late 1960s and early 1970s were violently repressed by the heavily armed Policía Armada (Armed Police), and plain-clothes police were present at lectures in Spanish universities. The enforcement by public authorities of traditional Catholic values was a stated intent of the regime, mainly by using a law (the Ley de Vagos y Maleantes, Vagrancy Act) enacted by Azaña. The remaining nomads of Spain (Gitanos and Mercheros like El Lute) were especially affected. Through this law, homosexuality and prostitution were made criminal offences in 1954.
Spain attempted to retain control of its colonies throughout Franco's rule. During the Algerian War (1954–62), Madrid became the base of the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), a right-wing French Army group which sought to preserve French Algeria. Despite this, Franco was forced to make some concessions. When Morocco became independent from France in 1956, he surrendered the territories of the Spanish protectorate to the new-born state, retaining only a few cities (the Plazas de soberanía). The year after, Mohammed V invaded Spanish Sahara during the Ifni War (known as the "Forgotten War" in Spain). Only in 1975, with the Green March, did Morocco take control of all of the former Spanish territories in the Sahara.
In 1968, under pressure from the United Nations, Spain granted Equatorial Guinea its independence, and the following year it ceded Ifni to Morocco. Under Franco, Spain also pursued a campaign to force a negotiation on the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, and closed its border with that territory in 1969. The border would not be fully reopened until 1985.
The Civil War ravaged the Spanish economy. Infrastructure had been damaged, workers killed, and daily business severely hampered. For more than a decade after Franco's victory, the devastated economy recovered very slowly. Franco initially pursued a policy of autarky, cutting off almost all international trade. The policy had devastating effects, and the economy stagnated. Only black marketeers could enjoy an evident affluence.
On the brink of bankruptcy, a combination of pressure from the United States and the IMF managed to convince the regime to adopt a free market economy. Many of the old guard in charge of the economy were replaced by technocrats (technocrata), despite some initial opposition from Franco. The regime took its first faltering steps toward abandoning its pretensions of self-sufficiency and towards a transformation of Spain's economic system. Pre-Civil War industrial production levels were regained in the early 1950s, though agricultural output remained below prewar levels until 1958. The years from 1951 to 1956 were marked by substantial economic progress, but the reforms of the period were only sporadically implemented, and they were not well coordinated. From the mid-1950s there was a slow but steady acceleration in economic activity, but the relative lack of growth (compared to the rest of Western Europe) eventually forced the Franco regime to allow the introduction of liberal economic policies in the late 1950s. During the pre-stabilization years of 1957–1959, Spanish economic planners implemented partial measures such as moderate anti-inflationary adjustments and incremental moves to integrate Spain into the global economy, but external developments and a worsening domestic economic crisis forced them to adopt more sweeping changes. A reorganisation of the Council of Ministers in early 1957 had brought a group of younger men, most of whom were educated in economics and had experience, to the key ministries. The process of integrating the country into the world economy was further facilitated by the reforms of the 1959 Stabilization and Liberalization Plan.
When Franco replaced his ideological ministers with the apolitical technocrats, the regime implemented several development policies that included deep economic reforms. After a recession, growth took off from 1959, creating an economic boom that lasted until 1974, and became known as the "Spanish miracle".
Concurrent with the absence of social reforms, and the economic power shift, a tide of mass emigration commenced to other European countries, and to a lesser extent, to South America. Emigration helped the regime in two ways. The country got rid of populations it would not have been able to keep in employment, and the emigrants supplied the country with much needed monetary remittances.
During the 1960s, the wealthy classes of Francoist Spain experienced further increases in wealth, particularly those who remained politically faithful, while a burgeoning middle class became visible as the "economic miracle" progressed. International firms established factories in Spain where salaries were low, company taxes very low, strikes forbidden and workers' health or state protections almost unheard of. State-owned firms like the car manufacturer SEAT, truck builder Pegaso, and oil refiner INH, massively expanded production. Furthermore, Spain was virtually a new mass market. Spain became the second-fastest growing economy in the world between 1959 and 1973, just behind Japan. By the time of Franco's death in 1975, Spain still lagged behind most of Western Europe but the gap between its per capita GDP and that of the leading Western European countries had narrowed greatly, and the country had developed a large industrialised economy.
In the late 1960s, the ageing Franco decided to name a monarch to succeed his regency, but the simmering tensions between the Carlists and the Alfonsoists continued. In 1969, Franco formally nominated as his heir-apparent Prince Juan Carlos de Borbón, who had been educated by him in Spain, with the new title of Prince of Spain, suggested by Laureano López Rodó to avoid a confrontation with Juan Carlos's father, Juan de Borbón, the Count of Barcelona. This designation came as a surprise to the Carlist pretender to the throne, Prince Xavier of Bourbon-Parma, as well as to Don Juan.
As his final years progressed, tensions within the various factions of the Movimiento would consume Spanish political life, as varying groups jockeyed for position in an effort to win control of the country's future.
On 19 July 1974, the aged Franco fell ill from various health problems, and Juan Carlos took over as acting head of state. Franco recovered and on 2 September he resumed his duties as head of state. A year later he fell ill again, afflicted with further health problems, including a long battle with Parkinson's disease. Franco's last public appearance was on 1 October 1975 when, despite his gaunt and frail appearance, he gave a speech to crowds from the balcony at the Royal Palace in Madrid, warning the people that there was a "Masonic, Leftist and Communist conspiracy against Spain." On 30 October 1975 he fell into a coma and was put on life support. Franco's family agreed to disconnect the life-support machines. Officially, he died a few minutes after midnight on 20 November 1975 from heart failure, at the age of 82 – on the same date as the death of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Falange, in 1936. Historian Ricardo de la Cierva claimed, however, that he had been told around 6 pm on 19 November that Franco had already died.
As soon as news of Franco's death was made public, the government declared thirty days of official national mourning. On 22 November, Juan Carlos was officially proclaimed King of Spain. There was a public viewing of Franco's body at the chapel in the Royal Palace; a requiem mass and a military parade were held on the day of his burial.
Franco's body was interred at the Valley of the Fallen (Spanish: Valle de los Caídos), a colossal memorial built by the forced labour of political prisoners ostensibly to honour the casualties of both sides of the Spanish Civil War. It was located only 10 kilometres from the palace, monastery, and royal pantheon of El Escorial built for King Felipe II. On 1 April 1959, Franco had inaugurated its huge underground basilica as his monument and mausoleum, saying in his own words that it was built "in memory of my victory over communism, which was trying to dominate Spain." The project's architect, Diego Méndez, had constructed a lead-lined tomb for Franco underneath the floor of the transept, behind the high altar of the church, in 1956, a fact unknown to the Spanish people until almost thirty years later. Franco was the only person interred in the Valley who did not die during the civil war. He was buried a few metres from the grave of the Falange's founder, Jose Antonio.
A requiem mass and a military parade took place on the day of his burial, 23 November 1975. As the cortège with Franco's body arrived at the Valley of the Fallen, some 75,000 rightists wearing the blue shirts of the Falangists greeted it with rebel songs from the civil war and fascist salutes.
The major European governments, who condemned Franco's regime, declined to send high-level representatives to his funeral. Some of the few foreign dignitaries and government representatives who attended were: Nelson Rockefeller, Vice-President of the United States, Lord Shepherd, Leader of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom (Harold Wilson caused controversy within the Labour Party by sending him to represent the UK Government), Prince Rainier III of Monaco, King Hussein of Jordan, Imelda Marcos, First Lady of the Philippines and the wife of Ferdinand Marcos, dictator of the Philippines, Hugo Banzer, military dictator of Bolivia, and General Augusto Pinochet, the dictator of Chile, for whom the Spanish Caudillo was a role-model. It was made clear to General Pinochet that he was not welcome at Juan Carlos's coronation.
Following Franco's funeral, his widow, Carmen Polo, supervised the moving of crates of jewellery, antiques, artworks, and Franco's papers to the family's various estates in Spain or to safe havens in foreign countries. The family remained extremely rich after his death. Polo had a room in her apartment in which the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with forty columns of twenty drawers, some containing tiaras, necklaces, earrings, garlands, brooches and cameos. Others contained gold, silver, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, topazes, and pearls, but the most valuable jewels were kept in bank vaults.
On 11 May 2017, the Congress of Deputies approved, by 198–1 with 140 abstentions, a motion driven by the Socialist Workers' Party ordering the Government to exhume Franco's remains.
On 24 August 2018, the Government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez approved legal amendments to the Historical Memory Law stating that only those who died during the Civil War would be buried at the Valle de los Caídos, resulting in plans to exhume Franco's remains for reburial elsewhere. Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo Poyato stated that having Franco buried at the monument "shows a lack of respect ... for the victims buried there". The government gave Franco's family a 15-day deadline to decide Franco's final resting place, or else a "dignified place" would be chosen by the government.
On 13 September 2018, the Congress of Deputies voted 176–2, with 165 abstentions, to approve the government's plan to remove Franco's body from the monument.
Franco's family opposed the exhumation and attempted to prevent it by making appeals to the Ombudsman's Office. The family expressed its wish that Franco's remains be reinterred with full military honours at the Almudena Cathedral in the centre of Madrid, the burial place he had requested before his death. The demand was rejected by the Spanish Government, which issued another 15-day deadline to choose another site. Because the family refused to choose another location, the Spanish Government ultimately chose to rebury Franco at the Mingorrubio Cemetery in El Pardo, where his wife Carmen Polo and a number of Francoist officials, most notably prime ministers Luis Carrero Blanco and Carlos Arias Navarro, are buried. His body was to be exhumed from the Valle de los Caídos on 10 June 2019, but the Supreme Court of Spain ruled that the exhumation would be delayed until the family had exhausted all possible appeals.
On 24 September 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that the exhumation could proceed, and the Sánchez government announced that it would move Franco's remains to the Mingorrubio cemetery as soon as possible. On 24 October 2019 his remains were moved to his wife's mausoleum which is located in the Mingorrubio Cemetery, and buried in a private ceremony. Though barred by the Spanish government from being draped in the Spanish flag, Francisco Franco's grandson, also named Francisco Franco, draped his coffin in the nationalist flag. According to a poll by the Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, 43% of Spanish people approved of the exhumation while 32.5% opposed it. Opinions on the exhumation were divided by party line, with the Socialist party strongly in favour of the exhumation as well as the removal of his statue there. There seems to be no consensus on whether the statue should simply be moved or completely destroyed.
In Spain and abroad, the legacy of Franco remains controversial. The longevity of Franco's rule, his suppression of political opposition, and his government's effective propaganda sustained through the years have made a detached evaluation difficult. For almost 40 years, Spaniards, and particularly children at school, were told that Divine Providence had sent Franco to save Spain from chaos, atheism, and poverty. Historian Stanley Payne described Franco as being the most significant figure to dominate Spain since King Felipe II, while Michael Seidman argued that Franco was the most successful counter-revolutionary leader of the 20th century.
A highly controversial figure within Spain, Franco is seen as a divisive leader. Supporters credit him for keeping Spain neutral and uninvaded during the Second World War. They emphasise his strong anti-communist and nationalist views, economic policies, and opposition to socialism as major factors in Spain's post-war economic success and later international integration. For Spain's neutrality during the war he was praised by Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was also supported by Konrad Adenauer and many American Catholics, but was later strongly opposed by the Truman administration.
The American conservative commentator William F. Buckley, Jr, was an admirer of Franco, and praised him effusively in his magazine, National Review, where the staff were also ardent admirers of the dictator. In 1957, Buckley called him "an authentic national hero", who "above others", had the qualities needed to wrest Spain from "the hands of the visionaries, ideologues, Marxists and nihilists", i.e., from the democratically elected government of the country.
Conversely, critics on the left have denounced him as a tyrant responsible for thousands of deaths in years-long political repression and have called him complicit in atrocities committed by Axis forces during the Second World War due to his support of the Axis governments.
When he died in November 1975, the major parties of the left and the right in Spain agreed to follow the Pact of Forgetting. To secure the transition to democracy, they agreed not to have investigations or prosecutions dealing with the civil war or Franco. The agreement effectively lapsed after 2000, the year the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (ARMH)) was founded and the public debate started. In 2006, a poll indicated that almost two-thirds of Spaniards favoured a "fresh investigation into the war".
Franco served as a role model for several anti-communist dictators in South America. Augusto Pinochet is known to have admired Franco. Similarly, as recently as 2006, Franco supporters in Spain have honoured Pinochet.
In 2006, the BBC reported that Maciej Giertych, an MEP of the clerical-nationalist League of Polish Families, had expressed admiration for Franco, stating that the Spanish leader "guaranteed the maintenance of traditional values in Europe".
Spaniards who suffered under Franco's rule have sought to remove memorials of his regime. Most government buildings and streets that were named after Franco during his rule have been reverted to their original names. Owing to Franco's human-rights record, the Spanish government in 2007 banned all official public references to the Franco regime and began the removal of all statues, street names and memorials associated with the regime, with the last statue reportedly being removed in 2008 in the city of Santander. Churches that retain plaques commemorating Franco and the victims of his Republican opponents may lose state aid. Since 1978, the national anthem of Spain, the Marcha Real, does not include lyrics introduced by Franco. Attempts to give the national anthem new lyrics have failed due to lack of consensus.
On 11 February 2004, Luis Yáñez-Barnuevo and others presented a motion for the "Need for international condemnation of the Franco regime" to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In March 2006, the Permanent Commission of the Parliamentary Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution "firmly" condemning the "multiple and serious violations" of human rights committed in Spain under the Francoist regime from 1939 to 1975. The resolution was at the initiative of Leo Brincat and of the historian Luis María de Puig and was the first international official condemnation of the repression enacted by Franco's regime. The resolution also urged that historians (professional and amateur) be given access to the various archives of the Francoist regime, including those of the private Francisco Franco National Foundation (FNFF) which, along with other Francoist archives, remain inaccessible to the public as of 2006. The FNFF received various archives from El Pardo Palace and is alleged to have sold some of them to private individuals. Furthermore, the resolution urged the Spanish authorities to set up an underground exhibit in the Valle de los Caidos monument to explain the "terrible" conditions in which it was built. Finally, it proposed the construction of monuments to commemorate Franco's victims in Madrid and other important cities.
In Spain, a commission to "repair the dignity" and "restore the memory" of the "victims of Francoism" (Comisión para reparar la dignidad y restituir la memoria de las víctimas del franquismo) was approved in 2004 and is directed by the social-democratic deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega.
Recently the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARHM) initiated a systematic search for mass graves of people executed during Franco's regime, which has been supported since the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party's (PSOE) victory during the 2004 elections by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's government. A Ley de la memoria histórica de España (Law on the Historical Memory of Spain) was approved on 28 July 2006, by the Council of Ministers, but it took until 31 October 2007 for the Congress of Deputies to approve an amended version as: "The Bill to recognise and extend rights and to establish measures in favour of those who suffered persecution or violence during the Civil War and the Dictatorship" (in common parlance still known as Law of Historical Memory). The Senate approved the bill on 10 December 2007.
Official endeavours to preserve the historical memory of Spanish life under the Franco regime include exhibitions like the one held at the Museu d'Història de Catalunya (Museum of Catalan History) in 2003–2004, titled "Les presons de Franco". This exposition depicted the experiences of prisoners in Franco's prison system and described other aspects of the penal system such as women's prisons, trials, the jailers, and prisoners' families. The Museum no longer maintains its online version of the exhibition.
The accumulated wealth of Franco's family (including much real estate inherited from Franco, such as the Pazo de Meirás, the Canto del Pico in Torrelodones and the Casa Cornide [es] in A Coruña) and its provenance have also become matters of public discussion. Estimates of the family's wealth have ranged from 350 million to 600 million euros. While Franco was dying, the Francoist Cortes voted a large public pension for his wife Carmen Polo, which the later democratic governments kept paying. At the time of her death in 1988, Carmen Polo was receiving a pension of over 12.5 million pesetas (four million more than the salary of Felipe González, then head of the government).
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Francisco Franco Bahamonde (Spanish: [fɾanˈθisko ˈfɾaŋko βa.aˈmonde]; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish military general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975 as a dictator, assuming the title Caudillo. This period in Spanish history, from the Nationalist victory to Franco's death, is commonly known as Francoist Spain or as the Francoist dictatorship.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Born in Ferrol, Galicia, into an upper-class military family, Franco served in the Spanish Army as a cadet in the Toledo Infantry Academy from 1907 to 1910. While serving in Morocco, he rose through the ranks to become a brigadier general in 1926 at age 33. Two years later, Franco became the director of the General Military Academy in Zaragoza. As a conservative and monarchist, Franco regretted the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Second Republic in 1931, and was devastated by the closing of his academy; nevertheless, he continued his service in the Republican Army. His career was boosted after the right-wing CEDA and PRR won the 1933 election, empowering him to lead the suppression of the 1934 uprising in Asturias. Franco was briefly elevated to Chief of Army Staff before the 1936 election moved the leftist Popular Front into power, relegating him to the Canary Islands.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Initially reluctant, he joined the July 1936 military coup, which, after failing to take Spain, sparked the Spanish Civil War. During the war, he commanded Spain's African colonial army and later, following the deaths of much of the rebel leadership, became his faction's only leader, being appointed generalissimo and head of state in 1936. He consolidated all nationalist parties into the FET y de las JONS (creating a one-party state) and developed a cult of personality around his rule by founding the Movimiento Nacional. Three years later the Nationalists declared victory, which extended Franco's dictatorship over Spain through a period of repression of political opponents. His dictatorship's use of forced labour, concentration camps and executions led to between 30,000 and 50,000 deaths. Combined with wartime killings, this brings the death toll of the White Terror to between 100,000 and 200,000. During World War II, he maintained Spanish neutrality, but supported the Axis—in recompense to Italy and Germany for their support during the Civil War—damaging the country's international reputation in various ways. During the start of the Cold War, Franco lifted Spain out of its mid-20th century economic depression through technocratic and economically liberal policies, presiding over a period of accelerated growth known as the \"Spanish miracle\". At the same time, his regime transitioned from a totalitarian state to an authoritarian one with limited pluralism. He became a leader in the anti-communist movement, garnering support from the West, particularly the United States. As the dictatorship relaxed its hard-line policies, Luis Carrero Blanco became Franco's éminence grise, whose role expanded after Franco began struggling with Parkinson's disease in the 1960s. In 1973, Franco resigned as prime minister—separated from the office of head of state since 1967—due to his advanced age and illness. Nevertheless, he remained in power as the head of state and as commander-in-chief. Franco died in 1975, aged 82, and was entombed in the Valle de los Caídos. He restored the monarchy in his final years, being succeeded by Juan Carlos, King of Spain, who led the Spanish transition to democracy.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The legacy of Franco in Spanish history remains controversial, as the nature of his dictatorship changed over time. His reign was marked by both brutal repression, with tens of thousands killed, and economic prosperity, which greatly improved the quality of life in Spain. His dictatorial style proved adaptable enough to allow social and economic reform, but still centred on highly centralised government, authoritarianism, nationalism, national Catholicism, anti-freemasonry and anti-communism.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Francisco Franco Bahamonde was born on 4 December 1892 in the Calle Frutos Saavedra in Ferrol, Galicia, into a seafaring family. He was baptised thirteen days later at the military church of San Francisco, with the baptismal name Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "After relocating to Galicia, the Franco family was involved in the Spanish Navy, and over the span of two centuries produced naval officers for six uninterrupted generations (including several admirals), down to Franco's father Nicolás Franco Salgado-Araújo [es] (22 November 1855 – 22 February 1942).",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "His mother, María del Pilar Bahamonde y Pardo de Andrade (15 October 1865 – 28 February 1934), was from an upper-middle-class Roman Catholic family. Her father, Ladislao Bahamonde Ortega, was the commissar of naval equipment at the Port of El Ferrol. Franco's parents married in 1890 in the Church of San Francisco in El Ferrol. The young Franco spent much of his childhood with his two brothers, Nicolás and Ramón, and his two sisters, María del Pilar and María de la Paz. His brother Nicolás was a naval officer and diplomat who married María Isabel Pascual del Pobil. Ramón was an internationally known aviator and a Freemason, originally with leftist political leanings. He was also the second sibling to die, killed in an air accident on a military mission in 1938.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Franco's father was a naval officer who reached the rank of vice admiral (intendente general). When Franco was fourteen, his father moved to Madrid following a reassignment and ultimately abandoned his family, marrying another woman. While Franco did not suffer any great abuse by his father's hand, he would never overcome his antipathy for his father and largely ignored him for the rest of his life. Years after becoming dictator, under the pseudonym Jaime de Andrade, Franco wrote a brief novel called Raza, whose protagonist is believed by Stanley Payne to represent the idealised man Franco wished his father had been. Conversely, Franco strongly identified with his mother (who always wore widow's black once she realised her husband had abandoned her) and learned from her moderation, austerity, self-control, family solidarity and respect for Catholicism, though he would also inherit his father's harshness, coldness and implacability.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Francisco followed his father into the Navy, but as a result of the Spanish–American War the country lost much of its navy as well as most of its colonies. Not needing any more officers, the Naval Academy admitted no new entrants from 1906 to 1913. To his father's chagrin, Francisco decided to try the Spanish Army. In 1907, he entered the Infantry Academy in Toledo. At the age of fourteen, Franco was one of the youngest members of his class, with most boys being between sixteen and eighteen. He was short and was bullied for his small size. His grades were average; though his good memory meant he seldom struggled academically, his small stature was a hindrance in physical tests. He graduated in July 1910 as a second lieutenant, standing 251st out of 312 cadets in his class, though this might have had less to do with his grades than with his small size and young age. Stanley Payne observes that by the time civil war began, Franco had already become a major general and would soon be a generalissimo, while none of his higher-ranking fellow cadets had managed to get beyond the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Franco was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant in June 1912 at age 19. Two years later, he obtained a commission to Morocco. Spanish efforts to occupy the new African protectorate provoked the Second Melillan campaign in 1909 against native Moroccans, the first of several Riffian rebellions. Their tactics resulted in heavy losses among Spanish military officers, and also provided an opportunity to earn promotion through merit on the battlefield. It was said that officers would receive either la caja o la faja (a coffin or a general's sash). Franco quickly gained a reputation as an effective officer.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 1913, Franco transferred into the newly formed regulares: Moroccan colonial troops with Spanish officers, who acted as elite shock troops. In 1916, aged 23 with the rank of captain, Franco was shot in the abdomen by guerrilla gunfire during an assault on Moroccan positions at El Biutz, in the hills near Ceuta; this was the only time he was wounded in ten years of fighting. The wound was serious, and he was not expected to live. His recovery was seen by his Moroccan troops as a spiritual event – they believed Franco to be blessed with baraka or protected by God. He was recommended for promotion to major and to receive Spain's highest honour for gallantry, the coveted Cruz Laureada de San Fernando. Both proposals were denied, with the 23-year-old Franco's young age being given as the reason for denial. Franco appealed the decision to the king, who reversed it. Franco also received the Cross of Maria Cristina, First Class.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "With that he was promoted to major at the end of February 1917 at age 24. This made him the youngest major in the Spanish army. From 1917 to 1920, he served in Spain. In 1920, Lieutenant Colonel José Millán Astray, a histrionic but charismatic officer, founded the Spanish Foreign Legion, along similar lines as the French Foreign Legion. Franco became the Legion's second-in-command and returned to Africa. In the Rif War, the poorly commanded and overextended Spanish Army was defeated by the Republic of the Rif under the leadership of the Abd el-Krim brothers, who crushed a Spanish offensive on 24 July 1921, at Annual. The Legion and supporting units relieved the Spanish city of Melilla after a three-day forced march led by Franco. In 1923, now a lieutenant colonel, he was made commander of the Legion.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "On 22 October 1923, Franco married María del Carmen Polo y Martínez-Valdès (11 June 1900 – 6 February 1988). Following his honeymoon Franco was summoned to Madrid to be presented to King Alfonso XIII. This and other occasions of royal attention would mark him during the Republic as a monarchical officer.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Disappointed with the plans for a strategic retreat from the interior to the African coastline by Primo de Rivera, Franco wrote in the April 1924 issue of Revista de Tropas Coloniales (Colonial Troops Magazine) that he would disobey orders of retreat given by a superior. He also held a tense meeting with Primo de Rivera in July 1924. According to fellow africanista, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, Franco visited him on 21 September 1924 to propose that he organize a coup d'état against Primo. In the end, Franco complied with Primo's orders, taking part in the retreat of Spanish soldiers from Xaouen [es] in late 1924, and thus earning a promotion to colonel.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Franco led the first wave of troops ashore at Al Hoceima (Spanish: Alhucemas) in 1925. This landing in the heartland of Abd el-Krim's tribe, combined with the French invasion from the south, spelled the beginning of the end for the short-lived Republic of the Rif. Franco was eventually recognised for his leadership, and he was promoted to brigadier general on 3 February 1926, making him the youngest general in Europe at age 33, according to Payne and Palacios. On 14 September 1926, Franco and Polo had a daughter, María del Carmen. Franco would have a close relationship with his daughter and was a proud parent, though his traditionalist attitudes and increasing responsibilities meant he left much of the child-rearing to his wife. In 1928 Franco was appointed director of the newly created General Military Academy of Zaragoza, a new college for all Spanish army cadets, replacing the former separate institutions for young men seeking to become officers in infantry, cavalry, artillery, and other branches of the army. Franco was removed as Director of the Zaragoza Military Academy in 1931; when the Civil War began, the colonels, majors, and captains of the Spanish Army who had attended the academy when he was its director displayed unconditional loyalty to him as Caudillo.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The municipal elections of 12 April 1931 were largely seen as a plebiscite on the monarchy. The Republican-Socialist alliance failed to win the majority of the municipalities in Spain but had a landslide victory in all the large cities and in almost all the provincial capitals. The monarchists and the army deserted Alfonso XIII and consequently the king decided to leave the country and go into exile, giving way to the Second Spanish Republic. Although Franco believed that the majority of the Spanish people still supported the crown, and although he regretted the end of the monarchy, he did not object, nor did he challenge the legitimacy of the republic. The closing of the academy in June by the provisional War Minister Manuel Azaña however was a major setback for Franco and provoked his first clash with the Spanish Republic. Azaña found Franco's farewell speech to the cadets insulting. In his speech Franco stressed the Republic's need for discipline and respect. Azaña entered an official reprimand into Franco's personnel file and for six months Franco was without a post and under surveillance.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In December 1931, a new reformist, liberal, and democratic constitution was declared. It included strong provisions enforcing a broad secularisation of the Catholic country, which included the abolishing of Catholic schools and charities, which many moderate committed Catholics opposed. At this point, once the constituent assembly had fulfilled its mandate of approving a new constitution, it should have arranged for regular parliamentary elections and adjourned, according to historian Carlton J. H. Hayes. Fearing the increasing popular opposition, the Radical and Socialist majority postponed the regular elections, thereby prolonging their stay in power for two more years. This way the republican government of Manuel Azaña initiated numerous reforms to what in their view would \"modernize\" the country.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Franco was a subscriber to the journal of Acción Española, a monarchist organisation, and a firm believer in a supposed Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik conspiracy, or contubernio (conspiracy). The conspiracy suggested that Jews, Freemasons, Communists, and other leftists alike sought the destruction of Christian Europe, with Spain being the principal target.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "On 5 February 1932, Franco was given a command in A Coruña. Franco avoided involvement in José Sanjurjo's attempted coup that year, and even wrote a hostile letter to Sanjurjo expressing his anger over the attempt. As a result of Azaña's military reform, in January 1933 Franco was relegated from first to 24th in the list of brigadiers. The same year, on 17 February he was given the military command of the Balearic Islands. The post was above his rank, but Franco was still unhappy that he was stuck in a position he disliked. The prime minister wrote in his diary that it was probably more prudent to have Franco away from Madrid.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In 1932, the Jesuits, who were in charge of many schools throughout the country, were banned and had all their property confiscated. The army was further reduced, and landowners were expropriated. Home rule was granted to Catalonia, with a local parliament and a president of its own. In June 1933 Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Dilectissima Nobis (Our Dearly Beloved), \"On Oppression of the Church of Spain\", in which he criticised the anti-clericalism of the Republican government.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The elections held in October 1933 resulted in a centre-right majority. The political party with the most votes was the Confederación Español de Derechas Autónomas (\"CEDA\"), but president Alcalá-Zamora declined to invite the leader of the CEDA, Gil Robles, to form a government. Instead, he invited the Radical Republican Party's Alejandro Lerroux to do so. Despite receiving the most votes, CEDA was denied cabinet positions for nearly a year. After a year of intense pressure, CEDA, the largest party in the congress, was finally successful in forcing the acceptance of three ministries. The entrance of CEDA in the government, despite being normal in a parliamentary democracy, was not well accepted by the left. The Socialists triggered an insurrection that they had been preparing for nine months. The leftist Republican parties did not directly join the insurrection, but their leadership issued statements that they were \"breaking all relations\" with the Republican government. The Catalan Bloc Obrer i Camperol (BOC) advocated the need to form a broad workers' front and took the lead in forming a new and more encompassing Alianza Obrera, which included the Catalan UGT and the Catalan sector of the PSOE, with the goal of defeating fascism and advancing the socialist revolution. The Alianza Obrera declared a general strike \"against fascism\" in Catalonia in 1934. A Catalan state was proclaimed by Catalan nationalist leader Lluis Companys, but it lasted just ten hours. Despite an attempt at a general stoppage in Madrid, other strikes did not endure. This left the striking Asturian miners to fight alone.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In several mining towns in Asturias, local unions gathered small arms and were determined to see the strike through. It began on the evening of 4 October, with the miners occupying several towns, attacking and seizing local Civil and Assault Guard barracks. Thirty-four priests, six young seminarists with ages between 18 and 21, and several businessmen and civil guards were summarily executed by the revolutionaries in Mieres and Sama, 58 religious buildings including churches, convents and part of the university at Oviedo were burned and destroyed, and over 100 priests were killed in the diocese. Franco, already General of Division and aide to the war minister, Diego Hidalgo, was put in command of the operations directed to suppress the violent insurgency. Troops of the Spanish Army of Africa carried this out, with General Eduardo López Ochoa as commander in the field. After two weeks of heavy fighting (and a death toll estimated between 1,200 and 2,000), the rebellion was suppressed.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The insurgency in Asturias in October 1934 sparked a new era of violent anti-Christian persecutions with the massacre of 34 priests, initiating the practice of atrocities against the clergy, and sharpened the antagonism between Left and Right. Franco and López Ochoa (who, prior to the campaign in Asturias, had been seen as a left-leaning officer) emerged as officers prepared to use \"troops against Spanish civilians as if they were a foreign enemy\". Franco described the rebellion to a journalist in Oviedo as, \"a frontier war and its fronts are socialism, communism and whatever attacks civilisation to replace it with barbarism.\" Though the colonial units sent to the north by the government at Franco's recommendation consisted of the Spanish Foreign Legion and the Moroccan Regulares Indigenas, the right-wing press portrayed the Asturian rebels as lackeys of a foreign Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "With this rebellion against legitimate established political authority, the socialists also repudiated the representative institutional system as the anarchists had done. The Spanish historian Salvador de Madariaga, an Azaña supporter, and an exiled vocal opponent of Francisco Franco is the author of a sharp critical reflection against the participation of the left in the revolt: \"The uprising of 1934 is unforgivable. The argument that Mr Gil Robles tried to destroy the Constitution to establish fascism was, at once, hypocritical and false. With the rebellion of 1934, the Spanish left lost even the shadow of moral authority to condemn the rebellion of 1936.\"",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "At the start of the Civil War, López Ochoa was assassinated; his head was severed and paraded around the streets on a pole, with a card reading, 'This is the butcher of Asturias'. Sometime after these events, Franco was briefly commander-in-chief of the Army of Africa (from 15 February onwards), and from 19 May 1935, on, Chief of the General Staff.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "At the end of 1935, President Alcalá-Zamora manipulated a petty-corruption issue into a major scandal in parliament, and eliminated Alejandro Lerroux, the head of the Radical Republican Party, from the premiership. Subsequently, Alcalá-Zamora vetoed the logical replacement, a majority centre-right coalition, led by the CEDA, which would reflect the composition of the parliament. He then arbitrarily appointed an interim prime minister and after a short period announced the dissolution of parliament and new elections.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Two wide coalitions formed: the Popular Front on the left, ranging from Republican Union to Communists, and the Frente Nacional on the right, ranging from the centre radicals to the conservative Carlists. On 16 February 1936 the elections ended in a virtual draw, but in the evening leftist mobs started to interfere in the balloting and in the registration of votes, distorting the results. Stanley G. Payne claims that the process was blatant electoral fraud, with widespread violation of the laws and the constitution. In line with Payne's point of view, in 2017 two Spanish scholars, Manuel Álvarez Tardío and Roberto Villa García published the result of a major research work in which they concluded that the 1936 elections were rigged, a view disputed by Paul Preston, and other scholars such as Iker Itoiz Ciáurriz, who denounces their conclusions as revisionist \"classic Francoist anti-republican tropes\".",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "On 19 February, the cabinet presided over by Portela Valladares resigned, with a new cabinet being quickly set up, composed chiefly of members of the Republican Left and the Republican Union and presided over by Manuel Azaña.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "José Calvo Sotelo, who made anti-communism the focus of his parliamentary speeches, began spreading violent propaganda—advocating for a military coup d'état, formulating a catastrophist discourse of a dichotomous choice between \"communism\" or a markedly totalitarian \"National\" State, and setting the mood of the masses for a military rebellion. The diffusion of the myth about an alleged Communist coup d'état as well a pretended state of \"social chaos\" became pretexts for a coup. Franco himself along with General Emilio Mola had stirred an anti-Communist campaign in Morocco.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "On 23 February, Franco was sent to the Canary Islands to serve as the islands' military commander, an appointment perceived by him as a destierro (banishment). Meanwhile, a conspiracy led by General Mola was taking shape.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Interested in the parliamentary immunity granted by a seat at the Cortes, Franco intended to stand as candidate of the Right Bloc alongside José Antonio Primo de Rivera for the by-election in the province of Cuenca programmed for 3 May 1936, after the results of the February 1936 election were annulled in the constituency. But Primo de Rivera refused to run alongside a military officer (Franco in particular) and Franco himself ultimately desisted on 26 April, one day before the decision of the election authority. By that time, PSOE politician Indalecio Prieto had already deemed Franco as a \"possible caudillo for a military uprising\".",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Disenchantment with Azaña's rule continued to grow and was dramatically voiced by Miguel de Unamuno, a republican and one of Spain's most respected intellectuals, who in June 1936 told a reporter who published his statement in El Adelanto that President Manuel Azaña should \"...debiera suicidarse como acto patriótico\" (\"commit suicide as a patriotic act\").",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In June 1936, Franco was contacted, and a secret meeting was held within La Esperanza forest on Tenerife to discuss starting a military coup. An obelisk (which has subsequently been removed) commemorating this historic meeting was erected at the site in a clearing at Las Raíces in Tenerife.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Outwardly, Franco maintained an ambiguous attitude until nearly July. On 23 June 1936, he wrote to the head of the government, Casares Quiroga, offering to quell the discontent in the Spanish Republican Army, but received no reply. The other rebels were determined to go ahead con Paquito o sin Paquito (with Paquito or without Paquito; Paquito being a diminutive of Paco, which in turn is short for Francisco), as it was put by José Sanjurjo, the honorary leader of the military uprising. After various postponements, 18 July was fixed as the date of the uprising. The situation reached a point of no return and as presented to Franco by Mola, the coup was unavoidable, and he had to choose a side. He decided to join the rebels and was given the task of commanding the Army of Africa. A privately owned DH 89 De Havilland Dragon Rapide, flown by two British pilots, Cecil Bebb and Hugh Pollard, was chartered in England on 11 July to take Franco to Africa.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The coup underway was precipitated by the assassination of the right-wing opposition leader Calvo Sotelo in retaliation for the murder of assault guard José Castillo, which had been committed by a group headed by a civil guard and composed of assault guards and members of the socialist militias. On 17 July, one day earlier than planned, the Army of Africa rebelled, detaining their commanders. On 18 July, Franco published a manifesto and left for Africa, where he arrived the next day to take command.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "A week later the rebels, who soon called themselves the Nationalists, controlled a third of Spain; most naval units remained under control of the Republican loyalist forces, which left Franco isolated. The coup had failed in the attempt to bring a swift victory, but the Spanish Civil War had begun.",
"title": "Military career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Franco rose to power during the Spanish Civil War, which began in July 1936 and officially ended with the victory of his Nationalist forces in April 1939. Although it is impossible to calculate precise statistics concerning the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, Payne writes that if civilian fatalities above the norm are added to the total number of deaths for victims of violence, the number of deaths attributable to the civil war would reach approximately 344,000. During the war, rape, torture, and summary executions committed by soldiers under Franco's command were used as a means of retaliation and to repress political dissent.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The war was marked by foreign intervention on behalf of both sides. Franco's Nationalists were supported by Fascist Italy, which sent the Corpo Truppe Volontarie and by Nazi Germany, which sent the Condor Legion. Italian aircraft stationed on Majorca bombed Barcelona 13 times, dropping 44 tons of bombs aimed at civilians. These attacks were requested by General Franco as retribution against the Catalan population. Similarly, both Italian and German planes bombed the Basque town of Guernica at Franco's request. The Republican opposition was supported by communists, socialists, and anarchists within Spain as well as the Soviet Union and volunteers who fought in the International Brigades.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Following the pronunciamiento of 18 July 1936, Franco assumed the leadership of the 30,000 soldiers of the Spanish Army of Africa. The first days of the insurgency were marked by an imperative need to secure control over the Spanish Moroccan Protectorate. On one side, Franco had to win the support of the native Moroccan population and their (nominal) authorities, and, on the other, he had to ensure his control over the army. His method was the summary execution of some 200 senior officers loyal to the Republic (one of them his own cousin). His loyal bodyguard was shot by Manuel Blanco. Franco's first problem was how to move his troops to the Iberian Peninsula, since most units of the Navy had remained in control of the Republic and were blocking the Strait of Gibraltar. He requested help from Benito Mussolini, who responded with an offer of arms and planes. In Germany Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr military intelligence service, persuaded Hitler to support the Nationalists; Hitler sent 20 Ju 52 transport aircraft and six Heinkel biplane fighters, on the condition that they were not to be used in hostilities unless the Republicans attacked first. Mussolini sent 12 Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 transport/bombers, and a few fighter aircraft. From 20 July onward Franco was able, with this small squadron of aircraft, to initiate an air bridge that carried 1,500 soldiers of the Army of Africa to Seville, where these troops helped to ensure rebel control of the city. He successfully negotiated with Germany, and Italy for more military support, and above all for more aircraft. On 25 July and aircraft began to arrive in Tetouan and on 5 August Franco was able to break the blockade, successfully deploying a convoy of fishing boats and merchant ships carrying some 3,000 soldiers; between 29 July and 15 August about 15,000 more men were moved.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "On 26 July, just eight days after the revolt had started, foreign allies of the Republican government convened an international communist conference at Prague to arrange plans to help the Popular Front forces in Spain. Communist parties throughout the world quickly launched a full scale propaganda campaign in support of the Popular Front. The Communist International (Comintern) immediately reinforced its activity, sending to Spain its Secretary-General, the Bulgarian Georgi Dimitrov, and Palmiro Togliatti the chief of the Communist Party of Italy. From August onward, aid from the Soviet Union began; by February 1937 two ships per day arrived at Spain's Mediterranean ports carrying munitions, rifles, machine guns, hand grenades, artillery, and trucks. With the cargo came Soviet agents, technicians, instructors and propagandists.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The Communist International immediately started to organise the International Brigades, volunteer military units which included the Garibaldi Brigade from Italy and the Lincoln Battalion from the United States. The International Brigades were usually deployed as shock troops, and as a result they suffered high casualties.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In early August, the situation in western Andalucia was stable enough to allow Franco to organise a column (some 15,000 men at its height), under the command of then Lieutenant-Colonel Juan Yagüe, which would march through Extremadura towards Madrid. On 11 August Mérida was taken, and on 15 August Badajoz, thus joining both nationalist-controlled areas. Additionally, Mussolini ordered a voluntary army, the Corpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV) of fully motorised units (some 12,000 Italians), to Seville, and Hitler added to them a professional squadron from the Luftwaffe (2JG/88) with about 24 planes. All these planes had the Nationalist Spanish insignia painted on them, but were flown by Italian and German nationals. The backbone of Franco's air force in those days was the Italian SM.79 and SM.81 bombers, the biplane Fiat CR.32 fighter and the German Junkers Ju 52 cargo-bomber and the Heinkel He 51 biplane fighter.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "On 21 September, with the head of the column at the town of Maqueda (some 80 km away from Madrid), Franco ordered a detour to free the besieged garrison at the Alcázar of Toledo, which was achieved on 27 September. This controversial decision gave the Popular Front time to strengthen its defences in Madrid and hold the city that year, but with Soviet support. Kennan alleges that once Stalin had decided to assist the Spanish Republicans, the operation was put in place with remarkable speed and energy. The first load of arms and tanks arrived as early as 26 September and was secretly unloaded at night. Advisers accompanied the armaments. Soviet officers were in effective charge of military operations on the Madrid front. Kennan believes that this operation was originally conducted in good faith with no other purpose than saving the Republic.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Hitler's policy for Spain was shrewd and pragmatic. The minutes of a conference with his foreign minister and army chiefs at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin on 10 November 1937 summarised his views on foreign policy regarding the Spanish Civil War: \"On the other hand, a 100 percent victory for Franco was not desirable either, from the German point of view; rather were we interested in a continuance of the war and in the keeping up of the tension in the Mediterranean.\" Hitler distrusted Franco; according to the comments he made at the conference he wanted the war to continue, but he did not want Franco to achieve total victory. He felt that with Franco in undisputed control of Spain, the possibility of Italy intervening further or of its continuing to occupy the Balearic Islands would be prevented.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "By February 1937 the Soviet Union's military help started to taper off, to be replaced by limited economic aid.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The designated leader of the uprising, General José Sanjurjo, died on 20 July 1936 in a plane crash. In the nationalist zone, \"political life ceased\". Initially, only military command mattered: this was divided into regional commands (Emilio Mola in the North, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano in Seville commanding Andalucia, Franco with an independent command, and Miguel Cabanellas in Zaragoza commanding Aragon). The Spanish Army of Morocco was itself split into two columns, one commanded by General Juan Yagüe and the other commanded by Colonel José Varela.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "From 24 July a coordinating junta, the National Defence Junta, was established, based at Burgos. Nominally led by Cabanellas, as the most senior general, it initially included Mola, three other generals, and two colonels; Franco was later added in early August. On 21 September it was decided that Franco was to be commander-in-chief (this unified command was opposed only by Cabanellas), and, after some discussion, with no more than a lukewarm agreement from Queipo de Llano and from Mola, also head of government. He was, doubtlessly, helped to this primacy by the fact that, in late July, Hitler had decided that all of Germany's aid to the Nationalists would go to Franco.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Mola had been somewhat discredited as the main planner of the attempted coup that had now degenerated into a civil war, and was strongly identified with the Carlist monarchists and not at all with the Falange, a party with Fascist leanings and connections (\"phalanx\", a far-right Spanish political party founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera), nor did he have good relations with Germany. Queipo de Llano and Cabanellas had both previously rebelled against the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera and were therefore discredited in some nationalist circles, and Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera was in prison in Alicante (he would be executed a few months later). The desire to keep a place open for him prevented any other Falangist leader from emerging as a possible head of state. Franco's previous aloofness from politics meant that he had few active enemies in any of the factions that needed to be placated, and he had also cooperated in recent months with both Germany and Italy.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "On 1 October 1936, in Burgos, Franco was publicly proclaimed as Generalísimo of the National army and Jefe del Estado (Head of State). When Mola was killed in another air accident a year later on 2 June 1937 (which some believe was an assassination), no military leader was left from those who had organised the conspiracy against the Republic between 1933 and 1935.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Franco personally guided military operations from this time until the end of the war. Franco himself was not a strategic genius, but he was very effective at organisation, administration, logistics and diplomacy. After the failed assault on Madrid in November 1936, Franco settled on a piecemeal approach to winning the war, rather than bold manoeuvring. As with his decision to relieve the garrison at Toledo, this approach has been subject of some debate: some of his decisions, such as in June 1938 when he preferred to advance towards Valencia instead of Catalonia, remain particularly controversial from a military strategic viewpoint. Valencia, Castellon and Alicante saw the last Republican troops defeated by Franco.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Although both Germany and Italy provided military support to Franco, the degree of influence of both powers on his direction of the war seems to have been very limited. Nevertheless, the Italian troops, despite not always being effective, were present in most of the large operations in large numbers. Germany sent insignificant numbers of combat personnel to Spain, but aided the Nationalists with technical instructors and modern matériel; including some 200 tanks and 600 aircraft which helped the Nationalist air force dominate the skies for most of the war.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Franco's direction of the German and Italian forces was limited, particularly in the direction of the Condor Legion, but he was by default their supreme commander, and they declined to interfere in the politics of the Nationalist zone. For reasons of prestige it was decided to continue assisting Franco until the end of the war, and Italian and German troops paraded on the day of the final victory in Madrid.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The Nationalist victory could be accounted for by various factors: the Popular Front government had reckless policies in the weeks prior to the war, where it ignored potential dangers and alienated the opposition, encouraging more people to join the rebellion, while the rebels had superior military cohesion, with Franco providing the necessary leadership to consolidate power and unify the various rightist factions. His foreign diplomacy secured military aid from Italy and Germany and, by some accounts, helped keep Britain and France out of the war.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The rebels made effective use of a smaller navy, acquiring the most powerful ships in the Spanish fleet and maintaining a functional officer corps, while Republican sailors had assassinated a large number of their naval officers who sided with the rebels in 1936, as at Cartagena, and El Ferrol. The Nationalists used their ships aggressively to pursue the opposition, in contrast to the largely passive naval strategy of the Republicans.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Not only did the Nationalists receive more foreign aid to sustain their war effort, but there is evidence that they made more efficient use of such aid. They augmented their forces with arms captured from the Republicans, and successfully integrated over half of Republican prisoners of war into the Nationalist army. The rebels were able to build a larger air force and make more effective use of their air force, particularly in supporting ground operations and bombing; and generally enjoyed air superiority from mid-1937 onwards; this air power contributed greatly to the Nationalist victory.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The Republicans were subject to disunity and infighting, and were hampered by the destructive consequences of the revolution in the Republican zone: mobilisation was impeded, the Republican image was harmed abroad in democracies, and the campaign against religion aroused overwhelming and unwavering Catholic support for the Nationalists.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "On 19 April 1937, Franco and Serrano Súñer, with the acquiescence of Generals Mola and Quiepo de Llano, forcibly merged the ideologically distinct national-syndicalist Falange and the Carlist monarchist parties into one party under his rule, dubbed Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS), which became the only legal party in 1939.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Unlike some other fascist movements, the Falangists had developed an official program in 1934, the \"Twenty-Seven Points\". In 1937, Franco assumed as the tentative doctrine of his regime 26 out of the original 27 points. Franco made himself jefe nacional (National Chief) of the new FET (Falange Española Tradicionalista; Traditionalist Spanish Phalanx) with a secretary, Political Junta and National Council to be named subsequently by himself. Five days later on 24 April the raised-arm salute of the Falange was made the official salute of the Nationalist regime. Also in 1937 the Marcha Real (\"Royal March\") was restored by decree as the national anthem in the Nationalist zone. It was opposed by the Falangists, who associated it with the monarchy and boycotted it when it was played, often singing their own anthem, Cara al Sol (Facing the Sun) instead. By 1939 the fascist style prevailed, with ritual rallying calls of \"Franco, Franco, Franco.\"",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Franco's advisor on Falangist party matters, Ramón Serrano Súñer, who was the brother-in-law of his wife Carmen Polo, and a group of Serrano Súñer's followers dominated the FET JONS, and strove to increase the party's power. Serrano Súñer tried to move the party in a more fascist direction by appointing his acolytes to important positions, and the party became the leading political organisation in Francoist Spain. The FET JONS failed to establish a fascist party regime, however, and was relegated to subordinate status. Franco placed the Carlist Manuel Fal Condé under house arrest and imprisoned hundreds of old Falangists, the so-called \"old shirts\" (camisas viejas), including the party leader Manuel Hedilla, to help secure his political future. Franco also appeased the Carlists by exploiting the Republicans' anti-clericalism in his propaganda, in particular concerning the \"Martyrs of the war\". While the Republican forces presented the war as a struggle to defend the Republic against fascism, Franco depicted himself as the defender of \"Catholic Spain\" against \"atheist communism\".",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "By early 1939 only Madrid (see History of Madrid) and a few other areas remained under control of the government forces. On 27 February Chamberlain's Britain and Daladier's France officially recognised the Franco regime. On 28 March 1939, with the help of pro-Franco forces inside the city (the \"fifth column\" General Mola had mentioned in propaganda broadcasts in 1936), Madrid fell to the Nationalists. The next day, Valencia, which had held out under the guns of the Nationalists for close to two years, also surrendered. Victory was proclaimed on 1 April 1939, when the last of the Republican forces surrendered. On the same day, Franco placed his sword upon the altar of a church and vowed to never take it up again unless Spain itself was threatened with invasion.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Although Germany had recognised the Franco Government, Franco's policy towards Germany was extremely cautious until spectacular German victories at the beginning of the Second World War. An early indication that Franco was going to keep his distance from Germany soon proved true. A rumoured state visit by Franco to Germany did not take place and a further rumour of a visit by Goering to Spain, after he had enjoyed a cruise in the Western Mediterranean, again did not materialise. Instead Goering had to return to Berlin.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "During the Civil War and in the aftermath, a period known as the White Terror took place. This saw mass executions of Republican and other Nationalist enemies, standing in contrast to the wartime Red Terror. Historical analysis and investigations estimate the number of executions by the Franco regime during this time to be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Stanley G. Payne says the total number of all kinds of executions in the Republican zone added up to about 56,000, and that those in the Nationalist zone probably amounted to at least 70,000, with an additional 28,000 executions after the war ended. Recent searches conducted with parallel excavations of mass graves in Spain by the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica), ARMH) estimate that more than 35,000 people killed by the nationalist side are still missing in mass graves.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Julián Casanova Ruiz, who was nominated in 2008 to join the panel of experts in the first judicial investigation, conducted by judge Baltasar Garzón, of Francoist crimes, as well as historians Josep Fontana and Hugh Thomas, estimate deaths in the White Terror to be around 150,000 in total. According to Paul Preston, 150,000 wartime civilian executions took place in the Francoist area, as well as 50,000 in the Republican area, in addition to approximately 20,000 civilians executed by the Franco regime after the end of the war. According to Helen Graham, the Spanish working classes became to the Francoist project what the Jews were to the German Volksgemeinschaft.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "According to Gabriel Jackson and Antony Beevor, the number of victims of the \"White Terror\" (executions and hunger or illness in prisons) between 1939 and 1943 was 200,000. Beevor \"reckons Franco's ensuing 'white terror' claimed 200,000 lives. The 'red terror' had already killed 38,000.\" Julius Ruiz concludes that \"although the figures remain disputed, a minimum of 37,843 executions were carried out in the Republican zone with a maximum of 150,000 executions (including 50,000 after the war) in Nationalist Spain.\"",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Despite the end of the war, Spanish guerrillas exiled in France, and known as the Maquis\", continued to resist Franco in the Pyrenees, carrying out sabotage and robberies against the Francoist regime. Several exiled Republicans also fought in the French resistance against the German occupation in Vichy France during World War II. In 1944, a group of republican veterans from the French resistance invaded the Val d'Aran in northwest Catalonia but were quickly defeated. The activities of the Maquis continued well into the 1950s.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "The end of the war led to hundreds of thousands of exiles, mostly to France, but also to Mexico, Chile, Cuba, and the United States. On the other side of the Pyrenees, refugees were confined in internment camps in France, such as Camp Gurs or Camp Vernet, where 12,000 Republicans were housed in squalid conditions (mostly soldiers from the Durruti Division). The 17,000 refugees housed in Gurs were divided into four categories: Brigadists, pilots, Gudaris and ordinary \"Spaniards\". The Gudaris (Basques) and the pilots easily found local backers and jobs, and were allowed to quit the camp, but the farmers and ordinary people, who could not find relations in France, were encouraged by the French government, in agreement with the Francoist government, to return to Spain. The great majority did so and were turned over to the Francoist authorities in Irún. From there they were transferred to the Miranda de Ebro camp for \"purification\" according to the Law of Political Responsibilities.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "After the proclamation by Marshal Philippe Pétain of the Vichy France regime, the refugees became political prisoners, and the French police attempted to round up those who had been liberated from the camp. Along with other \"undesirables\", they were sent to the Drancy internment camp before being deported to Nazi Germany. 5,000 Spaniards thus died in Mauthausen concentration camp. The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who had been named by the Chilean President Pedro Aguirre Cerda special consul for immigration in Paris, was given responsibility for what he called \"the noblest mission I have ever undertaken\": shipping more than 2,000 Spanish refugees, who had been housed by the French in squalid camps, to Chile on an old cargo ship, the Winnipeg.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In September 1939, World War II began. Franco had received important support from Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini during the Spanish Civil War, and he had signed the Anti-Comintern Pact. He made pro-Axis speeches, while offering various kinds of support to Italy and Germany. His spokesman Antonio Tovar commented at a Paris conference entitled 'Bolshevism versus Europe' that \"Spain aligned itself definitively on the side of...National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy.\" However, Franco was reluctant to enter the war due to Spain recovering from its recent civil war and instead pursued a policy of \"non-belligerence\".",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "On 23 October 1940, Hitler and Franco met in Hendaye, France to discuss the possibility of Spain's entry on the side of the Axis. Franco's demands, including large supplies of food and fuel, as well as Spanish control of Gibraltar and French North Africa, proved too much for Hitler. At the time Hitler did not want to risk damaging his relations with the new Vichy French government. (An oft-cited remark attributed to Hitler is that the German leader said that he would rather have some of his own teeth pulled out than to have to personally deal further with Franco).",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Some historians argue that Franco made demands he knew Hitler would not accede to, in order to stay out of the war. Other historians argue that Franco, as the leader of a destroyed and bankrupt country in chaos following a brutal three-year civil war, simply had little to offer the Axis and that the Spanish armed forces were not ready for a major war. It has also been suggested that Franco decided not to join the war after the resources he requested from Hitler in October 1940 were not forthcoming.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Franco allowed Spanish soldiers to volunteer to fight in the German Army against the Soviet Union (the Blue Division) but forbade Spaniards to fight in the West against the democracies. Franco's common ground with Hitler was particularly weakened by Hitler's attempts to manipulate Christianity, which went against Franco's fervent commitment to defending Catholicism. Contributing to the disagreement was an ongoing dispute over German mining rights in Spain.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "According to some scholars, after the Fall of France in June 1940, Spain did adopt a pro-Axis stance (for example, German and Italian ships and U-boats were allowed to use Spanish naval facilities) before returning to a more neutral position in late 1943 when the tide of the war had turned decisively against the Axis Powers, and Italy had changed sides. Franco was initially keen to join the war before the UK could be defeated.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "In the winter of 1940 and 1941, Franco toyed with the idea of a \"Latin Bloc\" formed by Spain, Portugal, Vichy France, the Vatican and Italy, without much consequence. Franco had cautiously decided to enter the war on the Axis side in June 1940, and to prepare his people for war, an anti-British and anti-French campaign was launched in the Spanish media that demanded French Morocco, Cameroon and Gibraltar. On 19 June 1940, Franco pressed along a message to Hitler saying he wanted to enter the war, but Hitler was annoyed at Franco's demand for the French colony of Cameroon, which had been German before World War I, and which Hitler was planning on taking back for Plan Z. Franco seriously considered blocking allied access to the Mediterranean Sea by invading British-held Gibraltar, but he abandoned the idea after learning that the plan would have likely failed due to Gibraltar being too heavily defended. In addition, declaring war on the UK and its allies would no doubt give them an opportunity to capture both the Canary Islands and Spanish Morocco, as well as possibly launch an invasion of mainland Spain itself. Franco was aware that his air force would be quickly defeated if going into action against the Royal Air Force, and the Royal Navy would easily be able to destroy Spain's small navy and blockade the entire Spanish coast to prevent imports of crucial materials such as oil. Spain depended on oil imports from the United States, which were almost certain to be cut off if Spain formally joined the Axis. Franco and Serrano Suñer held a meeting with Mussolini and Ciano in Bordighera, Italy on 12 February 1941. However, an affected Mussolini did not appear to be interested in Franco's help due to the defeats his forces had suffered in North Africa and the Balkans, and he even told Franco that he wished he could find any way to leave the war. When the invasion of the Soviet Union began on 22 June 1941, Franco's foreign minister Ramón Serrano Suñer immediately suggested the formation of a unit of military volunteers to join the invasion. Volunteer Spanish troops (the División Azul, or \"Blue Division\") fought on the Eastern Front under German command from 1941 to 1944. Some historians have argued that not all of the Blue Division were true volunteers and that Franco expended relatively small but significant resources to aid the Axis powers' battle against the Soviet Union.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Franco was initially disliked by Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, who, during World War II, suggested a joint U.S.-Latin American declaration of war on Spain to overthrow Franco's regime. Hitler may not have really wanted Spain to join the war, as he needed neutral harbours to import materials from countries in Latin America and elsewhere. He felt Spain would be a burden as it would be dependent on Germany for help. By 1941, Vichy French forces were proving their effectiveness in North Africa, reducing the need for Spanish help, and Hitler was wary about opening up a new front on the western coast of Europe as he struggled to reinforce the Italians in Greece and Yugoslavia. Franco signed a revised Anti-Comintern Pact on 25 November 1941. Spain continued to be able to obtain valuable German goods, including military equipment, as part of payment for Spanish raw materials, and traded wolfram with Germany until August 1944 when the Germans withdrew from the Spanish frontier.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Spanish neutrality during World War II was publicly acknowledged by leading Allied statesmen. In November 1942, US President Roosevelt wrote to General Franco: \"...your nation and mine are friends in the best sense of the word.\" In May 1944, Winston Churchill stated in the House of Commons: \"In the dark days of the war the attitude of the Spanish Government in not giving our enemies passage through Spain was extremely helpful to us.... I must say that I shall always consider that a service was rendered...by Spain, not only to the United Kingdom and to the British Empire and Commonwealth, but to the cause of the United Nations.\" According to the personal recollection of US Ambassador to Spain Carlton Hayes, similar gratitude was also expressed by the Provisional French Government at Algiers in 1943. Franco placed no obstacles to Britain's construction of a large air base extending from Gibraltar into Spanish territorial waters and welcomed the Anglo-American landings in North Africa. Spain did not intern any of the 1,200 American airmen who were forced to land in the country, but \"gave them refuge and permitted them to leave.\"",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "After the war, the Spanish government tried to destroy all evidence of its cooperation with the Axis. In 2010, documents were discovered showing that on 13 May 1941, Franco ordered his provincial governors to compile a list of Jews while he negotiated an alliance with the Axis powers. Franco supplied Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Nazis' Final Solution, with a list of 6,000 Jews in Spain.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "On 14 June 1940, Spanish forces in Morocco occupied Tangier (a city under international control) and did not leave until the war's end in 1945.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "After the war, Franco allowed many former Nazis, such as Otto Skorzeny and Léon Degrelle, and other fascists, to seek political asylum in Spain.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Franco had a controversial association with Jews before and during World War II. He made antisemitic remarks in a speech in May 1939, and made similar remarks on at least six occasions during World War II. Franco believed in the existence of a \"Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik conspiracy\", and he deliberately framed the Spanish Civil War as a conflict against Jews and Bolsheviks. In 2010, documents were discovered showing that on 13 May 1941, Franco ordered his provincial governors to compile a list of Jews while he negotiated an alliance with the Axis powers. Franco supplied Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Nazis' Final Solution, with a list of 6,000 Jews in Spain.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Contrarily, according to Anti-Semitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution (2005):",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Preston writes that, in the post-war years, \"a myth was carefully constructed to claim that Franco's regime had saved many Jews from extermination\" as a means to deflect foreign criticism away from allegations of active collaboration with the Nazi regime. As early as 1943, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs concluded that the Allies were likely to win the war. José Félix de Lequerica y Erquiza became Foreign Minister in 1944 and soon developed an \"obsession\" with the importance of the \"Jewish card\" in relations with the former Allied powers.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Spain provided visas for thousands of French Jews to transit Spain en route to Portugal to escape the Nazis. Spanish diplomats protected about 4,000 Jews living in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. At least some 20,000 to 30,000 Jews were allowed to pass through Spain in the first half of the War. Jews who were not allowed to enter Spain, however, were sent to the Miranda de Ebro concentration camp or deported to France. In January 1943, after the German embassy in Spain told the Spanish government that it had two months to remove its Jewish citizens from Western Europe, Spain severely limited visas, and only 800 Jews were allowed to enter the country. After the war, Franco exaggerated his contributions to saving Jews in order to improve Spain's image in the world and end its international isolation.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "After the war, Franco did not recognise Israeli statehood and maintained strong relations with the Arab world. Israel expressed disinterest in establishing relations, although there were some informal economic ties between the two countries in the later years of Franco's governance. In the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967, Franco's Spain was able to utilise its positive relationship with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Arab world (due to not having recognised the Israeli state) to allow 800 Egyptian Jews, many of Sephardic ancestry, safe passage out of Egypt on Spanish passports. This was undertaken through Francoist Spain's Ambassador to Egypt, Ángel Sagaz Zubelzu, on the understanding that emigrant Jews would not immediately emigrate to Israel and that they would not publicly use the case as political propaganda against Nasser's Egypt. On 16 December 1968, the Spanish government formally revoked the 1492 Edict of Expulsion against Spain's Jewish population.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Franco personally and many in the government openly stated that they believed there was an international conspiracy of Freemasons and Communists against Spain, sometimes including Jews or \"Judeo-Masonry\" as part of this. While under the leadership of Francisco Franco, the Spanish government explicitly endorsed the Catholic Church as the religion of the nation state and did not endorse liberal ideas such as religious pluralism or separation of Church and State found in the Republican Constitution of 1931. Following the Second World War, the government enacted the \"Spanish Bill of Rights\" (Fuero de los Españoles), which extended the right to private worship of non-Catholic religions, including Judaism, though it did not permit the erection of religious buildings for this practice and did not allow non-Catholic public ceremonies. With the pivot of Spain's foreign policy towards the United States during the Cold War, the situation changed with the 1967 Law on Religious Freedom, which granted full public religious rights to non-Catholics. The overthrow of Catholicism as the explicit state religion of Spain and the establishment of state-sponsored religious pluralism would be realised in Spain in 1978, with the new Constitution of Spain, three years after Franco's death.",
"title": "From the Spanish Civil War to World War II"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "Franco was recognised as the Spanish head of state by the United Kingdom, France and Argentina in February 1939. Already proclaimed Generalísimo of the Nationalists and Jefe del Estado (Head of State) in October 1936, he thereafter assumed the official title of \"Su Excelencia el Jefe de Estado\" (\"His Excellency the Head of State\"). He was also referred to in state and official documents as \"Caudillo de España\" (\"the Leader of Spain\"), and sometimes called \"el Caudillo de la Última Cruzada y de la Hispanidad\" (\"the Leader of the Last Crusade and of the Hispanic heritage\") and \"el Caudillo de la Guerra de Liberación contra el Comunismo y sus Cómplices\" (\"the Leader of the War of Liberation Against Communism and Its Accomplices\").",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "On paper, Franco had more power than any Spanish leader before or since. For the first four years after taking Madrid, he ruled almost exclusively by decree. The \"Law of the Head of State,\" passed in August 1939, \"permanently confided\" all governing power to Franco; he was not required to even consult the cabinet for most legislation or decrees. According to Payne, Franco possessed far more day-to-day power than Hitler or Stalin possessed at the respective heights of their power. He noted that while Hitler and Stalin maintained rubber-stamp parliaments, this was not the case in Spain in the early years after the war – a situation that nominally made Franco's regime \"the most purely arbitrary in the world\".",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "This changed in 1942, when Franco convened a parliament known as the Cortes Españolas. It was elected in accordance with corporatist principles, and had little real power. Notably, it had no control over government spending, and the government was not responsible to it; ministers were appointed and dismissed by Franco alone.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "On 26 July 1947, Franco proclaimed Spain a monarchy, but did not designate a monarch. This gesture was largely done to appease the monarchists in the Movimiento Nacional (Carlists and Alfonsoists). Franco left the throne vacant, proclaiming himself as a de facto regent for life. At the same time, Franco appropriated many of the privileges of a king. He wore the uniform of a captain general (a rank traditionally reserved for the king) and resided in El Pardo Palace. In addition he began walking under a canopy, and his portrait appeared on most Spanish coins and postage stamps. He also added \"by the grace of God\", a phrase usually part of the styles of monarchs, to his style.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Franco initially sought support from various groups. His administration marginalised fascist ideologues in favour of technocrats, many of whom were linked with Opus Dei, who promoted economic modernisation.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "Franco adopted Fascist trappings, although Stanley Payne argued that very few scholars consider him to be a \"core fascist\". Regarding the regime, the Oxford Living Dictionary uses Franco's regime as an example of fascism, and it has also been variously presented as a \"fascistized dictatorship\", or a \"semi-fascist regime\". Francisco Cobo Romero writes that, besides neutering left-wing advances by using an essentially antiliberal brand of ultranationalism, \"in its attempt to emulate Fascism, Francoism resorted to the sacralization and mystification of the motherland, raising it into an object of cult, and coating it with a liturgic divinization of its leader\".",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "All in all, some authors have pointed at a purported artificialness and failure of FET JONS in order to de-emphasise the Fascist weight within the regime whereas others have embedded those perceived features of \"weak party\" within the frame of a particular model of \"Spanish Fascism\". However, new research material has been argued to underpin the \"Fascist subject\", both on the basis of the existence of a pervasive and fully differentiated Fascist falangist political culture, and on the importance of the Civil War for falangism, which served as an area of experience, of violence, of memory, as well as for the generation of a culture of victory. Under the perspective of a comparative of European fascisms, Javier Rodrigo considers the Francoist regime to be paradigmatic for three reasons: for being the only authoritarian European regime with totalitarian aspirations, for being the regime that deployed the most political violence in times of rhetorical peace, and for being the regime deploying the most effective \"memoricidal\" apparatus.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "With the end of World War II, Spain suffered from the consequences of its isolation from the international economy. Spain was excluded from the Marshall Plan, unlike other neutral countries in Europe. This situation ended in part when, in the light of Cold War tensions and of Spain's strategic location, the United States of America entered into a trade and military alliance with Franco. This historic alliance commenced with the visit of US President Dwight Eisenhower to Spain in 1953, which resulted in the Pact of Madrid. Spain was then admitted to the United Nations in 1955. American military facilities in Spain built since then include Naval Station Rota, Morón Air Base, and Torrejón Air Base.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "According to Preston's estimates, Franco's forces killed about 420,000 Spaniards in the theatre of war, through extrajudicial killings during the Civil War, and in state executions immediately following its end in 1939. The first decade of Franco's rule following its end saw continued repression and the killing of an undetermined number of political opponents. In 1941 the prison population of Spain was 233,000, mostly political prisoners. According to Antony Beevor, recent research in more than half of Spain's provinces indicates at least 35,000 official executions in the country after the war, suggesting that the generally accepted figure of 35,000 official executions is low. Accounting for unofficial and random killings, and those who died during the war from execution, suicide, starvation and disease in prison, the total number is probably closer to 200,000.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "By the start of the 1950s Franco's state had become less violent, but during his entire rule, non-government trade unions and all political opponents across the political spectrum, from communist and anarchist organisations to liberal democrats and Catalan or Basque separatists, were either suppressed or tightly controlled with all means, up to and including violent police repression. The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and the Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) trade unions were outlawed, and replaced in 1940 by the corporatist Sindicato Vertical. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) were banned in 1939, while the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) went underground. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) went into exile, and in 1959 the ETA armed group was created to wage a low-intensity war against Franco.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "Franco's Spanish nationalism promoted a unitary national identity by repressing Spain's cultural diversity. Bullfighting and flamenco were promoted as national traditions while those traditions not considered \"Spanish\" were suppressed. Franco's view of Spanish tradition was somewhat artificial and arbitrary: while some regional traditions were suppressed, flamenco, an Andalucian tradition, was considered part of a larger, national identity. All cultural activities were subject to censorship, and many, such as the Sardana, the national dance of Catalonia, were plainly forbidden (often in an erratic manner). This cultural policy was relaxed over time, most notably during the late 1960s and early 1970s.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "Franco also used language politics in an attempt to establish national homogeneity. He promoted the use of Castilian Spanish and suppressed other languages such as Catalan, Galician, and Basque. The legal usage of languages other than Castilian was forbidden. All government, notarial, legal and commercial documents were to be drawn up exclusively in Castilian and any documents written in other languages were deemed null and void. The usage of any other language was forbidden in schools, in advertising, and on road and shop signs. For unofficial use, citizens continued to speak these languages. This was the situation throughout the 1940s and to a lesser extent during the 1950s, but after 1960 the non-Castilian Spanish languages were freely spoken and written, and they reached bookshops and stages, although they never received official status.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "Most country towns and rural areas were patrolled by pairs of Guardia Civil, a military police force for civilians, which functioned as Franco's chief means of social control. Larger cities and capitals were mostly under the jurisdiction of the Policia Armada, or the grises (\"greys\", due to the colour of their uniforms) as they were called.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "Student revolts at universities in the late 1960s and early 1970s were violently repressed by the heavily armed Policía Armada (Armed Police), and plain-clothes police were present at lectures in Spanish universities. The enforcement by public authorities of traditional Catholic values was a stated intent of the regime, mainly by using a law (the Ley de Vagos y Maleantes, Vagrancy Act) enacted by Azaña. The remaining nomads of Spain (Gitanos and Mercheros like El Lute) were especially affected. Through this law, homosexuality and prostitution were made criminal offences in 1954.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "Spain attempted to retain control of its colonies throughout Franco's rule. During the Algerian War (1954–62), Madrid became the base of the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), a right-wing French Army group which sought to preserve French Algeria. Despite this, Franco was forced to make some concessions. When Morocco became independent from France in 1956, he surrendered the territories of the Spanish protectorate to the new-born state, retaining only a few cities (the Plazas de soberanía). The year after, Mohammed V invaded Spanish Sahara during the Ifni War (known as the \"Forgotten War\" in Spain). Only in 1975, with the Green March, did Morocco take control of all of the former Spanish territories in the Sahara.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "In 1968, under pressure from the United Nations, Spain granted Equatorial Guinea its independence, and the following year it ceded Ifni to Morocco. Under Franco, Spain also pursued a campaign to force a negotiation on the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, and closed its border with that territory in 1969. The border would not be fully reopened until 1985.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "The Civil War ravaged the Spanish economy. Infrastructure had been damaged, workers killed, and daily business severely hampered. For more than a decade after Franco's victory, the devastated economy recovered very slowly. Franco initially pursued a policy of autarky, cutting off almost all international trade. The policy had devastating effects, and the economy stagnated. Only black marketeers could enjoy an evident affluence.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "On the brink of bankruptcy, a combination of pressure from the United States and the IMF managed to convince the regime to adopt a free market economy. Many of the old guard in charge of the economy were replaced by technocrats (technocrata), despite some initial opposition from Franco. The regime took its first faltering steps toward abandoning its pretensions of self-sufficiency and towards a transformation of Spain's economic system. Pre-Civil War industrial production levels were regained in the early 1950s, though agricultural output remained below prewar levels until 1958. The years from 1951 to 1956 were marked by substantial economic progress, but the reforms of the period were only sporadically implemented, and they were not well coordinated. From the mid-1950s there was a slow but steady acceleration in economic activity, but the relative lack of growth (compared to the rest of Western Europe) eventually forced the Franco regime to allow the introduction of liberal economic policies in the late 1950s. During the pre-stabilization years of 1957–1959, Spanish economic planners implemented partial measures such as moderate anti-inflationary adjustments and incremental moves to integrate Spain into the global economy, but external developments and a worsening domestic economic crisis forced them to adopt more sweeping changes. A reorganisation of the Council of Ministers in early 1957 had brought a group of younger men, most of whom were educated in economics and had experience, to the key ministries. The process of integrating the country into the world economy was further facilitated by the reforms of the 1959 Stabilization and Liberalization Plan.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "When Franco replaced his ideological ministers with the apolitical technocrats, the regime implemented several development policies that included deep economic reforms. After a recession, growth took off from 1959, creating an economic boom that lasted until 1974, and became known as the \"Spanish miracle\".",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "Concurrent with the absence of social reforms, and the economic power shift, a tide of mass emigration commenced to other European countries, and to a lesser extent, to South America. Emigration helped the regime in two ways. The country got rid of populations it would not have been able to keep in employment, and the emigrants supplied the country with much needed monetary remittances.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "During the 1960s, the wealthy classes of Francoist Spain experienced further increases in wealth, particularly those who remained politically faithful, while a burgeoning middle class became visible as the \"economic miracle\" progressed. International firms established factories in Spain where salaries were low, company taxes very low, strikes forbidden and workers' health or state protections almost unheard of. State-owned firms like the car manufacturer SEAT, truck builder Pegaso, and oil refiner INH, massively expanded production. Furthermore, Spain was virtually a new mass market. Spain became the second-fastest growing economy in the world between 1959 and 1973, just behind Japan. By the time of Franco's death in 1975, Spain still lagged behind most of Western Europe but the gap between its per capita GDP and that of the leading Western European countries had narrowed greatly, and the country had developed a large industrialised economy.",
"title": "Spain under Franco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "In the late 1960s, the ageing Franco decided to name a monarch to succeed his regency, but the simmering tensions between the Carlists and the Alfonsoists continued. In 1969, Franco formally nominated as his heir-apparent Prince Juan Carlos de Borbón, who had been educated by him in Spain, with the new title of Prince of Spain, suggested by Laureano López Rodó to avoid a confrontation with Juan Carlos's father, Juan de Borbón, the Count of Barcelona. This designation came as a surprise to the Carlist pretender to the throne, Prince Xavier of Bourbon-Parma, as well as to Don Juan.",
"title": "Succession"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "As his final years progressed, tensions within the various factions of the Movimiento would consume Spanish political life, as varying groups jockeyed for position in an effort to win control of the country's future.",
"title": "Succession"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "On 19 July 1974, the aged Franco fell ill from various health problems, and Juan Carlos took over as acting head of state. Franco recovered and on 2 September he resumed his duties as head of state. A year later he fell ill again, afflicted with further health problems, including a long battle with Parkinson's disease. Franco's last public appearance was on 1 October 1975 when, despite his gaunt and frail appearance, he gave a speech to crowds from the balcony at the Royal Palace in Madrid, warning the people that there was a \"Masonic, Leftist and Communist conspiracy against Spain.\" On 30 October 1975 he fell into a coma and was put on life support. Franco's family agreed to disconnect the life-support machines. Officially, he died a few minutes after midnight on 20 November 1975 from heart failure, at the age of 82 – on the same date as the death of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Falange, in 1936. Historian Ricardo de la Cierva claimed, however, that he had been told around 6 pm on 19 November that Franco had already died.",
"title": "Death and funeral"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "As soon as news of Franco's death was made public, the government declared thirty days of official national mourning. On 22 November, Juan Carlos was officially proclaimed King of Spain. There was a public viewing of Franco's body at the chapel in the Royal Palace; a requiem mass and a military parade were held on the day of his burial.",
"title": "Death and funeral"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "Franco's body was interred at the Valley of the Fallen (Spanish: Valle de los Caídos), a colossal memorial built by the forced labour of political prisoners ostensibly to honour the casualties of both sides of the Spanish Civil War. It was located only 10 kilometres from the palace, monastery, and royal pantheon of El Escorial built for King Felipe II. On 1 April 1959, Franco had inaugurated its huge underground basilica as his monument and mausoleum, saying in his own words that it was built \"in memory of my victory over communism, which was trying to dominate Spain.\" The project's architect, Diego Méndez, had constructed a lead-lined tomb for Franco underneath the floor of the transept, behind the high altar of the church, in 1956, a fact unknown to the Spanish people until almost thirty years later. Franco was the only person interred in the Valley who did not die during the civil war. He was buried a few metres from the grave of the Falange's founder, Jose Antonio.",
"title": "Death and funeral"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "A requiem mass and a military parade took place on the day of his burial, 23 November 1975. As the cortège with Franco's body arrived at the Valley of the Fallen, some 75,000 rightists wearing the blue shirts of the Falangists greeted it with rebel songs from the civil war and fascist salutes.",
"title": "Death and funeral"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "The major European governments, who condemned Franco's regime, declined to send high-level representatives to his funeral. Some of the few foreign dignitaries and government representatives who attended were: Nelson Rockefeller, Vice-President of the United States, Lord Shepherd, Leader of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom (Harold Wilson caused controversy within the Labour Party by sending him to represent the UK Government), Prince Rainier III of Monaco, King Hussein of Jordan, Imelda Marcos, First Lady of the Philippines and the wife of Ferdinand Marcos, dictator of the Philippines, Hugo Banzer, military dictator of Bolivia, and General Augusto Pinochet, the dictator of Chile, for whom the Spanish Caudillo was a role-model. It was made clear to General Pinochet that he was not welcome at Juan Carlos's coronation.",
"title": "Death and funeral"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "Following Franco's funeral, his widow, Carmen Polo, supervised the moving of crates of jewellery, antiques, artworks, and Franco's papers to the family's various estates in Spain or to safe havens in foreign countries. The family remained extremely rich after his death. Polo had a room in her apartment in which the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with forty columns of twenty drawers, some containing tiaras, necklaces, earrings, garlands, brooches and cameos. Others contained gold, silver, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, topazes, and pearls, but the most valuable jewels were kept in bank vaults.",
"title": "Death and funeral"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "On 11 May 2017, the Congress of Deputies approved, by 198–1 with 140 abstentions, a motion driven by the Socialist Workers' Party ordering the Government to exhume Franco's remains.",
"title": "Exhumation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "On 24 August 2018, the Government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez approved legal amendments to the Historical Memory Law stating that only those who died during the Civil War would be buried at the Valle de los Caídos, resulting in plans to exhume Franco's remains for reburial elsewhere. Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo Poyato stated that having Franco buried at the monument \"shows a lack of respect ... for the victims buried there\". The government gave Franco's family a 15-day deadline to decide Franco's final resting place, or else a \"dignified place\" would be chosen by the government.",
"title": "Exhumation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "On 13 September 2018, the Congress of Deputies voted 176–2, with 165 abstentions, to approve the government's plan to remove Franco's body from the monument.",
"title": "Exhumation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "Franco's family opposed the exhumation and attempted to prevent it by making appeals to the Ombudsman's Office. The family expressed its wish that Franco's remains be reinterred with full military honours at the Almudena Cathedral in the centre of Madrid, the burial place he had requested before his death. The demand was rejected by the Spanish Government, which issued another 15-day deadline to choose another site. Because the family refused to choose another location, the Spanish Government ultimately chose to rebury Franco at the Mingorrubio Cemetery in El Pardo, where his wife Carmen Polo and a number of Francoist officials, most notably prime ministers Luis Carrero Blanco and Carlos Arias Navarro, are buried. His body was to be exhumed from the Valle de los Caídos on 10 June 2019, but the Supreme Court of Spain ruled that the exhumation would be delayed until the family had exhausted all possible appeals.",
"title": "Exhumation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "On 24 September 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that the exhumation could proceed, and the Sánchez government announced that it would move Franco's remains to the Mingorrubio cemetery as soon as possible. On 24 October 2019 his remains were moved to his wife's mausoleum which is located in the Mingorrubio Cemetery, and buried in a private ceremony. Though barred by the Spanish government from being draped in the Spanish flag, Francisco Franco's grandson, also named Francisco Franco, draped his coffin in the nationalist flag. According to a poll by the Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, 43% of Spanish people approved of the exhumation while 32.5% opposed it. Opinions on the exhumation were divided by party line, with the Socialist party strongly in favour of the exhumation as well as the removal of his statue there. There seems to be no consensus on whether the statue should simply be moved or completely destroyed.",
"title": "Exhumation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "In Spain and abroad, the legacy of Franco remains controversial. The longevity of Franco's rule, his suppression of political opposition, and his government's effective propaganda sustained through the years have made a detached evaluation difficult. For almost 40 years, Spaniards, and particularly children at school, were told that Divine Providence had sent Franco to save Spain from chaos, atheism, and poverty. Historian Stanley Payne described Franco as being the most significant figure to dominate Spain since King Felipe II, while Michael Seidman argued that Franco was the most successful counter-revolutionary leader of the 20th century.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "A highly controversial figure within Spain, Franco is seen as a divisive leader. Supporters credit him for keeping Spain neutral and uninvaded during the Second World War. They emphasise his strong anti-communist and nationalist views, economic policies, and opposition to socialism as major factors in Spain's post-war economic success and later international integration. For Spain's neutrality during the war he was praised by Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was also supported by Konrad Adenauer and many American Catholics, but was later strongly opposed by the Truman administration.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "The American conservative commentator William F. Buckley, Jr, was an admirer of Franco, and praised him effusively in his magazine, National Review, where the staff were also ardent admirers of the dictator. In 1957, Buckley called him \"an authentic national hero\", who \"above others\", had the qualities needed to wrest Spain from \"the hands of the visionaries, ideologues, Marxists and nihilists\", i.e., from the democratically elected government of the country.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "Conversely, critics on the left have denounced him as a tyrant responsible for thousands of deaths in years-long political repression and have called him complicit in atrocities committed by Axis forces during the Second World War due to his support of the Axis governments.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "When he died in November 1975, the major parties of the left and the right in Spain agreed to follow the Pact of Forgetting. To secure the transition to democracy, they agreed not to have investigations or prosecutions dealing with the civil war or Franco. The agreement effectively lapsed after 2000, the year the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (ARMH)) was founded and the public debate started. In 2006, a poll indicated that almost two-thirds of Spaniards favoured a \"fresh investigation into the war\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "Franco served as a role model for several anti-communist dictators in South America. Augusto Pinochet is known to have admired Franco. Similarly, as recently as 2006, Franco supporters in Spain have honoured Pinochet.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "In 2006, the BBC reported that Maciej Giertych, an MEP of the clerical-nationalist League of Polish Families, had expressed admiration for Franco, stating that the Spanish leader \"guaranteed the maintenance of traditional values in Europe\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "Spaniards who suffered under Franco's rule have sought to remove memorials of his regime. Most government buildings and streets that were named after Franco during his rule have been reverted to their original names. Owing to Franco's human-rights record, the Spanish government in 2007 banned all official public references to the Franco regime and began the removal of all statues, street names and memorials associated with the regime, with the last statue reportedly being removed in 2008 in the city of Santander. Churches that retain plaques commemorating Franco and the victims of his Republican opponents may lose state aid. Since 1978, the national anthem of Spain, the Marcha Real, does not include lyrics introduced by Franco. Attempts to give the national anthem new lyrics have failed due to lack of consensus.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "On 11 February 2004, Luis Yáñez-Barnuevo and others presented a motion for the \"Need for international condemnation of the Franco regime\" to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In March 2006, the Permanent Commission of the Parliamentary Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution \"firmly\" condemning the \"multiple and serious violations\" of human rights committed in Spain under the Francoist regime from 1939 to 1975. The resolution was at the initiative of Leo Brincat and of the historian Luis María de Puig and was the first international official condemnation of the repression enacted by Franco's regime. The resolution also urged that historians (professional and amateur) be given access to the various archives of the Francoist regime, including those of the private Francisco Franco National Foundation (FNFF) which, along with other Francoist archives, remain inaccessible to the public as of 2006. The FNFF received various archives from El Pardo Palace and is alleged to have sold some of them to private individuals. Furthermore, the resolution urged the Spanish authorities to set up an underground exhibit in the Valle de los Caidos monument to explain the \"terrible\" conditions in which it was built. Finally, it proposed the construction of monuments to commemorate Franco's victims in Madrid and other important cities.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "In Spain, a commission to \"repair the dignity\" and \"restore the memory\" of the \"victims of Francoism\" (Comisión para reparar la dignidad y restituir la memoria de las víctimas del franquismo) was approved in 2004 and is directed by the social-democratic deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 128,
"text": "Recently the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARHM) initiated a systematic search for mass graves of people executed during Franco's regime, which has been supported since the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party's (PSOE) victory during the 2004 elections by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's government. A Ley de la memoria histórica de España (Law on the Historical Memory of Spain) was approved on 28 July 2006, by the Council of Ministers, but it took until 31 October 2007 for the Congress of Deputies to approve an amended version as: \"The Bill to recognise and extend rights and to establish measures in favour of those who suffered persecution or violence during the Civil War and the Dictatorship\" (in common parlance still known as Law of Historical Memory). The Senate approved the bill on 10 December 2007.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 129,
"text": "Official endeavours to preserve the historical memory of Spanish life under the Franco regime include exhibitions like the one held at the Museu d'Història de Catalunya (Museum of Catalan History) in 2003–2004, titled \"Les presons de Franco\". This exposition depicted the experiences of prisoners in Franco's prison system and described other aspects of the penal system such as women's prisons, trials, the jailers, and prisoners' families. The Museum no longer maintains its online version of the exhibition.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 130,
"text": "The accumulated wealth of Franco's family (including much real estate inherited from Franco, such as the Pazo de Meirás, the Canto del Pico in Torrelodones and the Casa Cornide [es] in A Coruña) and its provenance have also become matters of public discussion. Estimates of the family's wealth have ranged from 350 million to 600 million euros. While Franco was dying, the Francoist Cortes voted a large public pension for his wife Carmen Polo, which the later democratic governments kept paying. At the time of her death in 1988, Carmen Polo was receiving a pension of over 12.5 million pesetas (four million more than the salary of Felipe González, then head of the government).",
"title": "Legacy"
}
] |
Francisco Franco Bahamonde was a Spanish military general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975 as a dictator, assuming the title Caudillo. This period in Spanish history, from the Nationalist victory to Franco's death, is commonly known as Francoist Spain or as the Francoist dictatorship. Born in Ferrol, Galicia, into an upper-class military family, Franco served in the Spanish Army as a cadet in the Toledo Infantry Academy from 1907 to 1910. While serving in Morocco, he rose through the ranks to become a brigadier general in 1926 at age 33. Two years later, Franco became the director of the General Military Academy in Zaragoza. As a conservative and monarchist, Franco regretted the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Second Republic in 1931, and was devastated by the closing of his academy; nevertheless, he continued his service in the Republican Army. His career was boosted after the right-wing CEDA and PRR won the 1933 election, empowering him to lead the suppression of the 1934 uprising in Asturias. Franco was briefly elevated to Chief of Army Staff before the 1936 election moved the leftist Popular Front into power, relegating him to the Canary Islands. Initially reluctant, he joined the July 1936 military coup, which, after failing to take Spain, sparked the Spanish Civil War. During the war, he commanded Spain's African colonial army and later, following the deaths of much of the rebel leadership, became his faction's only leader, being appointed generalissimo and head of state in 1936. He consolidated all nationalist parties into the FET y de las JONS and developed a cult of personality around his rule by founding the Movimiento Nacional. Three years later the Nationalists declared victory, which extended Franco's dictatorship over Spain through a period of repression of political opponents. His dictatorship's use of forced labour, concentration camps and executions led to between 30,000 and 50,000 deaths. Combined with wartime killings, this brings the death toll of the White Terror to between 100,000 and 200,000. During World War II, he maintained Spanish neutrality, but supported the Axis—in recompense to Italy and Germany for their support during the Civil War—damaging the country's international reputation in various ways. During the start of the Cold War, Franco lifted Spain out of its mid-20th century economic depression through technocratic and economically liberal policies, presiding over a period of accelerated growth known as the "Spanish miracle". At the same time, his regime transitioned from a totalitarian state to an authoritarian one with limited pluralism. He became a leader in the anti-communist movement, garnering support from the West, particularly the United States. As the dictatorship relaxed its hard-line policies, Luis Carrero Blanco became Franco's éminence grise, whose role expanded after Franco began struggling with Parkinson's disease in the 1960s. In 1973, Franco resigned as prime minister—separated from the office of head of state since 1967—due to his advanced age and illness. Nevertheless, he remained in power as the head of state and as commander-in-chief. Franco died in 1975, aged 82, and was entombed in the Valle de los Caídos. He restored the monarchy in his final years, being succeeded by Juan Carlos, King of Spain, who led the Spanish transition to democracy. The legacy of Franco in Spanish history remains controversial, as the nature of his dictatorship changed over time. His reign was marked by both brutal repression, with tens of thousands killed, and economic prosperity, which greatly improved the quality of life in Spain. His dictatorial style proved adaptable enough to allow social and economic reform, but still centred on highly centralised government, authoritarianism, nationalism, national Catholicism, anti-freemasonry and anti-communism.
|
2001-11-15T07:17:37Z
|
2023-12-28T19:12:40Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Franco
|
11,467 |
Flash Crowd
|
"Flash Crowd" is a 1973 English-language novella by science fiction author Larry Niven, one of a series about the social consequence of inventing an instant, practically free displacement booth.
One consequence not foreseen by the builders of the system was that with the almost immediate reporting of newsworthy events, tens of thousands of people worldwide – along with criminals – would teleport to the scene of anything interesting, thus creating disorder and confusion. The plot centers around a television journalist who, after being fired for his inadvertent role in inciting a post-robbery riot in Los Angeles, seeks to independently investigate the teleportation system for the flaws in its design allowing for such spontaneous riots to occur. His investigation takes him to destinations and people around the world within the matter of less than 12 hours before he gets his chance to plead his case on television, and he encounters the wide-ranging effects of displacements upon aspects of human behavior such as settlement, crime, natural resources, agriculture, waste management and tourism.
In various other books, for example Ringworld, Niven suggests that easy transportation might be disruptive to traditional behavior and open the way for new forms of parties, spontaneous congregations, or shopping trips around the world. The central character in Ringworld, celebrating his birthday, teleports across time-zones to "lengthen" his birthday multiple times (particularly notable since the first edition had the error of the character heading the wrong direction, increasing that edition's value).
Niven's essay "Exercise in Speculation: The Theory and Practice of Teleportation" was published in the collection All the Myriad Ways In it he discusses the ideas that underlie his teleportation stories.
On the World Wide Web, a similar phenomenon can occur, when a web site catches the attention of a large number of people, and gets an unexpected and overloading surge of traffic. This usage was first coined by John Pettitt of Beyond.com in 1996. Multiple other terms for the phenomenon exist, often coming from the name of a particular prominent, high-traffic site whose normal base of viewers can constitute a flash crowd when directed to a less famous website. Notorious examples include the "Slashdot effect", the "Instalanche" (when a smaller site gets links by the popular blog Instapundit), or a website being "Farked" or Drudged (where the target site is crashed due to the large number of hits in a short time).
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "\"Flash Crowd\" is a 1973 English-language novella by science fiction author Larry Niven, one of a series about the social consequence of inventing an instant, practically free displacement booth.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "One consequence not foreseen by the builders of the system was that with the almost immediate reporting of newsworthy events, tens of thousands of people worldwide – along with criminals – would teleport to the scene of anything interesting, thus creating disorder and confusion. The plot centers around a television journalist who, after being fired for his inadvertent role in inciting a post-robbery riot in Los Angeles, seeks to independently investigate the teleportation system for the flaws in its design allowing for such spontaneous riots to occur. His investigation takes him to destinations and people around the world within the matter of less than 12 hours before he gets his chance to plead his case on television, and he encounters the wide-ranging effects of displacements upon aspects of human behavior such as settlement, crime, natural resources, agriculture, waste management and tourism.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In various other books, for example Ringworld, Niven suggests that easy transportation might be disruptive to traditional behavior and open the way for new forms of parties, spontaneous congregations, or shopping trips around the world. The central character in Ringworld, celebrating his birthday, teleports across time-zones to \"lengthen\" his birthday multiple times (particularly notable since the first edition had the error of the character heading the wrong direction, increasing that edition's value).",
"title": "Use in other works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Niven's essay \"Exercise in Speculation: The Theory and Practice of Teleportation\" was published in the collection All the Myriad Ways In it he discusses the ideas that underlie his teleportation stories.",
"title": "Use in other works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "On the World Wide Web, a similar phenomenon can occur, when a web site catches the attention of a large number of people, and gets an unexpected and overloading surge of traffic. This usage was first coined by John Pettitt of Beyond.com in 1996. Multiple other terms for the phenomenon exist, often coming from the name of a particular prominent, high-traffic site whose normal base of viewers can constitute a flash crowd when directed to a less famous website. Notorious examples include the \"Slashdot effect\", the \"Instalanche\" (when a smaller site gets links by the popular blog Instapundit), or a website being \"Farked\" or Drudged (where the target site is crashed due to the large number of hits in a short time).",
"title": "Similar references"
}
] |
"Flash Crowd" is a 1973 English-language novella by science fiction author Larry Niven, one of a series about the social consequence of inventing an instant, practically free displacement booth. One consequence not foreseen by the builders of the system was that with the almost immediate reporting of newsworthy events, tens of thousands of people worldwide – along with criminals – would teleport to the scene of anything interesting, thus creating disorder and confusion. The plot centers around a television journalist who, after being fired for his inadvertent role in inciting a post-robbery riot in Los Angeles, seeks to independently investigate the teleportation system for the flaws in its design allowing for such spontaneous riots to occur. His investigation takes him to destinations and people around the world within the matter of less than 12 hours before he gets his chance to plead his case on television, and he encounters the wide-ranging effects of displacements upon aspects of human behavior such as settlement, crime, natural resources, agriculture, waste management and tourism.
|
2022-10-04T23:33:53Z
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[
"Template:About",
"Template:Refimprove",
"Template:Reflist",
"Template:Cite book",
"Template:Cite news",
"Template:Larry Niven"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Crowd
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11,469 |
August Kekulé
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Friedrich August Kekulé, later Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz (/ˈkeɪkəleɪ/ KAY-kə-lay, German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈʔaʊɡʊst ˈkeːkuleː fɔn ʃtʁaˈdoːnɪts]; 7 September 1829 – 13 July 1896), was a German organic chemist. From the 1850s until his death, Kekulé was one of the most prominent chemists in Europe, especially in theoretical chemistry. He was the principal founder of the theory of chemical structure and in particular the Kekulé structure of benzene.
Kekulé never used his first given name; he was known throughout his life as August Kekulé. After he was ennobled by the Kaiser in 1895, he adopted the name August Kekule von Stradonitz, without the French acute accent over the second "e". The French accent had apparently been added to the name by Kekulé's father during the Napoleonic occupation of Hesse by France, to ensure that French-speakers pronounced the third syllable.
The son of a civil servant, Kekulé was born in Darmstadt, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Hesse. After graduating from secondary school (the Grand Ducal Gymnasium in Darmstadt), in the fall of 1847 he entered the University of Giessen, with the intention of studying architecture. After hearing the lectures of Justus von Liebig in his first semester, he decided to study chemistry. Following four years of study in Giessen and a brief compulsory military service, he took temporary assistantships in Paris (1851–52), in Chur, Switzerland (1852–53), and in London (1853–55), where he was decisively influenced by Alexander Williamson. His Giessen doctoral degree was awarded in the summer of 1852.
In 1856, Kekulé became Privatdozent at the University of Heidelberg. In 1858, he was hired as full professor at the University of Ghent, then in 1867 he was called to Bonn, where he remained for the rest of his career. Basing his ideas on those of predecessors such as Williamson, Charles Gerhardt, Edward Frankland, William Odling, Auguste Laurent, Charles-Adolphe Wurtz and others, Kekulé was the principal formulator of the theory of chemical structure (1857–58). This theory proceeds from the idea of atomic valence, especially the tetravalence of carbon (which Kekulé announced late in 1857) and the ability of carbon atoms to link to each other (announced in a paper published in May 1858), to the determination of the bonding order of all of the atoms in a molecule. Archibald Scott Couper independently arrived at the idea of self-linking of carbon atoms (his paper appeared in June 1858), and provided the first molecular formulas where lines symbolize bonds connecting the atoms. For organic chemists, the theory of structure provided dramatic new clarity of understanding, and a reliable guide to both analytic and especially synthetic work. As a consequence, the field of organic chemistry developed explosively from this point. Among those who were most active in pursuing early structural investigations were, in addition to Kekulé and Couper, Frankland, Wurtz, Alexander Crum Brown, Emil Erlenmeyer, and Alexander Butlerov.
Kekulé's idea of assigning certain atoms to certain positions within the molecule, and schematically connecting them using what he called their "Verwandtschaftseinheiten" ("affinity units", now called "valences" or "bonds"), was based largely on evidence from chemical reactions, rather than on instrumental methods that could peer directly into the molecule, such as X-ray crystallography. Such physical methods of structural determination had not yet been developed, so chemists of Kekulé's day had to rely almost entirely on so-called "wet" chemistry. Some chemists, notably Hermann Kolbe, heavily criticized the use of structural formulas that were offered, as he thought, without proof. However, most chemists followed Kekulé's lead in pursuing and developing what some have called "classical" structure theory, which was modified after the discovery of electrons (1897) and the development of quantum mechanics (in the 1920s).
The idea that the number of valences of a given element was invariant was a key component of Kekulé's version of structural chemistry. This generalization suffered from many exceptions, and was subsequently replaced by the suggestion that valences were fixed at certain oxidation states. For example, periodic acid according to Kekuléan structure theory could be represented by the chain structure I-O-O-O-O-H. By contrast, the modern structure of (meta) periodic acid has all four oxygen atoms surrounding the iodine in a tetrahedral geometry.
Kekulé's most famous work was on the structure of benzene. In 1865 Kekulé published a paper in French (for he was then still in Belgium) suggesting that the structure contained a six-membered ring of carbon atoms with alternating single and double bonds. The following year he published a much longer paper in German on the same subject.
The empirical formula for benzene had been long known, but its highly unsaturated structure was a challenge to determine. Archibald Scott Couper in 1858 and Joseph Loschmidt in 1861 suggested possible structures that contained multiple double bonds or multiple rings, but the study of aromatic compounds was in its earliest years, and too little evidence was then available to help chemists decide on any particular structure.
More evidence was available by 1865, especially regarding the relationships of aromatic isomers. Kekulé argued for his proposed structure by considering the number of isomers observed for derivatives of benzene. For every monoderivative of benzene (C6H5X, where X = Cl, OH, CH3, NH2, etc.) only one isomer was ever found, implying that all six carbons are equivalent, so that substitution on any carbon gives only a single possible product. For diderivatives such as the toluidines, C6H4(NH2)(CH3), three isomers were observed, for which Kekulé proposed structures with the two substituted carbon atoms separated by one, two and three carbon-carbon bonds, later named ortho, meta, and para isomers respectively.
The counting of possible isomers for diderivatives was, however, criticized by Albert Ladenburg, a former student of Kekulé, who argued that Kekulé's 1865 structure implied two distinct "ortho" structures, depending on whether the substituted carbons are separated by a single or a double bond. Since ortho derivatives of benzene were never actually found in more than one isomeric form, Kekulé modified his proposal in 1872 and suggested that the benzene molecule oscillates between two equivalent structures, in such a way that the single and double bonds continually interchange positions. This implies that all six carbon-carbon bonds are equivalent, as each is single half the time and double half the time. A firmer theoretical basis for a similar idea was later proposed in 1928 by Linus Pauling, who replaced Kekulé's oscillation by the concept of resonance between quantum-mechanical structures.
The new understanding of benzene, and hence of all aromatic compounds, proved to be so important for both pure and applied chemistry after 1865 that in 1890 the German Chemical Society organized an elaborate appreciation in Kekulé's honor, celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of his first benzene paper. Here Kekulé spoke of the creation of the theory. He said that he had discovered the ring shape of the benzene molecule after having a reverie or day-dream of a snake seizing its own tail (this is an ancient symbol known as the ouroboros).
Another depiction of benzene had appeared in 1886 in the Berichte der Durstigen Chemischen Gesellschaft (Journal of the Thirsty Chemical Society), a parody of the Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft, only the parody had six monkeys seizing each other in a circle, rather than a single snake as in Kekulé's anecdote. Some historians have suggested that the parody was a lampoon of the snake anecdote, possibly already well-known through oral transmission even if it had not yet appeared in print. Others have speculated that Kekulé's story in 1890 was a re-parody of the monkey spoof, and was a mere invention rather than a recollection of an event in his life.
Kekulé's 1890 speech, in which these anecdotes appeared, has been translated into English. If one takes the anecdote as reflecting an accurate memory of a real event, circumstances mentioned in the story suggest that it must have happened early in 1862.
He told another autobiographical anecdote in the same 1890 speech, of an earlier vision of dancing atoms and molecules that led to his theory of structure, published in May 1858. This happened, he claimed, while he was riding on the upper deck of a horse-drawn omnibus in London. Once again, if one takes the anecdote as reflecting an accurate memory of a real event, circumstances related in the anecdote suggest that it must have occurred in the late summer of 1855.
In 1895, Kekulé was ennobled by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, giving him the right to add "von Stradonitz" to his name, referring to a possession of his patrilineal ancestors in Stradonice, Bohemia. His name thus became Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz, without the French accent on the last "e" of his name, and this is the form of the name that some libraries use. This title was inherited by his son, genealogist Stephan Kekule von Stradonitz. Of the first five Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, Kekulé's former students won three: van 't Hoff in 1901, Fischer in 1902 and Baeyer in 1905.
A larger-than-life monument of Kekulé, unveiled in 1903, is situated in front of the former Chemical Institute (completed 1868) at the University of Bonn. His statue is often humorously decorated by students, e.g. for Valentine's Day or Halloween.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Friedrich August Kekulé, later Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz (/ˈkeɪkəleɪ/ KAY-kə-lay, German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈʔaʊɡʊst ˈkeːkuleː fɔn ʃtʁaˈdoːnɪts]; 7 September 1829 – 13 July 1896), was a German organic chemist. From the 1850s until his death, Kekulé was one of the most prominent chemists in Europe, especially in theoretical chemistry. He was the principal founder of the theory of chemical structure and in particular the Kekulé structure of benzene.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Kekulé never used his first given name; he was known throughout his life as August Kekulé. After he was ennobled by the Kaiser in 1895, he adopted the name August Kekule von Stradonitz, without the French acute accent over the second \"e\". The French accent had apparently been added to the name by Kekulé's father during the Napoleonic occupation of Hesse by France, to ensure that French-speakers pronounced the third syllable.",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The son of a civil servant, Kekulé was born in Darmstadt, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Hesse. After graduating from secondary school (the Grand Ducal Gymnasium in Darmstadt), in the fall of 1847 he entered the University of Giessen, with the intention of studying architecture. After hearing the lectures of Justus von Liebig in his first semester, he decided to study chemistry. Following four years of study in Giessen and a brief compulsory military service, he took temporary assistantships in Paris (1851–52), in Chur, Switzerland (1852–53), and in London (1853–55), where he was decisively influenced by Alexander Williamson. His Giessen doctoral degree was awarded in the summer of 1852.",
"title": "Early years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1856, Kekulé became Privatdozent at the University of Heidelberg. In 1858, he was hired as full professor at the University of Ghent, then in 1867 he was called to Bonn, where he remained for the rest of his career. Basing his ideas on those of predecessors such as Williamson, Charles Gerhardt, Edward Frankland, William Odling, Auguste Laurent, Charles-Adolphe Wurtz and others, Kekulé was the principal formulator of the theory of chemical structure (1857–58). This theory proceeds from the idea of atomic valence, especially the tetravalence of carbon (which Kekulé announced late in 1857) and the ability of carbon atoms to link to each other (announced in a paper published in May 1858), to the determination of the bonding order of all of the atoms in a molecule. Archibald Scott Couper independently arrived at the idea of self-linking of carbon atoms (his paper appeared in June 1858), and provided the first molecular formulas where lines symbolize bonds connecting the atoms. For organic chemists, the theory of structure provided dramatic new clarity of understanding, and a reliable guide to both analytic and especially synthetic work. As a consequence, the field of organic chemistry developed explosively from this point. Among those who were most active in pursuing early structural investigations were, in addition to Kekulé and Couper, Frankland, Wurtz, Alexander Crum Brown, Emil Erlenmeyer, and Alexander Butlerov.",
"title": "Theory of chemical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Kekulé's idea of assigning certain atoms to certain positions within the molecule, and schematically connecting them using what he called their \"Verwandtschaftseinheiten\" (\"affinity units\", now called \"valences\" or \"bonds\"), was based largely on evidence from chemical reactions, rather than on instrumental methods that could peer directly into the molecule, such as X-ray crystallography. Such physical methods of structural determination had not yet been developed, so chemists of Kekulé's day had to rely almost entirely on so-called \"wet\" chemistry. Some chemists, notably Hermann Kolbe, heavily criticized the use of structural formulas that were offered, as he thought, without proof. However, most chemists followed Kekulé's lead in pursuing and developing what some have called \"classical\" structure theory, which was modified after the discovery of electrons (1897) and the development of quantum mechanics (in the 1920s).",
"title": "Theory of chemical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The idea that the number of valences of a given element was invariant was a key component of Kekulé's version of structural chemistry. This generalization suffered from many exceptions, and was subsequently replaced by the suggestion that valences were fixed at certain oxidation states. For example, periodic acid according to Kekuléan structure theory could be represented by the chain structure I-O-O-O-O-H. By contrast, the modern structure of (meta) periodic acid has all four oxygen atoms surrounding the iodine in a tetrahedral geometry.",
"title": "Theory of chemical structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Kekulé's most famous work was on the structure of benzene. In 1865 Kekulé published a paper in French (for he was then still in Belgium) suggesting that the structure contained a six-membered ring of carbon atoms with alternating single and double bonds. The following year he published a much longer paper in German on the same subject.",
"title": "Benzene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The empirical formula for benzene had been long known, but its highly unsaturated structure was a challenge to determine. Archibald Scott Couper in 1858 and Joseph Loschmidt in 1861 suggested possible structures that contained multiple double bonds or multiple rings, but the study of aromatic compounds was in its earliest years, and too little evidence was then available to help chemists decide on any particular structure.",
"title": "Benzene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "More evidence was available by 1865, especially regarding the relationships of aromatic isomers. Kekulé argued for his proposed structure by considering the number of isomers observed for derivatives of benzene. For every monoderivative of benzene (C6H5X, where X = Cl, OH, CH3, NH2, etc.) only one isomer was ever found, implying that all six carbons are equivalent, so that substitution on any carbon gives only a single possible product. For diderivatives such as the toluidines, C6H4(NH2)(CH3), three isomers were observed, for which Kekulé proposed structures with the two substituted carbon atoms separated by one, two and three carbon-carbon bonds, later named ortho, meta, and para isomers respectively.",
"title": "Benzene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The counting of possible isomers for diderivatives was, however, criticized by Albert Ladenburg, a former student of Kekulé, who argued that Kekulé's 1865 structure implied two distinct \"ortho\" structures, depending on whether the substituted carbons are separated by a single or a double bond. Since ortho derivatives of benzene were never actually found in more than one isomeric form, Kekulé modified his proposal in 1872 and suggested that the benzene molecule oscillates between two equivalent structures, in such a way that the single and double bonds continually interchange positions. This implies that all six carbon-carbon bonds are equivalent, as each is single half the time and double half the time. A firmer theoretical basis for a similar idea was later proposed in 1928 by Linus Pauling, who replaced Kekulé's oscillation by the concept of resonance between quantum-mechanical structures.",
"title": "Benzene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The new understanding of benzene, and hence of all aromatic compounds, proved to be so important for both pure and applied chemistry after 1865 that in 1890 the German Chemical Society organized an elaborate appreciation in Kekulé's honor, celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of his first benzene paper. Here Kekulé spoke of the creation of the theory. He said that he had discovered the ring shape of the benzene molecule after having a reverie or day-dream of a snake seizing its own tail (this is an ancient symbol known as the ouroboros).",
"title": "Benzene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Another depiction of benzene had appeared in 1886 in the Berichte der Durstigen Chemischen Gesellschaft (Journal of the Thirsty Chemical Society), a parody of the Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft, only the parody had six monkeys seizing each other in a circle, rather than a single snake as in Kekulé's anecdote. Some historians have suggested that the parody was a lampoon of the snake anecdote, possibly already well-known through oral transmission even if it had not yet appeared in print. Others have speculated that Kekulé's story in 1890 was a re-parody of the monkey spoof, and was a mere invention rather than a recollection of an event in his life.",
"title": "Benzene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Kekulé's 1890 speech, in which these anecdotes appeared, has been translated into English. If one takes the anecdote as reflecting an accurate memory of a real event, circumstances mentioned in the story suggest that it must have happened early in 1862.",
"title": "Benzene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "He told another autobiographical anecdote in the same 1890 speech, of an earlier vision of dancing atoms and molecules that led to his theory of structure, published in May 1858. This happened, he claimed, while he was riding on the upper deck of a horse-drawn omnibus in London. Once again, if one takes the anecdote as reflecting an accurate memory of a real event, circumstances related in the anecdote suggest that it must have occurred in the late summer of 1855.",
"title": "Benzene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In 1895, Kekulé was ennobled by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, giving him the right to add \"von Stradonitz\" to his name, referring to a possession of his patrilineal ancestors in Stradonice, Bohemia. His name thus became Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz, without the French accent on the last \"e\" of his name, and this is the form of the name that some libraries use. This title was inherited by his son, genealogist Stephan Kekule von Stradonitz. Of the first five Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, Kekulé's former students won three: van 't Hoff in 1901, Fischer in 1902 and Baeyer in 1905.",
"title": "Honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "A larger-than-life monument of Kekulé, unveiled in 1903, is situated in front of the former Chemical Institute (completed 1868) at the University of Bonn. His statue is often humorously decorated by students, e.g. for Valentine's Day or Halloween.",
"title": "Honors"
}
] |
Friedrich August Kekulé, later Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz, was a German organic chemist. From the 1850s until his death, Kekulé was one of the most prominent chemists in Europe, especially in theoretical chemistry. He was the principal founder of the theory of chemical structure and in particular the Kekulé structure of benzene.
|
2002-02-12T07:53:28Z
|
2023-11-20T06:47:12Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Kekul%C3%A9
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11,472 |
Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor
|
Frederick III (German: Friedrich III, 21 September 1415 – 19 August 1493) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1452 until his death in 1493. He was the fourth king and first emperor of the House of Habsburg. He was the penultimate emperor to be crowned by the pope, and the last to be crowned in Rome.
Prior to his imperial coronation, he was duke of the Inner Austrian lands of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola from 1424, and also acted as regent over the Duchy of Austria from 1439. He was elected and crowned King of Germany in 1440. His reign of 53 years is the longest in the history of the Holy Roman Empire or the German monarchy. Upon his death in 1493 he was succeeded by his son Maximilian.
During his reign, Frederick concentrated on re-uniting the Habsburg "hereditary lands" of Austria and took a lesser interest in Imperial affairs. Nevertheless, by his dynastic entitlement to Hungary as well as by the Burgundian inheritance, he laid the foundations for the later Habsburg Empire. Despite being mocked as "Arch-Sleepyhead of the Holy Roman Empire" (German: Erzschlafmütze) during his lifetime, he is today increasingly seen as an effective ruler.
Historian Thomas A. Brady Jr. credited Frederick with leaving a credible claim on the imperial title and a secure grip on the Austrian lands, now organized as a single state, for his son. This imperial revival (as well as the rise of the territorial state) began under the reign of Frederick.
Born at the Tyrolean residence of Innsbruck in 1415, Frederick was the eldest son of the Inner Austrian duke Ernest the Iron, a member of the Leopoldian line of the Habsburg dynasty, and his second wife Cymburgis of Masovia. According to the 1379 Treaty of Neuberg, the Leopoldinian branch ruled over the duchies of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, or what was referred to as Inner Austria. Only three of Frederick's eight siblings survived childhood: his younger brother Albert (later to be Albert VI, archduke of Austria), and his sisters Margaret (later the electress of Saxony) and Catherine. In 1424, nine-year-old Frederick's father died, making Frederick the duke of Inner Austria, as Frederick V, with his uncle, Duke Frederick IV of Tyrol, acting as regent.
From 1431, Frederick tried to obtain majority (to be declared "of age", and thus allowed to rule) but for several years was denied by his relatives. Finally, in 1435, Albert V, duke of Austria (later Albert II, the king of Germany), awarded him the rule over his Inner Austrian heritage. Almost from the beginning, Frederick's younger brother Albert asserted his rights as a co-ruler, as the beginning of a long rivalry. Already in these years, Frederick had begun to use the symbolic A.E.I.O.U. signature as a kind of motto with various meanings. In 1436 he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, accompanied by numerous nobles knighted by the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, which earned him great reputation.
Upon the death of his uncle Duke Frederick IV in 1439, Frederick took over the regency of Tyrol and Further Austria for the duke's heir Sigismund. Again he had to ward off the claims raised by his brother Albert VI; he prevailed by the support of the Tyrolean aristocracy. Likewise he acted as regent for his nephew Ladislaus the Posthumous, son of late King Albert II and his consort Elizabeth of Luxembourg, in the duchy of Austria (Further Austria). (Ladislaus would die before coming of age). Frederick was now the undisputed head of the Habsburg dynasty, though his regency in the lands of the Albertinian Line (Further Austria) was still viewed with suspicion.
As a cousin of late King Albert II, Frederick became a candidate for the 1440 imperial election. On 2 February 1440, the prince-electors convened at Frankfurt and unanimously elected him King of the Romans as Frederick IV; his rule was still based on his hereditary lands of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, or Inner Austria.
In 1442, Frederick allied himself with Rudolf Stüssi, burgomaster of Zurich, against the Old Swiss Confederacy in the Old Zurich War (Alter Zürichkrieg) but lost. In 1448, he entered into the Concordat of Vienna with the Holy See, which remained in force until 1806 and regulated the relationship between the Habsburgs and the Holy See.
In 1452, at the age of 37, Frederick III travelled to Italy to receive his bride and to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor. His fiancée, the 17-year-old infanta Eleanor, daughter of King Edward of Portugal, landed at Livorno (Leghorn) after a 104-day trip. Her dowry would help Frederick alleviate his debts and cement his power. The couple met at Siena on 24 February and proceeded together to Rome. As per tradition, they spent a night outside the walls of Rome before entering the city on 9 March, where Frederick and Pope Nicholas V exchanged friendly greetings. Because the emperor had been unable to retrieve the Iron Crown of Lombardy from the cathedral of Monza where it was kept, nor be crowned King of Italy by the archbishop of Milan (on account of Frederick's dispute with Francesco Sforza, lord of Milan), he convinced the pope to crown him as such with the German crown, which had been brought for the purpose. This coronation took place on the morning of 16 March, in spite of the protests of the Milanese ambassadors, and in the afternoon Frederick and Eleanor were married by the pope. Finally, on 19 March, Frederick and Eleanor were anointed in St Peter's Basilica by the Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church, Cardinal Francesco Condulmer, and Frederick was then crowned with the Imperial Crown by the pope. Frederick was the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned in Rome. His great-grandson Charles V was the last emperor to be crowned, but this was done in Bologna.
Frederick's style of rulership was marked by hesitation and a sluggish pace of decision making. The Italian humanist Enea Silvio Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, who at one time worked at Frederick's court, described the Emperor as a person who wanted to conquer the world while remaining seated. Although this was regarded as a character flaw in older academic research, his delaying tactics are now viewed as a means of coping with political challenges in far-flung territorial possessions. Frederick is credited with having the ability to sit out difficult political situations patiently.
According to contemporary accounts, Frederick had difficulties developing emotional closeness to other persons, including his children and wife Eleanor. Unlike his brother Albert and his son Maximilian, Frederick maintained a reserved lifestyle. Although he was willing to appear in social events like festivals and tournaments, he disliked lavish feasts. Later he became horrified when his son, still in early teen years, displayed a tendency towards wine, feasts and women. As Frederick was rather distant to his family, Eleanor had a great influence on the raising and education of Frederick's children, and she therefore played an important role in the House of Habsburg's rise to prominence. Despite the fact that their marriage had been unhappy, when Eleanor died the Emperor was affected by her loss and remained widowed for the rest of his long life.
Frederick's political initiatives were hardly bold, but they were still successful. Frederick III was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1452, the first since the death of Emperor Sigismund. His ascension to the role of Emperor came with the stipulation that should the previous queen of Bohemia (wife of Albert V of the Albertine line) give birth to a male heir, Frederick would become his guardian. When the queen gave birth to Ladislaus the Posthumous, as according to the stipulations, Frederick took on his guardianship. This led to conflicts between Frederick and other members of the royal family and nobility. His first major opponent was his brother Albert VI, who challenged his rule. He did not manage to win a single conflict on the battlefield against him, and thus resorted to more subtle means. He held his second cousin once removed Ladislaus the Posthumous, the ruler of the Archduchy of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, (born in 1440) as a prisoner and attempted to extend his guardianship over him in perpetuity to maintain his control over Lower Austria. Ladislaus was freed in 1452 by the Lower Austrian estates. He acted similarly towards his first cousin Sigismund of the Tyrolian line of the Habsburg family. One of his important advisors during this time was Friedrich II von Graben.
Ultimately, Frederick prevailed in all those conflicts by outliving his opponents and sometimes inheriting their lands, as was the case with Ladislaus, from whom he gained Lower Austria in 1457, and with his brother Albert VI, whom he succeeded in Upper Austria. In 1462, his brother Albert raised an insurrection against him in Vienna and the emperor was besieged in his residence by rebellious subjects. In this war between the brothers, Frederick received support from the King of Bohemia, George of Poděbrady. These conflicts forced him into an anachronistic itinerant existence, as he had to move his court between various places through the years, residing in Graz, Linz and Wiener Neustadt. Wiener Neustadt owes him its castle and the "New Monastery". In 1469 Friedrich founded the Order of St. George, which still exists today, whereby the first investiture in the Lateran Basilica in Rome was carried out by him and Pope Paul II.
Mary of Burgundy, sole heir to the rich Burgundian kingdom, after the death of her father Charles the Bold, soon made her choice among the many suitors for her hand by selecting Archduke Maximilian of Austria, the future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (son of Frederick III) who became her co-ruler. With the inheritance of Burgundy, the House of Habsburg began to rise to predominance in Europe. This gave rise to the saying "Let others wage wars, but you, happy Austria, shall marry", which became a motto of the dynasty.
Frederick secured in 1486 the succession of the son in his own lifetime. On 16 February 1486 Maximilian was unanimously elected Roman-German king at the Frankfurt Reichstag by the six electors present. The Elector of Bohemia was not invited because the Bohemian spa law might have been claimed by the Hungarian King Corvinus. There are still discussions regarding whether Frederick actively provided the initiative for his son's election or not. As Frederick's only surviving male heir though, Maximilian was a natural choice for Frederick and the Estates to counter Hungary's ambitions. On the occasion of the election of Maximilian, a ten-year land peace was decided. In order to safeguard the peace of the land and against the expansive territorial policy of the House of Wittelsbach, numerous affected empire-related states of Swabia joined in 1488 on Frederick's initiative for the Swabian League. After the royal election Frederick accompanied his son to Aachen, where Maximilian was crowned on 9 April 1486. There seemed to be tensions between father and son due to differences in personalities and leadership styles. But Frederick saw Maximilian's values in negotiating with the Estates, thus even though he was wary of infringements on his imperial power, Maximilian quickly became an essential partner in imperial politics.
In 1487, his daughter Kunigunde married Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria. Albert illegally took control of some imperial fiefs and then asked to marry Kunigunde (who lived in Innsbruck, far from her father), offering to give her the fiefs as a dower. Frederick agreed at first, but after Albert took over yet another fief, Regensburg, Frederick withdrew his consent. On 2 January 1487, however, before Frederick's change of heart could be communicated to his daughter, Kunigunde married Albert. A war was prevented only through the mediation of the Emperor's son, Maximilian.
In some smaller matters, Frederick was quite successful: in 1469 he managed to establish bishoprics in Vienna and Wiener Neustadt, a step that no previous Duke of Austria had been able to achieve.
Frederick failed to gain control over Hungary and Bohemia in the Bohemian–Hungarian War (1468–78). Frederick proclaimed himself King of Hungary on 27 February 1459, but this did not intimidate Mathias Corvinus. Frederick decided to invade, but his army never got far, as he was no general. From Mantua, Pius II (who was also Frederick's former secretary) urged the Emperor to leave Mathias alone. Hungary, he proclaimed, "is the shield of all Christendom under cover of which we have hitherto been safe. [...] If the road is thus opened to the barbarians, destruction will break in over all and the consequences of such a disaster will be imputed by God to its authors." Frederick was even defeated in the Austrian–Hungarian War (1477–88) by Matthias Corvinus in 1485, who managed to maintain residence in Vienna until his death five years later in the Siege of Vienna. Emperor Frederick failed to procure help from the Prince-electors and the Imperial States. In 1483 he had to leave his Hofburg residence in Vienna and fled to Wiener Neustadt, where he also was besieged by Matthias' troops for 18 months until the fortress was captured in 1487. Humiliated, Frederick fled to Graz, and later to Linz in Upper Austria.
Frederick's personal motto was the mysterious string A.E.I.O.U., which he imprinted on all his belongings. He never explained its meaning, leading to many different interpretations being presented, although it has been claimed that shortly before his death he said it stands for Austriae Est Imperare Orbi Universali or Alles Erdreich ist Österreich untertan ("All the world is subject to Austria"). It may well symbolise his own understanding of the historical importance and meaning of his rule and of the early gaining of the Imperial title.
Frederick had been very careful regarding the reform movement in the empire. For most of his reign, he considered reform as a threat to his imperial prerogatives. He avoided direct confrontation, which might lead to humiliation if the princes refused to give way. After 1440, the reform of the Empire and Church was sustained and led by local and regional powers, particularly the territorial princes. In his last years, however, there was more pressure on him taking action from a higher level. Berthold von Henneberg, the Archbishop of Mainz, who spoke on behalf of reform-minded princes (who wanted to reform the Empire without strengthening the imperial hand), capitalized on Frederick's desire to secure the imperial election for Maximilian. Thus in his last years, he presided over the initial phase of Imperial Reform, which would mainly unfold under his son Maximilian. Maximilian himself was more open to reform, although naturally he also wanted to preserve and enhance imperial prerogatives. After Frederick retired to Linz in 1488, as a compromise, Maximilian acted as mediator between the princes and his father. When he attained sole rule after Frederick's death, he would continued this policy of brokerage, acting as the impartial judge between options suggested by the princes.
Frederick was an important and powerful patron of music, with a "preference for importing Western talent". This, combined with the efforts by non-coủrtly institutions like the Cathedral at Trent, would contribute to the flourishing of music under Maximilian I.
The 110 books he collected form the core collection of the later Bibliotheca Regia, that was the predecessor of the later Imperial Librrary and the current Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek).
German historians tend to be more critical of Frederick than Austrian ones. Austrian historian Adam Wandruszka opines that while he was not an impressive emperor, Frederick III was effective in defending and expanding his family's dynastic interests. Wandruszka calls him the "true founder of the Habsburg imperial position". German historians Paul-Joachim Heinig (author of Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493). Hof, Regierung und Politik, Böhlau, 1997) writes that it would be unfair to say that Maximilan stood on the shoulders of a giant, yet nevertheless Frederick provided the shoulders without which Maximilian could not have become a giant himself.
Frederick was a great benefactor to the Jews – his enemies described him as "more of a Jew than a Holy Roman Emperor". He favoured such Jewish scholars like Jacob ben Jehiel Loans [de], who was the teacher of the Hebraist Johann Reuchlin. His empress Eleanor also favoured Jews. For unknown reasons, their son Maximilian developed a dislike for the Jews as a child though, to the horror of both parents. His own relationship with the Jews evolved over the years though. Schattner-Rieser opines that the foundation of Modern Judaism, arising in the eras of Frederick and Maximilian, was "embedded in the principles of humanism".
Frederick had five children from his marriage with Eleanor of Portugal:
For the last 10 years of Frederick's life, he and Maximilian ruled jointly.
In his last years Friedrich remained in the region on the Danube, in Vienna and in Linz. In 1492 he was elected Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Since February 1493, Frederick's health deteriorated increasingly. In the Lent of 1493, Friedrich's personal physicians diagnosed Kaiser in the left leg as a symptom, usually referred to as age-burning, in the research literature, which according to current medical terminology is considered to be the result of arteriosclerosis. On 8 June 1493 he was amputated under the direction of the surgeon Hans Seyff in the Linz castle of the affected area of the leg. This leg amputation is considered one of the most famous and best-documented surgical procedures of the entire Middle Ages. Although Frederick initially survived the procedure well, he died on 19 August 1493 in Linz at the age of 77. The contemporaries cited as the cause of death the consequences of leg amputation, senility or rapid diarrhea caused by melon consumption. His bowels were probably buried separately on 24 August 1493 in the Linz parish church. The arrival of Turks in Carinthia and the Krain delayed the arrival of Maximilian and with it the funeral service. On 6 and 7 December 1493, the funeral took place in St. Stephen's Cathedral.
His grave, built by Nikolaus Gerhaert von Leyden, in St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, is one of the most important works of sculptural art of the Late Middle Ages. (His amputated leg was buried with him.) The heavily adorned tomb was not completed until 1513, two decades after Frederick's death, and has survived in its original condition.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Frederick III (German: Friedrich III, 21 September 1415 – 19 August 1493) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1452 until his death in 1493. He was the fourth king and first emperor of the House of Habsburg. He was the penultimate emperor to be crowned by the pope, and the last to be crowned in Rome.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Prior to his imperial coronation, he was duke of the Inner Austrian lands of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola from 1424, and also acted as regent over the Duchy of Austria from 1439. He was elected and crowned King of Germany in 1440. His reign of 53 years is the longest in the history of the Holy Roman Empire or the German monarchy. Upon his death in 1493 he was succeeded by his son Maximilian.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "During his reign, Frederick concentrated on re-uniting the Habsburg \"hereditary lands\" of Austria and took a lesser interest in Imperial affairs. Nevertheless, by his dynastic entitlement to Hungary as well as by the Burgundian inheritance, he laid the foundations for the later Habsburg Empire. Despite being mocked as \"Arch-Sleepyhead of the Holy Roman Empire\" (German: Erzschlafmütze) during his lifetime, he is today increasingly seen as an effective ruler.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Historian Thomas A. Brady Jr. credited Frederick with leaving a credible claim on the imperial title and a secure grip on the Austrian lands, now organized as a single state, for his son. This imperial revival (as well as the rise of the territorial state) began under the reign of Frederick.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Born at the Tyrolean residence of Innsbruck in 1415, Frederick was the eldest son of the Inner Austrian duke Ernest the Iron, a member of the Leopoldian line of the Habsburg dynasty, and his second wife Cymburgis of Masovia. According to the 1379 Treaty of Neuberg, the Leopoldinian branch ruled over the duchies of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, or what was referred to as Inner Austria. Only three of Frederick's eight siblings survived childhood: his younger brother Albert (later to be Albert VI, archduke of Austria), and his sisters Margaret (later the electress of Saxony) and Catherine. In 1424, nine-year-old Frederick's father died, making Frederick the duke of Inner Austria, as Frederick V, with his uncle, Duke Frederick IV of Tyrol, acting as regent.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "From 1431, Frederick tried to obtain majority (to be declared \"of age\", and thus allowed to rule) but for several years was denied by his relatives. Finally, in 1435, Albert V, duke of Austria (later Albert II, the king of Germany), awarded him the rule over his Inner Austrian heritage. Almost from the beginning, Frederick's younger brother Albert asserted his rights as a co-ruler, as the beginning of a long rivalry. Already in these years, Frederick had begun to use the symbolic A.E.I.O.U. signature as a kind of motto with various meanings. In 1436 he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, accompanied by numerous nobles knighted by the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, which earned him great reputation.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Upon the death of his uncle Duke Frederick IV in 1439, Frederick took over the regency of Tyrol and Further Austria for the duke's heir Sigismund. Again he had to ward off the claims raised by his brother Albert VI; he prevailed by the support of the Tyrolean aristocracy. Likewise he acted as regent for his nephew Ladislaus the Posthumous, son of late King Albert II and his consort Elizabeth of Luxembourg, in the duchy of Austria (Further Austria). (Ladislaus would die before coming of age). Frederick was now the undisputed head of the Habsburg dynasty, though his regency in the lands of the Albertinian Line (Further Austria) was still viewed with suspicion.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "As a cousin of late King Albert II, Frederick became a candidate for the 1440 imperial election. On 2 February 1440, the prince-electors convened at Frankfurt and unanimously elected him King of the Romans as Frederick IV; his rule was still based on his hereditary lands of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, or Inner Austria.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1442, Frederick allied himself with Rudolf Stüssi, burgomaster of Zurich, against the Old Swiss Confederacy in the Old Zurich War (Alter Zürichkrieg) but lost. In 1448, he entered into the Concordat of Vienna with the Holy See, which remained in force until 1806 and regulated the relationship between the Habsburgs and the Holy See.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 1452, at the age of 37, Frederick III travelled to Italy to receive his bride and to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor. His fiancée, the 17-year-old infanta Eleanor, daughter of King Edward of Portugal, landed at Livorno (Leghorn) after a 104-day trip. Her dowry would help Frederick alleviate his debts and cement his power. The couple met at Siena on 24 February and proceeded together to Rome. As per tradition, they spent a night outside the walls of Rome before entering the city on 9 March, where Frederick and Pope Nicholas V exchanged friendly greetings. Because the emperor had been unable to retrieve the Iron Crown of Lombardy from the cathedral of Monza where it was kept, nor be crowned King of Italy by the archbishop of Milan (on account of Frederick's dispute with Francesco Sforza, lord of Milan), he convinced the pope to crown him as such with the German crown, which had been brought for the purpose. This coronation took place on the morning of 16 March, in spite of the protests of the Milanese ambassadors, and in the afternoon Frederick and Eleanor were married by the pope. Finally, on 19 March, Frederick and Eleanor were anointed in St Peter's Basilica by the Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church, Cardinal Francesco Condulmer, and Frederick was then crowned with the Imperial Crown by the pope. Frederick was the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned in Rome. His great-grandson Charles V was the last emperor to be crowned, but this was done in Bologna.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Frederick's style of rulership was marked by hesitation and a sluggish pace of decision making. The Italian humanist Enea Silvio Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, who at one time worked at Frederick's court, described the Emperor as a person who wanted to conquer the world while remaining seated. Although this was regarded as a character flaw in older academic research, his delaying tactics are now viewed as a means of coping with political challenges in far-flung territorial possessions. Frederick is credited with having the ability to sit out difficult political situations patiently.",
"title": "Personality"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "According to contemporary accounts, Frederick had difficulties developing emotional closeness to other persons, including his children and wife Eleanor. Unlike his brother Albert and his son Maximilian, Frederick maintained a reserved lifestyle. Although he was willing to appear in social events like festivals and tournaments, he disliked lavish feasts. Later he became horrified when his son, still in early teen years, displayed a tendency towards wine, feasts and women. As Frederick was rather distant to his family, Eleanor had a great influence on the raising and education of Frederick's children, and she therefore played an important role in the House of Habsburg's rise to prominence. Despite the fact that their marriage had been unhappy, when Eleanor died the Emperor was affected by her loss and remained widowed for the rest of his long life.",
"title": "Personality"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Frederick's political initiatives were hardly bold, but they were still successful. Frederick III was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1452, the first since the death of Emperor Sigismund. His ascension to the role of Emperor came with the stipulation that should the previous queen of Bohemia (wife of Albert V of the Albertine line) give birth to a male heir, Frederick would become his guardian. When the queen gave birth to Ladislaus the Posthumous, as according to the stipulations, Frederick took on his guardianship. This led to conflicts between Frederick and other members of the royal family and nobility. His first major opponent was his brother Albert VI, who challenged his rule. He did not manage to win a single conflict on the battlefield against him, and thus resorted to more subtle means. He held his second cousin once removed Ladislaus the Posthumous, the ruler of the Archduchy of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, (born in 1440) as a prisoner and attempted to extend his guardianship over him in perpetuity to maintain his control over Lower Austria. Ladislaus was freed in 1452 by the Lower Austrian estates. He acted similarly towards his first cousin Sigismund of the Tyrolian line of the Habsburg family. One of his important advisors during this time was Friedrich II von Graben.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Ultimately, Frederick prevailed in all those conflicts by outliving his opponents and sometimes inheriting their lands, as was the case with Ladislaus, from whom he gained Lower Austria in 1457, and with his brother Albert VI, whom he succeeded in Upper Austria. In 1462, his brother Albert raised an insurrection against him in Vienna and the emperor was besieged in his residence by rebellious subjects. In this war between the brothers, Frederick received support from the King of Bohemia, George of Poděbrady. These conflicts forced him into an anachronistic itinerant existence, as he had to move his court between various places through the years, residing in Graz, Linz and Wiener Neustadt. Wiener Neustadt owes him its castle and the \"New Monastery\". In 1469 Friedrich founded the Order of St. George, which still exists today, whereby the first investiture in the Lateran Basilica in Rome was carried out by him and Pope Paul II.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Mary of Burgundy, sole heir to the rich Burgundian kingdom, after the death of her father Charles the Bold, soon made her choice among the many suitors for her hand by selecting Archduke Maximilian of Austria, the future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (son of Frederick III) who became her co-ruler. With the inheritance of Burgundy, the House of Habsburg began to rise to predominance in Europe. This gave rise to the saying \"Let others wage wars, but you, happy Austria, shall marry\", which became a motto of the dynasty.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Frederick secured in 1486 the succession of the son in his own lifetime. On 16 February 1486 Maximilian was unanimously elected Roman-German king at the Frankfurt Reichstag by the six electors present. The Elector of Bohemia was not invited because the Bohemian spa law might have been claimed by the Hungarian King Corvinus. There are still discussions regarding whether Frederick actively provided the initiative for his son's election or not. As Frederick's only surviving male heir though, Maximilian was a natural choice for Frederick and the Estates to counter Hungary's ambitions. On the occasion of the election of Maximilian, a ten-year land peace was decided. In order to safeguard the peace of the land and against the expansive territorial policy of the House of Wittelsbach, numerous affected empire-related states of Swabia joined in 1488 on Frederick's initiative for the Swabian League. After the royal election Frederick accompanied his son to Aachen, where Maximilian was crowned on 9 April 1486. There seemed to be tensions between father and son due to differences in personalities and leadership styles. But Frederick saw Maximilian's values in negotiating with the Estates, thus even though he was wary of infringements on his imperial power, Maximilian quickly became an essential partner in imperial politics.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In 1487, his daughter Kunigunde married Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria. Albert illegally took control of some imperial fiefs and then asked to marry Kunigunde (who lived in Innsbruck, far from her father), offering to give her the fiefs as a dower. Frederick agreed at first, but after Albert took over yet another fief, Regensburg, Frederick withdrew his consent. On 2 January 1487, however, before Frederick's change of heart could be communicated to his daughter, Kunigunde married Albert. A war was prevented only through the mediation of the Emperor's son, Maximilian.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In some smaller matters, Frederick was quite successful: in 1469 he managed to establish bishoprics in Vienna and Wiener Neustadt, a step that no previous Duke of Austria had been able to achieve.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Frederick failed to gain control over Hungary and Bohemia in the Bohemian–Hungarian War (1468–78). Frederick proclaimed himself King of Hungary on 27 February 1459, but this did not intimidate Mathias Corvinus. Frederick decided to invade, but his army never got far, as he was no general. From Mantua, Pius II (who was also Frederick's former secretary) urged the Emperor to leave Mathias alone. Hungary, he proclaimed, \"is the shield of all Christendom under cover of which we have hitherto been safe. [...] If the road is thus opened to the barbarians, destruction will break in over all and the consequences of such a disaster will be imputed by God to its authors.\" Frederick was even defeated in the Austrian–Hungarian War (1477–88) by Matthias Corvinus in 1485, who managed to maintain residence in Vienna until his death five years later in the Siege of Vienna. Emperor Frederick failed to procure help from the Prince-electors and the Imperial States. In 1483 he had to leave his Hofburg residence in Vienna and fled to Wiener Neustadt, where he also was besieged by Matthias' troops for 18 months until the fortress was captured in 1487. Humiliated, Frederick fled to Graz, and later to Linz in Upper Austria.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Frederick's personal motto was the mysterious string A.E.I.O.U., which he imprinted on all his belongings. He never explained its meaning, leading to many different interpretations being presented, although it has been claimed that shortly before his death he said it stands for Austriae Est Imperare Orbi Universali or Alles Erdreich ist Österreich untertan (\"All the world is subject to Austria\"). It may well symbolise his own understanding of the historical importance and meaning of his rule and of the early gaining of the Imperial title.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Frederick had been very careful regarding the reform movement in the empire. For most of his reign, he considered reform as a threat to his imperial prerogatives. He avoided direct confrontation, which might lead to humiliation if the princes refused to give way. After 1440, the reform of the Empire and Church was sustained and led by local and regional powers, particularly the territorial princes. In his last years, however, there was more pressure on him taking action from a higher level. Berthold von Henneberg, the Archbishop of Mainz, who spoke on behalf of reform-minded princes (who wanted to reform the Empire without strengthening the imperial hand), capitalized on Frederick's desire to secure the imperial election for Maximilian. Thus in his last years, he presided over the initial phase of Imperial Reform, which would mainly unfold under his son Maximilian. Maximilian himself was more open to reform, although naturally he also wanted to preserve and enhance imperial prerogatives. After Frederick retired to Linz in 1488, as a compromise, Maximilian acted as mediator between the princes and his father. When he attained sole rule after Frederick's death, he would continued this policy of brokerage, acting as the impartial judge between options suggested by the princes.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Frederick was an important and powerful patron of music, with a \"preference for importing Western talent\". This, combined with the efforts by non-coủrtly institutions like the Cathedral at Trent, would contribute to the flourishing of music under Maximilian I.",
"title": "Patronage of the arts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The 110 books he collected form the core collection of the later Bibliotheca Regia, that was the predecessor of the later Imperial Librrary and the current Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek).",
"title": "Patronage of the arts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "German historians tend to be more critical of Frederick than Austrian ones. Austrian historian Adam Wandruszka opines that while he was not an impressive emperor, Frederick III was effective in defending and expanding his family's dynastic interests. Wandruszka calls him the \"true founder of the Habsburg imperial position\". German historians Paul-Joachim Heinig (author of Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493). Hof, Regierung und Politik, Böhlau, 1997) writes that it would be unfair to say that Maximilan stood on the shoulders of a giant, yet nevertheless Frederick provided the shoulders without which Maximilian could not have become a giant himself.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Frederick was a great benefactor to the Jews – his enemies described him as \"more of a Jew than a Holy Roman Emperor\". He favoured such Jewish scholars like Jacob ben Jehiel Loans [de], who was the teacher of the Hebraist Johann Reuchlin. His empress Eleanor also favoured Jews. For unknown reasons, their son Maximilian developed a dislike for the Jews as a child though, to the horror of both parents. His own relationship with the Jews evolved over the years though. Schattner-Rieser opines that the foundation of Modern Judaism, arising in the eras of Frederick and Maximilian, was \"embedded in the principles of humanism\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Frederick had five children from his marriage with Eleanor of Portugal:",
"title": "Marriage and children"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "For the last 10 years of Frederick's life, he and Maximilian ruled jointly.",
"title": "Marriage and children"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In his last years Friedrich remained in the region on the Danube, in Vienna and in Linz. In 1492 he was elected Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Since February 1493, Frederick's health deteriorated increasingly. In the Lent of 1493, Friedrich's personal physicians diagnosed Kaiser in the left leg as a symptom, usually referred to as age-burning, in the research literature, which according to current medical terminology is considered to be the result of arteriosclerosis. On 8 June 1493 he was amputated under the direction of the surgeon Hans Seyff in the Linz castle of the affected area of the leg. This leg amputation is considered one of the most famous and best-documented surgical procedures of the entire Middle Ages. Although Frederick initially survived the procedure well, he died on 19 August 1493 in Linz at the age of 77. The contemporaries cited as the cause of death the consequences of leg amputation, senility or rapid diarrhea caused by melon consumption. His bowels were probably buried separately on 24 August 1493 in the Linz parish church. The arrival of Turks in Carinthia and the Krain delayed the arrival of Maximilian and with it the funeral service. On 6 and 7 December 1493, the funeral took place in St. Stephen's Cathedral.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "His grave, built by Nikolaus Gerhaert von Leyden, in St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, is one of the most important works of sculptural art of the Late Middle Ages. (His amputated leg was buried with him.) The heavily adorned tomb was not completed until 1513, two decades after Frederick's death, and has survived in its original condition.",
"title": "Death"
}
] |
Frederick III was Holy Roman Emperor from 1452 until his death in 1493. He was the fourth king and first emperor of the House of Habsburg. He was the penultimate emperor to be crowned by the pope, and the last to be crowned in Rome. Prior to his imperial coronation, he was duke of the Inner Austrian lands of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola from 1424, and also acted as regent over the Duchy of Austria from 1439. He was elected and crowned King of Germany in 1440. His reign of 53 years is the longest in the history of the Holy Roman Empire or the German monarchy. Upon his death in 1493 he was succeeded by his son Maximilian. During his reign, Frederick concentrated on re-uniting the Habsburg "hereditary lands" of Austria and took a lesser interest in Imperial affairs. Nevertheless, by his dynastic entitlement to Hungary as well as by the Burgundian inheritance, he laid the foundations for the later Habsburg Empire. Despite being mocked as "Arch-Sleepyhead of the Holy Roman Empire" during his lifetime, he is today increasingly seen as an effective ruler. Historian Thomas A. Brady Jr. credited Frederick with leaving a credible claim on the imperial title and a secure grip on the Austrian lands, now organized as a single state, for his son. This imperial revival began under the reign of Frederick.
|
2002-02-10T22:29:31Z
|
2023-12-28T16:17:26Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_III,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
|
11,475 |
Fuerteventura
|
Fuerteventura (Spanish: [ˌfweɾteβenˈtuɾa]) is one of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean, part of the North Africa region, and politically part of Spain. It is located 97 km (60 mi) away from the northwestern coast of Africa. The island was declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 2009.
Fuerteventura belongs to Province of Las Palmas, one of the two provinces that form the autonomous community of the Canary Islands. The island's capital is Puerto del Rosario, where the Insule Council is found, the government of the island. Fuerteventura has 119,732 inhabitants (as of 2020), the fourth largest population of the Canary Islands and the third of the province. At 1,660 km (640 sq mi), it is the second largest of the Canary Islands, after Tenerife. From a geological point of view, Fuerteventura is the oldest island in the archipelago.
The island's name is a compound word formed by the Spanish words for "strong" (fuerte) and "fortune" (ventura). Traditionally, Fuerteventura's name has been regarded as a reference to the strong winds around the island and the resulting danger to nautical adventurers. However, it might have referred instead (or also) to wealth, luck or destiny.
In 1339 the Mallorcan navigator Angelino Dulcert, in the Planisferio de Angelino Dulcert, referred to the island as "Forte Ventura".
Another theory is that the island's name derives from "Fortunatae Insulae" (Fortunate Islands), the name by which the Romans knew the Canary Islands.
The indigenous name of the island, before its conquest in the 15th century, was Erbania, divided into two regions (Jandía and Maxorata), from which the name majorero (originally majo or maxo) derives. However, it has been suggested that, at some point, Maxorata (which meant "the children of the country") was the aboriginal toponym of the entire island.
The first settlers of Fuerteventura are believed to have come from North Africa. The word Mahorero (Majorero) or Maho is still used today to describe the people of Fuerteventura and is derived from the ancient word 'mahos', a type of goatskin shoe worn by these original inhabitants. They lived in caves and semi-subterranean dwellings, some of which have been excavated, revealing remnants of early tools and pottery. In antiquity, the island was originally known as Planaria, in reference to the flatness of most of its terrain.
Phoenician settlers landed in Fuerteventura and Lanzarote.
Several Spanish and Portuguese expeditions to the islands were organized around 1340, followed by Moors and European slave traders. At the end of the Iberian conquest, the island was divided into two Guanches kingdoms, one adhering to King Guize and the other to King Ayoze. The territories of these kingdoms were called Maxorata (in the North) and Jandía (in the South) respectively. They were separated by a wall, which traversed the La Pared isthmus. Some remains have been preserved. The ancient name for the island, Erbania, is derived from this wall's name.
The island's conquest began in earnest in 1402, commanded by French knights and crusaders Jean de Béthencourt and Gadifer de la Salle. They arrived with only 63 sailors out of the original 283, as many had deserted along the way. After arriving and settling in Lanzarote, the invaders made some first excursions to the neighboring islands. In 1404, Bethencourt and Gadifer founded Betancuria, on the West coast, the first settlement on the island. After numerous difficulties, Gadifer took charge of the invasion, while Bethencourt returned to Spain to seek the recognition and support of the Castilian king.
In 1405, de Béthencourt completed his conquest of the island, establishing its capital in Betancuria (Puerto Rosario took over the mantle as island capital in 1835).
In 1424 Pope Martin V, through the Betancuria Brief, edicted the establishment of the Bishopric of Fuerteventura, which encompassed all the Canary Islands save for the island of Lanzarote. The origin of this bishopric is directly related to the events that occurred after the Great Schism (1378–1417), in that the bishop of San Marcial del Rubicón of Lanzarote (at the time, the only diocese in the Canary Islands) did not recognize the papacy of Martin V, and instead adhered to anti-Pope Benedict XIII. The Bishopric of Fuerteventura was based in the Parish of Santa María de Betancuria, bestowing upon the latter the status of Grant Cathedral. After the reabsorbtion of the Diocese of San Marcial del Rubicón by the papacy of Pope Martin V, the Bishopric of Fuerteventura was abolished in 1431, only seven years after it was created.
The first census recorded a population of some 1,200 inhabitants. The population increased gradually thereafter. In 1476 the territory became the Señorío Territorial de Fuerteventura, subjected to the Catholic Monarchs. In later years, the island was invaded by the Spanish, French and the English.
Over time, the island endured numerous raids. A Berber-led expedition invaded in 1593, sweeping as far inland as the capital. Various castles were built along the coastline, to protect against these type of attacks. The population was moved inland as a second protective measure. Because of the raids, a first Captain General was dispatched to Fuerteventura, accompanied by a number of Sergeants Major, to defend the island in the name of the Crown. At that time, Betancuria became the religious capital of the island.
Two major attacks took place in 1740, within a month of each other. Two separate bands of English privateers attempted to loot the town of Tuineje. These attacks were however successfully averted by the local population and the island's militia. This successful repelling of the invaders is celebrated at a re-enactment that takes place in Gran Tarajal every year in October.
The island's garrison was officially instated in 1708. Its colonel assumed the title of Governor at Arms, a hereditary, lifelong appointment which has remained in the Sánchez-Dumpiérrez family. In time, this family increasingly garnered power over the other islands through alliances with the family of Arias de Saavedra and the Lady of Fuerteventura. During the same year the Assistant Parish of La Oliva and Pájara was created, to become operational in 1711. On 17 December 1790, the Assistant Parish of Tuineje was created, which became a new parish division on 23 June 1792 under the bishop Tavira, with lands including part of the Jandía peninsular, and with a population of 1,670 inhabitants. 1780 saw the start of a barrilla plantation industry.
In 1852, a free trade zone was extended by Isabella II to the Canary Islands. Military island rule, which began in 1708, was finally dissolved in 1859, and Puerto de Cabras (now Puerto del Rosario) became the new capital.
The Canary Islands obtained self-governance in 1912. In 1927, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote became part of the province of Gran Canaria. The seat of the island's government (cabildo insular) is located in Puerto del Rosario. A total of 118,574 people lived on the island in 2018.
By the 1940s the island had an airport (just west of Puerto del Rosario on the road to Tindaya, still visible today). Mass tourism began to arrive in the mid-1960s, facilitated by the construction of Fuerteventura Airport at El Matorral and the first tourist hotels.
The island's proximity (a mere 100 km) to the West African coast and the fact that it is part of the Schengen territory make it a prime target destination for undocumented immigrants. However, many have perished while attempting the crossing.
The flag of Fuerteventura is in proportions 1:2, divided vertically, green to the hoist and white to the fly end, with the coat of arms of the island in the centre.
The coat of arms of Fuerteventura was prescribed by a Decree adopted on 15 October 1998 by the Government of the Canary Islands and published on 11 November 1998 in the official gazette of the Canary Islands, No. 142, pp. 13,432–13,433. It was adopted on 24 April 1998 by the Island Council and validated on 18 September 1998 by the Heraldry Commission of the Canary Islands.
The heraldic description is "per pale and per fess. First, gules, a castle or, masoned sable, its gate and windows azure. Second, argent, lion gules, crowned, armed and langued or. Third, silver, three fesses chequy gules and or, in four rows, each one charged with a fess or. Bordure gules, with eight saltires or. Ensigned with a royal crown, open."
According to José Manuel Erbez (Banderas y escudos de Canarias, 2007), the coat of arms is based on the arms of the island's provincial militia. The upper quarters represent Castile (symbolized by a castle) and León (symbolized by a lion). The lower quarter alludes to the Saavedra family; various members of this family were lords of Fuerteventura.
The elongated island has an area of 1,660 km (641 sq mi). The island is 100 km (62 mi) long and 31 km (19 mi) wide. It is part of the Province of Las Palmas. It is divided into six municipalities:
100 individual settlements are distributed through these municipalities. A nearby islet, Islote de Lobos, is part of the municipality of La Oliva.
Located just 100 km (62 mi) off the coast of North Africa, it is the second biggest of the islands, after Tenerife, and has the longest white sand beaches in the archipelago. The island is a destination for sun, beach and watersports enthusiasts. It lies at the same latitude as Florida and Mexico and temperatures rarely fall below 18 °C (64 °F) or rise above 32 °C (90 °F). It counts 152 separate beaches along its seaboard — 50 km (31 mi) of white sand and 25 km (16 mi) of black volcanic shingle.
The highest point in Fuerteventura is Pico de la Zarza (807 m) in the southwestern part of the island. Geographical features include Istmo de la Pared which is 5 km (3 mi) wide and is the narrowest part of Fuerteventura. The island is divided into two parts, the northern portion which is Maxorata and the southwestern part called the Jandía peninsula.
The climate on Fuerteventura is mild, but mostly windy, throughout the year. The island is hence referred to as the island of eternal spring. The sea regulates air temperature, diverting hot Sahara winds away from the island. The island's name in English translates as "strong fortune" or "strong wind", the Spanish word for wind being viento. During the winter months, temperatures average a high of 22 °C (72 °F) and a low of around 15 °C (59 °F), whereas during the summer a mean high of 28 °C (82 °F) and a low of 20 °C (68 °F) can be expected. Precipitation is about 147 mm (6 in) per year, most of which falls in autumn and winter. December is the month with highest rainfall.
A sandstorm known as the Calima (similar to the Sirocco wind, which blows to the North of the Sahara, to Europe) may blow from the Sahara Desert to the Northwest, and can cause high temperatures, low visibility and drying air. Temperatures during this phenomenon rise temporarily by approximately 10 degrees Celsius. The wind brings in fine red dust, The fine white sand is not blown in from Sahara, It is made up of dead coral reef and local seabed upheaval. Visibility can drop to between 100 and 200 m (328.08 and 656.17 ft) or even lower, and together with very warm temperatures, it can even bring African locusts to the island.
In the winter months, up to 80% of the rainwater flows unused into the ocean, as there is no vegetation to capture the water (also due to overgrazing by free-ranging goats near the coast). The mountain forests, which were still present in the 19th century, were all chopped down. Instead, there are many desalination plants (running on electricity) which produce the required amount of freshwater on the island. The tourists on the island use about double the amount of water as the native inhabitants of Fuerteventura. Causes are the filling of swimming pools, watering hotel gardens and washing towels.
Fuerteventura is the oldest island in the Canary Islands dating back 20 million years to a volcanic eruption from the Canary hotspot. The majority of the island was created about 5 million years ago and since then has been eroded by wind and precipitation. On the seabed off the west coast of the island rests an enormous slab of bedrock 22 km (14 mi) long and 11 km (7 mi) wide, which appears to have slid off the island largely intact at some point in prehistory, similar to the predicted future collapse of Cumbre Vieja, a geological fault on another Canary Island, La Palma. The last volcanic activity in Fuerteventura occurred between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago.
Fuerteventura was chosen among 500 European destinations by the Quality Coast International Certification Program of the European Coastal and Marine Union as one of the most attractive tourist destinations for visitors interested in cultural heritage, environment and sustainability. The best beaches to visit are Playa de Cofete, Playas de Jandia, Playas de Corralejo, Playa de Ajuy, and Playas de El Cotillo.
The island is home to one of the two surviving populations of the threatened Canarian Egyptian vulture. It is also inhabited by many wild dogs and cats. On the barren, rocky land there are Barbary ground squirrels and geckos. Fuerteventura also hosts several migratory and nesting birds. The island has significant populations of the collared dove, common swifts and several finch species especially in the vicinity of holiday developments.
Despite its arid climate, the island is also home to a surprisingly large insect fauna. Butterflies which commonly occur on the island include the clouded yellow (Colias hyale) and the bath white (Pontia daplidice) which feeds on xerophytic cruciferae. The island is also home to the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) and its close African relative Danaus chrysippus. Around holiday developments such as Caleta de Fuste, water is relatively abundant, and dragonfly species including the blue emperor (Anax imperator) and the scarlet darter (Crocothemis erythraea) can be found. The island's sand dunes and shoreline are home to a number of bee and wasp species including the large eumenid caterpillar hunting wasp, Delta dimidiatipenne and the blue banded bee (Amegilla canifrons).
Hawkmoths also occur on the island. One of the more notable species is Hyles tithymali which feeds on endemic spurges such as Euphorbia regis-jubae. Acherontia atropos, the deaths-head hawkmoth also occurs on the island presumably feeding on members of the Solanaceae, for example, Datura innoxia and Nicotiana glauca which are common weeds in the vicinity of human habitation.
The official natural symbols associated with Fuerteventura are Chlamydotis undulata fuertaventurae (hubara or houbara) and Euphorbia handiensis (Cardón de Jandía).
The island has a population of 116,886. Throughout its long history, Fuerteventura has suffered from a population decline due to the economic situation and the climate, which have made it into a desert island. However, the development of tourism during the 1980s has caused the population to grow year on year since then, doubling it in a little less than a decade.
In 2005, with 86,642 registered inhabitants, the Fuerteventura population was formed by the following:
Comparing this data with the 2001 census shows that the number of permanent residents born on the island has increased by just 3,000. The number who have moved in from abroad has increased by 22,910, making this the biggest contributor to population growth in recent years.
The island has 116 schools, with a total of 14,337 pupils. Of these, 45 are primary schools, ten are secondary schools, six are for Baccalaureate students and four are vocational colleges.
Fuerteventura also has a centre linked with the National University of Distance Education, offering courses in many subjects including economics, business studies, law, history and tourism.
Fuerteventura is governed by the Island Department of the Government of Spain, which holds the rank of a Government Subdepartment. The government building is located in the centre of the capital city.
This institution is charged with representing the Government of Spain on the island, and managing all the functions that are not under control of the Canarian Government. This includes the following public services:
Since 30 June 2007, the island's governor has been Eustaquio Juan Santana Gil. 4
The councils, formed as part of the Councils Act of 1912, administer the Canary Islands and have two principal functions. On one hand, they perform services for the Autonomous Community, and on the other, they are the local government centre for the island. In the 2003 elections, Mario Cabrera González was elected as president representing the Canarian Coalition, with 31.02% of the votes, followed by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party with 27.53%, represented by the Vice President Domingo Fuentes Curbelo.
The island is divided into six municipalities with their respective city councils which form part of the FECAM (Federation of Canarian Municipalities). They are governed by the basic legislation of the local regime and their respective organic rules. The populations of the municipalities are as follows:
In turn, these municipalities are organised into two associations: the Mancomunidad de Municipios del Centro-Norte de Fuerteventura formed from La Oliva and Puerto del Rosario, and the remaining municipalities make up the Mancomunidad de Municipios del Centro-Sur de Fuerteventura.
Both Fuerteventura and Lanzarote would have been the main exporters of wheat and cereals to the central islands of the archipelago during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries; Tenerife and Gran Canaria. However, this trade was of little benefit to the inhabitants of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura (because the landowners of the islands profited from this activity), leading to periods of famine, resulting in some of the population of the islands moving to Tenerife and Gran Canaria to try to improve their lives. Therefore, the island of Tenerife became the main focus of attraction for majoreros and lanzaroteños, hence the feeling of union that has always existed amongst these islands.
The economy of Fuerteventura is mainly based on tourism. Primary tourist areas are located around the existing towns of Corralejo in the north and Morro Jable in Jandia, plus the purely tourist development of Caleta de Fuste, south of Puerto del Rosario. Other main industries are fishing and agriculture (cereals and vegetables). The famous Majorero cheese is locally made from the milk of the indigenous majorera goat.
In 2009, Fuerteventura recorded the highest EU regional unemployment rate at a NUTS3 level, at 29.2 percent.
The first tourist hotel was built in 1965 followed by the construction of Fuerteventura Airport at El Matorral, heralding the dawn of a new era for the island. Fuerteventura, with its 3,000 sunshine hours a year, was placed firmly on the world stage as a major European holiday destination. While having fully developed tourist facilities, the island has not experienced the overdevelopment found on some other islands. Nonetheless, it remains a destination for predominantly but not exclusively European tourists.
The summer Trade Winds and winter swells of the Atlantic make this a year-round surfers' paradise, with more exposed areas on the north and west shores such as Corralejo and El Cotillo proving most popular. Wind surfing takes places at locations around the island. Sailors, scuba divers and big-game fishermen are all drawn to these clear blue Atlantic waters where whales, dolphins, marlin and turtles are all common sights. With many hills present throughout the Island, hikers are also attracted to this Island.
Sandy beaches are found in many locations. Western beaches, such as those around El Cotillo, can experience strong surf. The beaches adjoining the extensive sand dunes east of Corralejo are popular, as are the more protected extensive sandy shores of the Playa de Sotavento de Jandia on the southeastern coast between Costa Calma and the Morro Jable. Naked sun bathing and swimming are the norm almost on all beaches.
Much of the interior, with its large plains, lavascapes and volcanic mountains, consists of protected areas, although there are organised tours and vehicular access across them.
Like the rest of the Canaries, Carnival is traditionally one of the biggest festivals celebrated on the island. It is celebrated in different ways in all the towns during February and March. These festivities have a different theme each year. They include activities such as parades and galas to choose the carnival king.
There are many concerts and festivals held in the auditoriums, such as the Festival of Canarian Music. They are also held in smaller venues across the island, featuring bands such as Estopa, Van Gogh's Ear, and King Afrhica.
Festival Internacional de Cometas/International Kite Festival is held on the second week of November each year centering on the Corralejo Beaches. It attracts kitefliers and kite surfers from all over Europe. It is popular because the winds are warm and constant and the beaches become filled with hundreds of colourful kites of all shapes and sizes.
Fuerteventura has three auditoriums. These are used for all types of performing art. They are also used for non-artistic purposes, such as conferences, charity galas and political meetings.
The Central Library of the Island is located in Antigua's city centre, in the public university. In addition to providing the traditional library services, it has a 180-seat multipurpose room, air conditioning, a wifi zone, and a multimedia room used for seminars, presentations, film festivals etc.
The island has several museums with different themes and plenty of exhibition spaces, both public and private. These include:
In addition to the museums, the capital Puerto del Rosario has an open-air sculpture park consisting of around 100 sculptures by different artists scattered across the city. Most of them were created for the International Symposium of Sculpture celebrated annually since 2001. During the festival, artists come from all over the world to erect their sculptures in the open air, in full view of passers by.
Sites of interest include Corralejo and El Jable to the north which are made up of fine sand dunes whilst the south is filled with long beaches and remote bays. The constant winds blowing onto the beaches provide a paradise for windsurfing. Surfing is common on the west and north coasts where there are large waves. Windsurfing is common around Corralejo and Playas de Sotavento and wave sailing (windsurfing on the waves) on the coast along the northern half of the island. El Cotillo is a small fishing village in the north-west of the Island famous for a very long beach to the south of the village and few very calm beaches to the north. The northern beaches frequented by snorkeling enthusiasts and sun worshippers alike are referred to as lakes by the locals.
At Cofete on the western side of Jandía a remote and imposing house – Villa Winter – looks out to sea across wide beaches. It was reputedly built by a Mr Winter on land given by Generalisimo Franco.
For a time, the beaches were home to a popular accidental attraction. On 18 January 1994 the United States Lines ocean liner SS American Star (former America, USS West Point, Australis) was beached in Playa de Garcey during a severe storm. Within a year, she broke in two and later lost her stern. By 2007 the rest of the severely deteriorated ship had collapsed onto her port side, gradually keeling over further and almost completely submerged. By 2008–2012, most of the remains finally slipped below the surface.
The cuisine is fairly basic due to the customs and climate conditions. They share this simplicity with the other Canary islands, and similarly to them, they use a large quantity of fish. They also use whatever they can grow in the near-barren land. This includes papas arrugadas, a dish of wrinkled potatoes usually served with mojo, which is a hot pepper sauce or with puchero canario, a meat stew.
Seafood is prepared in many ways traditionally, such as pejines (salted fish), jareas, or sancocho (a type of stew) made from fish, generally the grouper, corvina or sama, boiled after salting, and served with mojo, potatoes, or gofio (a type of grain). People are also very keen on the mussels and limpets collected on the island's coasts.
They also use meat such as beef and pork to make different dishes or simply to for braising, but their main meat is goat, both from the kids and from the older animals. They eat the goat roasted or stewed. Goats are not only useful for their meat – the Fuerteventurans also use the milk to make the cheese majorero, which has won many prizes. The majorero is mostly made of goats milk, and occasionally it is up to 15% ewes milk. It is cured in pimento oil or gofio meal. Majorero and palmero cheese are the only two Canarian cheeses with protected denomination of origin.
The main methods of arriving and departing the islands are by flying and by ferry.
The airport is the main access point to the island. It is situated in El Matorral, 5 km (3.1 mi) southwest of the capital city Puerto del Rosario. The airport has flight connections to over 80 destinations worldwide, and over 5.6 million passengers passed through it in 2016. In 1994, the new airport terminal was constructed. In December 2009, the new facilities of the arrivals terminal of Fuerteventura Airport were inaugurated, tripling the space available in the old facilities. Up to 4000 passengers per hour can be served concurrently thanks to the new facilities.
Notably, Binter Canarias serves the airport as the regional airline connecting passengers across Canary Islands.
Maritime communications are made from four ports: Puerto del Rosario, Corralejo, Gran Tarajal and Morro Jable. Cargo operations are the main activity of the island's main port in Puerto del Rosario, although its facilities allow the docking of tourist cruises including a ferry from Gran Canaria. Passenger traffic is mainly channeled through Corralejo, Gran Tarajal and Morro Jable. The port of Corralejo connects the island with Lanzarote. The port of Gran Tarajal connects the island with Gran Canaria and Morro Jable connects the island with Gran Canaria and Tenerife.
There are two highways on the island: FV-1 and FV-2. The FV-1, together with the FV-2, is part of the major construction project of the north–south motorway on Fuerteventura.
The FV-1 begins in the north, in the town of Corralejo and ends in the island's capital Puerto del Rosario. FV-1 is part dual carriageway and part single carriageway. In the past, the FV-1 also ran through the Corralejo Dune Nature Reserve. In order to direct through traffic out of the nature reserve, the dual carriageway bypass around the nature reserve was opened in 2017 as the first section of the motorway after three years of construction, plus five years of construction delay. The road through nature reserve was renamed FV-104.
FV-2 connects Morro Jable and Puerto del Rosario. Between La Lajita and Morro Jable, FV-2 is a dual carriageway highway. Car rental companies that have offices in the airports are: Autoreisen, Avis, Cicar, Europcar, Goldcar, Hertz, Sixt and TopCar.
Many sports are commonly played in Fuerteventura, both in the open air and in sports centres across the island.
These are the Canarian sports found on the island:
The wrestling takes place in a ring of sand called the terrero. Inside it, the two contestants try to knock each other over. Fuerteventura has 14 terreros distributed through all the towns except Betancuria.
The island also has a school wrestling league organized by the council and a programme to promote this sport in clubs. Twelve wrestling schools participate in this, based in Antigua, Costa Calma, El Matorral, La Lajita, Lajares, Las Playitas, Morro Jable, Puerto del Rosario, Tefía, Tetir, Unión Sur and Villaverde.
Juego del Palo is a Canarian martial art which literally translates as "game of the stick". It is played by two players both armed with sticks. They aim to defeat each other without making contact with their opponent's body. The origin of this game is unclear. All we know is that it is based on a method of combat used by the precolonial Canarian people.
Fuerteventura has the following Palo clubs:
This is a similar game to the French Pétanque which is actually played very little on the island, although there are a few teams and courts. Basically the game consists of scoring points by throwing a ball to get it as near as possible to an object called a mingue or boliche. It is played on a rectangular sand or earth pitch which is 18 to 25 m (59.1–82.0 ft) long and 3.5 to 6 m (11.5–19.7 ft) wide.
The sea and climate conditions make the island the perfect place for a huge variety of watersports.
Many types of surfing are popular on the island, including traditional surfing, windsurfing (where the board is propelled by a sail) and most recently kitesurfing. The island has many schools and courses dedicated to teaching these sports.
The sports where Fuerteventura has the most impact internationally are windsurfing and kitesurfing, mainly due to the International Windsurfing and Kiteboarding Championship. This has run since 1985 and is held at Playas de Sotavento in Pájara municipality. Many important wind and kitesurfing figures compete in this championship, such as the several-times world windsurfing champion Björn Dunkerbeck and Gisela Pulido, the very young kiteboarding champion from Tarifa.
Many Canarian windsurfers are on the Canarian Waveriders circuit, which has been based in Corralejo since 2005.
Diving schools are just as frequent as surfing ones, all around the coast of Fuerteventura. Unlike the other islands of the archipelago, Fuerteventura has a shelf which at some points goes up to 30 km (19 mi), making it an ideal place to practice this sport.
Two of the most useful points for diving are the coast off Playa del Matorral in the South, and the zone between Lobos Island and Corralejo in the north. It is here in Corralejo that the International Sea and Submarine Photography Festival takes places, known as Fimarsub Corralejo – Lobos. During the festival there are beginners' lessons, professional dives, lessons in underwater photography, screenings and other events related to the sport.
There are many swimming pools on the island but the most obvious place to swim is in the open sea. There is an annual swim from Lobos Island to Fuerteventura, held every year since 1999. The event attracts amateur swimmers from all over the Canaries and Spain, and also swimming professionals such as David Meca and Maarten van der Weijden, the paralympist Jesús Collado Alarcón who won gold medals for 100m backstroke and butterfly in Athens 2004, and Xavi Torres Ramis, the paralympic champion in Barcelona 1992, Sydney and Atlanta.
The island holds competitions involving different types of boat, such as the lateen and the Optimist. An interesting event is the Tour of Fuerteventura by Kayak, which is organised as a series of stages rather than a competition, and is an easy way to explore the island.
The most notable competition here is the Gran Tarajal Fishing Open.
Since 2004 the Marcha Ciclotourista has been held in La Oliva and the Criterium Ciclista has been held in Corralejo (also part of the La Oliva municipality) since 2005. Participants include Euskaltel–Euskadi, T-Mobile and a team from Orbea. These competitions have contributed to local interest in the sport and the first professional local team, the Fuerteventura–Canarias, was formed, initially run by Óscar Guerrero, director of Kaiku, although they have not competed for the past few seasons.
There are various motocross circuits on the island, including Los Alares in Antigua and Isla de Fuerteventura in Puerto del Rosario municipality. They hold regular trials, some of which form part of the Canarian Regional Motocross Championship. Throughout the year there are gravel rally races. Two are part of the Canarian Dirt Rally Championship. These are the Antiguan Rally and the La Oliva Rally.
The island's main football clubs are CD Union Puerto and CD Cotillo, who play in Group XII of the Spanish Tercera División RFEF.
The resort Playitas on the south coast is since around 2008 equipped with a 50 m (160 ft) swimming pool and has become a destination for triathlon training camps for Europeans. An annual race called Challenge Fuerteventura is held there on the half ironman distance.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fuerteventura (Spanish: [ˌfweɾteβenˈtuɾa]) is one of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean, part of the North Africa region, and politically part of Spain. It is located 97 km (60 mi) away from the northwestern coast of Africa. The island was declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 2009.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Fuerteventura belongs to Province of Las Palmas, one of the two provinces that form the autonomous community of the Canary Islands. The island's capital is Puerto del Rosario, where the Insule Council is found, the government of the island. Fuerteventura has 119,732 inhabitants (as of 2020), the fourth largest population of the Canary Islands and the third of the province. At 1,660 km (640 sq mi), it is the second largest of the Canary Islands, after Tenerife. From a geological point of view, Fuerteventura is the oldest island in the archipelago.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The island's name is a compound word formed by the Spanish words for \"strong\" (fuerte) and \"fortune\" (ventura). Traditionally, Fuerteventura's name has been regarded as a reference to the strong winds around the island and the resulting danger to nautical adventurers. However, it might have referred instead (or also) to wealth, luck or destiny.",
"title": "Toponymy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1339 the Mallorcan navigator Angelino Dulcert, in the Planisferio de Angelino Dulcert, referred to the island as \"Forte Ventura\".",
"title": "Toponymy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Another theory is that the island's name derives from \"Fortunatae Insulae\" (Fortunate Islands), the name by which the Romans knew the Canary Islands.",
"title": "Toponymy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The indigenous name of the island, before its conquest in the 15th century, was Erbania, divided into two regions (Jandía and Maxorata), from which the name majorero (originally majo or maxo) derives. However, it has been suggested that, at some point, Maxorata (which meant \"the children of the country\") was the aboriginal toponym of the entire island.",
"title": "Toponymy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The first settlers of Fuerteventura are believed to have come from North Africa. The word Mahorero (Majorero) or Maho is still used today to describe the people of Fuerteventura and is derived from the ancient word 'mahos', a type of goatskin shoe worn by these original inhabitants. They lived in caves and semi-subterranean dwellings, some of which have been excavated, revealing remnants of early tools and pottery. In antiquity, the island was originally known as Planaria, in reference to the flatness of most of its terrain.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Phoenician settlers landed in Fuerteventura and Lanzarote.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Several Spanish and Portuguese expeditions to the islands were organized around 1340, followed by Moors and European slave traders. At the end of the Iberian conquest, the island was divided into two Guanches kingdoms, one adhering to King Guize and the other to King Ayoze. The territories of these kingdoms were called Maxorata (in the North) and Jandía (in the South) respectively. They were separated by a wall, which traversed the La Pared isthmus. Some remains have been preserved. The ancient name for the island, Erbania, is derived from this wall's name.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The island's conquest began in earnest in 1402, commanded by French knights and crusaders Jean de Béthencourt and Gadifer de la Salle. They arrived with only 63 sailors out of the original 283, as many had deserted along the way. After arriving and settling in Lanzarote, the invaders made some first excursions to the neighboring islands. In 1404, Bethencourt and Gadifer founded Betancuria, on the West coast, the first settlement on the island. After numerous difficulties, Gadifer took charge of the invasion, while Bethencourt returned to Spain to seek the recognition and support of the Castilian king.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 1405, de Béthencourt completed his conquest of the island, establishing its capital in Betancuria (Puerto Rosario took over the mantle as island capital in 1835).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1424 Pope Martin V, through the Betancuria Brief, edicted the establishment of the Bishopric of Fuerteventura, which encompassed all the Canary Islands save for the island of Lanzarote. The origin of this bishopric is directly related to the events that occurred after the Great Schism (1378–1417), in that the bishop of San Marcial del Rubicón of Lanzarote (at the time, the only diocese in the Canary Islands) did not recognize the papacy of Martin V, and instead adhered to anti-Pope Benedict XIII. The Bishopric of Fuerteventura was based in the Parish of Santa María de Betancuria, bestowing upon the latter the status of Grant Cathedral. After the reabsorbtion of the Diocese of San Marcial del Rubicón by the papacy of Pope Martin V, the Bishopric of Fuerteventura was abolished in 1431, only seven years after it was created.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The first census recorded a population of some 1,200 inhabitants. The population increased gradually thereafter. In 1476 the territory became the Señorío Territorial de Fuerteventura, subjected to the Catholic Monarchs. In later years, the island was invaded by the Spanish, French and the English.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Over time, the island endured numerous raids. A Berber-led expedition invaded in 1593, sweeping as far inland as the capital. Various castles were built along the coastline, to protect against these type of attacks. The population was moved inland as a second protective measure. Because of the raids, a first Captain General was dispatched to Fuerteventura, accompanied by a number of Sergeants Major, to defend the island in the name of the Crown. At that time, Betancuria became the religious capital of the island.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Two major attacks took place in 1740, within a month of each other. Two separate bands of English privateers attempted to loot the town of Tuineje. These attacks were however successfully averted by the local population and the island's militia. This successful repelling of the invaders is celebrated at a re-enactment that takes place in Gran Tarajal every year in October.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The island's garrison was officially instated in 1708. Its colonel assumed the title of Governor at Arms, a hereditary, lifelong appointment which has remained in the Sánchez-Dumpiérrez family. In time, this family increasingly garnered power over the other islands through alliances with the family of Arias de Saavedra and the Lady of Fuerteventura. During the same year the Assistant Parish of La Oliva and Pájara was created, to become operational in 1711. On 17 December 1790, the Assistant Parish of Tuineje was created, which became a new parish division on 23 June 1792 under the bishop Tavira, with lands including part of the Jandía peninsular, and with a population of 1,670 inhabitants. 1780 saw the start of a barrilla plantation industry.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In 1852, a free trade zone was extended by Isabella II to the Canary Islands. Military island rule, which began in 1708, was finally dissolved in 1859, and Puerto de Cabras (now Puerto del Rosario) became the new capital.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Canary Islands obtained self-governance in 1912. In 1927, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote became part of the province of Gran Canaria. The seat of the island's government (cabildo insular) is located in Puerto del Rosario. A total of 118,574 people lived on the island in 2018.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "By the 1940s the island had an airport (just west of Puerto del Rosario on the road to Tindaya, still visible today). Mass tourism began to arrive in the mid-1960s, facilitated by the construction of Fuerteventura Airport at El Matorral and the first tourist hotels.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The island's proximity (a mere 100 km) to the West African coast and the fact that it is part of the Schengen territory make it a prime target destination for undocumented immigrants. However, many have perished while attempting the crossing.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The flag of Fuerteventura is in proportions 1:2, divided vertically, green to the hoist and white to the fly end, with the coat of arms of the island in the centre.",
"title": "Flag"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The coat of arms of Fuerteventura was prescribed by a Decree adopted on 15 October 1998 by the Government of the Canary Islands and published on 11 November 1998 in the official gazette of the Canary Islands, No. 142, pp. 13,432–13,433. It was adopted on 24 April 1998 by the Island Council and validated on 18 September 1998 by the Heraldry Commission of the Canary Islands.",
"title": "Flag"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The heraldic description is \"per pale and per fess. First, gules, a castle or, masoned sable, its gate and windows azure. Second, argent, lion gules, crowned, armed and langued or. Third, silver, three fesses chequy gules and or, in four rows, each one charged with a fess or. Bordure gules, with eight saltires or. Ensigned with a royal crown, open.\"",
"title": "Flag"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "According to José Manuel Erbez (Banderas y escudos de Canarias, 2007), the coat of arms is based on the arms of the island's provincial militia. The upper quarters represent Castile (symbolized by a castle) and León (symbolized by a lion). The lower quarter alludes to the Saavedra family; various members of this family were lords of Fuerteventura.",
"title": "Flag"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The elongated island has an area of 1,660 km (641 sq mi). The island is 100 km (62 mi) long and 31 km (19 mi) wide. It is part of the Province of Las Palmas. It is divided into six municipalities:",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "100 individual settlements are distributed through these municipalities. A nearby islet, Islote de Lobos, is part of the municipality of La Oliva.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Located just 100 km (62 mi) off the coast of North Africa, it is the second biggest of the islands, after Tenerife, and has the longest white sand beaches in the archipelago. The island is a destination for sun, beach and watersports enthusiasts. It lies at the same latitude as Florida and Mexico and temperatures rarely fall below 18 °C (64 °F) or rise above 32 °C (90 °F). It counts 152 separate beaches along its seaboard — 50 km (31 mi) of white sand and 25 km (16 mi) of black volcanic shingle.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The highest point in Fuerteventura is Pico de la Zarza (807 m) in the southwestern part of the island. Geographical features include Istmo de la Pared which is 5 km (3 mi) wide and is the narrowest part of Fuerteventura. The island is divided into two parts, the northern portion which is Maxorata and the southwestern part called the Jandía peninsula.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The climate on Fuerteventura is mild, but mostly windy, throughout the year. The island is hence referred to as the island of eternal spring. The sea regulates air temperature, diverting hot Sahara winds away from the island. The island's name in English translates as \"strong fortune\" or \"strong wind\", the Spanish word for wind being viento. During the winter months, temperatures average a high of 22 °C (72 °F) and a low of around 15 °C (59 °F), whereas during the summer a mean high of 28 °C (82 °F) and a low of 20 °C (68 °F) can be expected. Precipitation is about 147 mm (6 in) per year, most of which falls in autumn and winter. December is the month with highest rainfall.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "A sandstorm known as the Calima (similar to the Sirocco wind, which blows to the North of the Sahara, to Europe) may blow from the Sahara Desert to the Northwest, and can cause high temperatures, low visibility and drying air. Temperatures during this phenomenon rise temporarily by approximately 10 degrees Celsius. The wind brings in fine red dust, The fine white sand is not blown in from Sahara, It is made up of dead coral reef and local seabed upheaval. Visibility can drop to between 100 and 200 m (328.08 and 656.17 ft) or even lower, and together with very warm temperatures, it can even bring African locusts to the island.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In the winter months, up to 80% of the rainwater flows unused into the ocean, as there is no vegetation to capture the water (also due to overgrazing by free-ranging goats near the coast). The mountain forests, which were still present in the 19th century, were all chopped down. Instead, there are many desalination plants (running on electricity) which produce the required amount of freshwater on the island. The tourists on the island use about double the amount of water as the native inhabitants of Fuerteventura. Causes are the filling of swimming pools, watering hotel gardens and washing towels.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Fuerteventura is the oldest island in the Canary Islands dating back 20 million years to a volcanic eruption from the Canary hotspot. The majority of the island was created about 5 million years ago and since then has been eroded by wind and precipitation. On the seabed off the west coast of the island rests an enormous slab of bedrock 22 km (14 mi) long and 11 km (7 mi) wide, which appears to have slid off the island largely intact at some point in prehistory, similar to the predicted future collapse of Cumbre Vieja, a geological fault on another Canary Island, La Palma. The last volcanic activity in Fuerteventura occurred between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Fuerteventura was chosen among 500 European destinations by the Quality Coast International Certification Program of the European Coastal and Marine Union as one of the most attractive tourist destinations for visitors interested in cultural heritage, environment and sustainability. The best beaches to visit are Playa de Cofete, Playas de Jandia, Playas de Corralejo, Playa de Ajuy, and Playas de El Cotillo.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The island is home to one of the two surviving populations of the threatened Canarian Egyptian vulture. It is also inhabited by many wild dogs and cats. On the barren, rocky land there are Barbary ground squirrels and geckos. Fuerteventura also hosts several migratory and nesting birds. The island has significant populations of the collared dove, common swifts and several finch species especially in the vicinity of holiday developments.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Despite its arid climate, the island is also home to a surprisingly large insect fauna. Butterflies which commonly occur on the island include the clouded yellow (Colias hyale) and the bath white (Pontia daplidice) which feeds on xerophytic cruciferae. The island is also home to the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) and its close African relative Danaus chrysippus. Around holiday developments such as Caleta de Fuste, water is relatively abundant, and dragonfly species including the blue emperor (Anax imperator) and the scarlet darter (Crocothemis erythraea) can be found. The island's sand dunes and shoreline are home to a number of bee and wasp species including the large eumenid caterpillar hunting wasp, Delta dimidiatipenne and the blue banded bee (Amegilla canifrons).",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Hawkmoths also occur on the island. One of the more notable species is Hyles tithymali which feeds on endemic spurges such as Euphorbia regis-jubae. Acherontia atropos, the deaths-head hawkmoth also occurs on the island presumably feeding on members of the Solanaceae, for example, Datura innoxia and Nicotiana glauca which are common weeds in the vicinity of human habitation.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The official natural symbols associated with Fuerteventura are Chlamydotis undulata fuertaventurae (hubara or houbara) and Euphorbia handiensis (Cardón de Jandía).",
"title": "Natural symbols"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The island has a population of 116,886. Throughout its long history, Fuerteventura has suffered from a population decline due to the economic situation and the climate, which have made it into a desert island. However, the development of tourism during the 1980s has caused the population to grow year on year since then, doubling it in a little less than a decade.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In 2005, with 86,642 registered inhabitants, the Fuerteventura population was formed by the following:",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Comparing this data with the 2001 census shows that the number of permanent residents born on the island has increased by just 3,000. The number who have moved in from abroad has increased by 22,910, making this the biggest contributor to population growth in recent years.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The island has 116 schools, with a total of 14,337 pupils. Of these, 45 are primary schools, ten are secondary schools, six are for Baccalaureate students and four are vocational colleges.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Fuerteventura also has a centre linked with the National University of Distance Education, offering courses in many subjects including economics, business studies, law, history and tourism.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Fuerteventura is governed by the Island Department of the Government of Spain, which holds the rank of a Government Subdepartment. The government building is located in the centre of the capital city.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "This institution is charged with representing the Government of Spain on the island, and managing all the functions that are not under control of the Canarian Government. This includes the following public services:",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Since 30 June 2007, the island's governor has been Eustaquio Juan Santana Gil. 4",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The councils, formed as part of the Councils Act of 1912, administer the Canary Islands and have two principal functions. On one hand, they perform services for the Autonomous Community, and on the other, they are the local government centre for the island. In the 2003 elections, Mario Cabrera González was elected as president representing the Canarian Coalition, with 31.02% of the votes, followed by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party with 27.53%, represented by the Vice President Domingo Fuentes Curbelo.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The island is divided into six municipalities with their respective city councils which form part of the FECAM (Federation of Canarian Municipalities). They are governed by the basic legislation of the local regime and their respective organic rules. The populations of the municipalities are as follows:",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In turn, these municipalities are organised into two associations: the Mancomunidad de Municipios del Centro-Norte de Fuerteventura formed from La Oliva and Puerto del Rosario, and the remaining municipalities make up the Mancomunidad de Municipios del Centro-Sur de Fuerteventura.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Both Fuerteventura and Lanzarote would have been the main exporters of wheat and cereals to the central islands of the archipelago during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries; Tenerife and Gran Canaria. However, this trade was of little benefit to the inhabitants of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura (because the landowners of the islands profited from this activity), leading to periods of famine, resulting in some of the population of the islands moving to Tenerife and Gran Canaria to try to improve their lives. Therefore, the island of Tenerife became the main focus of attraction for majoreros and lanzaroteños, hence the feeling of union that has always existed amongst these islands.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The economy of Fuerteventura is mainly based on tourism. Primary tourist areas are located around the existing towns of Corralejo in the north and Morro Jable in Jandia, plus the purely tourist development of Caleta de Fuste, south of Puerto del Rosario. Other main industries are fishing and agriculture (cereals and vegetables). The famous Majorero cheese is locally made from the milk of the indigenous majorera goat.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "In 2009, Fuerteventura recorded the highest EU regional unemployment rate at a NUTS3 level, at 29.2 percent.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The first tourist hotel was built in 1965 followed by the construction of Fuerteventura Airport at El Matorral, heralding the dawn of a new era for the island. Fuerteventura, with its 3,000 sunshine hours a year, was placed firmly on the world stage as a major European holiday destination. While having fully developed tourist facilities, the island has not experienced the overdevelopment found on some other islands. Nonetheless, it remains a destination for predominantly but not exclusively European tourists.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The summer Trade Winds and winter swells of the Atlantic make this a year-round surfers' paradise, with more exposed areas on the north and west shores such as Corralejo and El Cotillo proving most popular. Wind surfing takes places at locations around the island. Sailors, scuba divers and big-game fishermen are all drawn to these clear blue Atlantic waters where whales, dolphins, marlin and turtles are all common sights. With many hills present throughout the Island, hikers are also attracted to this Island.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Sandy beaches are found in many locations. Western beaches, such as those around El Cotillo, can experience strong surf. The beaches adjoining the extensive sand dunes east of Corralejo are popular, as are the more protected extensive sandy shores of the Playa de Sotavento de Jandia on the southeastern coast between Costa Calma and the Morro Jable. Naked sun bathing and swimming are the norm almost on all beaches.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Much of the interior, with its large plains, lavascapes and volcanic mountains, consists of protected areas, although there are organised tours and vehicular access across them.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Like the rest of the Canaries, Carnival is traditionally one of the biggest festivals celebrated on the island. It is celebrated in different ways in all the towns during February and March. These festivities have a different theme each year. They include activities such as parades and galas to choose the carnival king.",
"title": "Art and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "There are many concerts and festivals held in the auditoriums, such as the Festival of Canarian Music. They are also held in smaller venues across the island, featuring bands such as Estopa, Van Gogh's Ear, and King Afrhica.",
"title": "Art and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Festival Internacional de Cometas/International Kite Festival is held on the second week of November each year centering on the Corralejo Beaches. It attracts kitefliers and kite surfers from all over Europe. It is popular because the winds are warm and constant and the beaches become filled with hundreds of colourful kites of all shapes and sizes.",
"title": "Art and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Fuerteventura has three auditoriums. These are used for all types of performing art. They are also used for non-artistic purposes, such as conferences, charity galas and political meetings.",
"title": "Art and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The Central Library of the Island is located in Antigua's city centre, in the public university. In addition to providing the traditional library services, it has a 180-seat multipurpose room, air conditioning, a wifi zone, and a multimedia room used for seminars, presentations, film festivals etc.",
"title": "Art and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "The island has several museums with different themes and plenty of exhibition spaces, both public and private. These include:",
"title": "Art and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "In addition to the museums, the capital Puerto del Rosario has an open-air sculpture park consisting of around 100 sculptures by different artists scattered across the city. Most of them were created for the International Symposium of Sculpture celebrated annually since 2001. During the festival, artists come from all over the world to erect their sculptures in the open air, in full view of passers by.",
"title": "Art and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Sites of interest include Corralejo and El Jable to the north which are made up of fine sand dunes whilst the south is filled with long beaches and remote bays. The constant winds blowing onto the beaches provide a paradise for windsurfing. Surfing is common on the west and north coasts where there are large waves. Windsurfing is common around Corralejo and Playas de Sotavento and wave sailing (windsurfing on the waves) on the coast along the northern half of the island. El Cotillo is a small fishing village in the north-west of the Island famous for a very long beach to the south of the village and few very calm beaches to the north. The northern beaches frequented by snorkeling enthusiasts and sun worshippers alike are referred to as lakes by the locals.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "At Cofete on the western side of Jandía a remote and imposing house – Villa Winter – looks out to sea across wide beaches. It was reputedly built by a Mr Winter on land given by Generalisimo Franco.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "For a time, the beaches were home to a popular accidental attraction. On 18 January 1994 the United States Lines ocean liner SS American Star (former America, USS West Point, Australis) was beached in Playa de Garcey during a severe storm. Within a year, she broke in two and later lost her stern. By 2007 the rest of the severely deteriorated ship had collapsed onto her port side, gradually keeling over further and almost completely submerged. By 2008–2012, most of the remains finally slipped below the surface.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "The cuisine is fairly basic due to the customs and climate conditions. They share this simplicity with the other Canary islands, and similarly to them, they use a large quantity of fish. They also use whatever they can grow in the near-barren land. This includes papas arrugadas, a dish of wrinkled potatoes usually served with mojo, which is a hot pepper sauce or with puchero canario, a meat stew.",
"title": "Food"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Seafood is prepared in many ways traditionally, such as pejines (salted fish), jareas, or sancocho (a type of stew) made from fish, generally the grouper, corvina or sama, boiled after salting, and served with mojo, potatoes, or gofio (a type of grain). People are also very keen on the mussels and limpets collected on the island's coasts.",
"title": "Food"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "They also use meat such as beef and pork to make different dishes or simply to for braising, but their main meat is goat, both from the kids and from the older animals. They eat the goat roasted or stewed. Goats are not only useful for their meat – the Fuerteventurans also use the milk to make the cheese majorero, which has won many prizes. The majorero is mostly made of goats milk, and occasionally it is up to 15% ewes milk. It is cured in pimento oil or gofio meal. Majorero and palmero cheese are the only two Canarian cheeses with protected denomination of origin.",
"title": "Food"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "The main methods of arriving and departing the islands are by flying and by ferry.",
"title": "Transport and communications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "The airport is the main access point to the island. It is situated in El Matorral, 5 km (3.1 mi) southwest of the capital city Puerto del Rosario. The airport has flight connections to over 80 destinations worldwide, and over 5.6 million passengers passed through it in 2016. In 1994, the new airport terminal was constructed. In December 2009, the new facilities of the arrivals terminal of Fuerteventura Airport were inaugurated, tripling the space available in the old facilities. Up to 4000 passengers per hour can be served concurrently thanks to the new facilities.",
"title": "Transport and communications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Notably, Binter Canarias serves the airport as the regional airline connecting passengers across Canary Islands.",
"title": "Transport and communications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Maritime communications are made from four ports: Puerto del Rosario, Corralejo, Gran Tarajal and Morro Jable. Cargo operations are the main activity of the island's main port in Puerto del Rosario, although its facilities allow the docking of tourist cruises including a ferry from Gran Canaria. Passenger traffic is mainly channeled through Corralejo, Gran Tarajal and Morro Jable. The port of Corralejo connects the island with Lanzarote. The port of Gran Tarajal connects the island with Gran Canaria and Morro Jable connects the island with Gran Canaria and Tenerife.",
"title": "Transport and communications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "There are two highways on the island: FV-1 and FV-2. The FV-1, together with the FV-2, is part of the major construction project of the north–south motorway on Fuerteventura.",
"title": "Transport and communications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "The FV-1 begins in the north, in the town of Corralejo and ends in the island's capital Puerto del Rosario. FV-1 is part dual carriageway and part single carriageway. In the past, the FV-1 also ran through the Corralejo Dune Nature Reserve. In order to direct through traffic out of the nature reserve, the dual carriageway bypass around the nature reserve was opened in 2017 as the first section of the motorway after three years of construction, plus five years of construction delay. The road through nature reserve was renamed FV-104.",
"title": "Transport and communications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "FV-2 connects Morro Jable and Puerto del Rosario. Between La Lajita and Morro Jable, FV-2 is a dual carriageway highway. Car rental companies that have offices in the airports are: Autoreisen, Avis, Cicar, Europcar, Goldcar, Hertz, Sixt and TopCar.",
"title": "Transport and communications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Many sports are commonly played in Fuerteventura, both in the open air and in sports centres across the island.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "These are the Canarian sports found on the island:",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "The wrestling takes place in a ring of sand called the terrero. Inside it, the two contestants try to knock each other over. Fuerteventura has 14 terreros distributed through all the towns except Betancuria.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "The island also has a school wrestling league organized by the council and a programme to promote this sport in clubs. Twelve wrestling schools participate in this, based in Antigua, Costa Calma, El Matorral, La Lajita, Lajares, Las Playitas, Morro Jable, Puerto del Rosario, Tefía, Tetir, Unión Sur and Villaverde.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Juego del Palo is a Canarian martial art which literally translates as \"game of the stick\". It is played by two players both armed with sticks. They aim to defeat each other without making contact with their opponent's body. The origin of this game is unclear. All we know is that it is based on a method of combat used by the precolonial Canarian people.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Fuerteventura has the following Palo clubs:",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "This is a similar game to the French Pétanque which is actually played very little on the island, although there are a few teams and courts. Basically the game consists of scoring points by throwing a ball to get it as near as possible to an object called a mingue or boliche. It is played on a rectangular sand or earth pitch which is 18 to 25 m (59.1–82.0 ft) long and 3.5 to 6 m (11.5–19.7 ft) wide.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "The sea and climate conditions make the island the perfect place for a huge variety of watersports.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Many types of surfing are popular on the island, including traditional surfing, windsurfing (where the board is propelled by a sail) and most recently kitesurfing. The island has many schools and courses dedicated to teaching these sports.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "The sports where Fuerteventura has the most impact internationally are windsurfing and kitesurfing, mainly due to the International Windsurfing and Kiteboarding Championship. This has run since 1985 and is held at Playas de Sotavento in Pájara municipality. Many important wind and kitesurfing figures compete in this championship, such as the several-times world windsurfing champion Björn Dunkerbeck and Gisela Pulido, the very young kiteboarding champion from Tarifa.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Many Canarian windsurfers are on the Canarian Waveriders circuit, which has been based in Corralejo since 2005.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "Diving schools are just as frequent as surfing ones, all around the coast of Fuerteventura. Unlike the other islands of the archipelago, Fuerteventura has a shelf which at some points goes up to 30 km (19 mi), making it an ideal place to practice this sport.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Two of the most useful points for diving are the coast off Playa del Matorral in the South, and the zone between Lobos Island and Corralejo in the north. It is here in Corralejo that the International Sea and Submarine Photography Festival takes places, known as Fimarsub Corralejo – Lobos. During the festival there are beginners' lessons, professional dives, lessons in underwater photography, screenings and other events related to the sport.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "There are many swimming pools on the island but the most obvious place to swim is in the open sea. There is an annual swim from Lobos Island to Fuerteventura, held every year since 1999. The event attracts amateur swimmers from all over the Canaries and Spain, and also swimming professionals such as David Meca and Maarten van der Weijden, the paralympist Jesús Collado Alarcón who won gold medals for 100m backstroke and butterfly in Athens 2004, and Xavi Torres Ramis, the paralympic champion in Barcelona 1992, Sydney and Atlanta.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "The island holds competitions involving different types of boat, such as the lateen and the Optimist. An interesting event is the Tour of Fuerteventura by Kayak, which is organised as a series of stages rather than a competition, and is an easy way to explore the island.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "The most notable competition here is the Gran Tarajal Fishing Open.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "Since 2004 the Marcha Ciclotourista has been held in La Oliva and the Criterium Ciclista has been held in Corralejo (also part of the La Oliva municipality) since 2005. Participants include Euskaltel–Euskadi, T-Mobile and a team from Orbea. These competitions have contributed to local interest in the sport and the first professional local team, the Fuerteventura–Canarias, was formed, initially run by Óscar Guerrero, director of Kaiku, although they have not competed for the past few seasons.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "There are various motocross circuits on the island, including Los Alares in Antigua and Isla de Fuerteventura in Puerto del Rosario municipality. They hold regular trials, some of which form part of the Canarian Regional Motocross Championship. Throughout the year there are gravel rally races. Two are part of the Canarian Dirt Rally Championship. These are the Antiguan Rally and the La Oliva Rally.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "The island's main football clubs are CD Union Puerto and CD Cotillo, who play in Group XII of the Spanish Tercera División RFEF.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "The resort Playitas on the south coast is since around 2008 equipped with a 50 m (160 ft) swimming pool and has become a destination for triathlon training camps for Europeans. An annual race called Challenge Fuerteventura is held there on the half ironman distance.",
"title": "Sport"
}
] |
Fuerteventura is one of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean, part of the North Africa region, and politically part of Spain. It is located 97 km (60 mi) away from the northwestern coast of Africa. The island was declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 2009. Fuerteventura belongs to Province of Las Palmas, one of the two provinces that form the autonomous community of the Canary Islands. The island's capital is Puerto del Rosario, where the Insule Council is found, the government of the island. Fuerteventura has 119,732 inhabitants, the fourth largest population of the Canary Islands and the third of the province. At 1,660 km2 (640 sq mi), it is the second largest of the Canary Islands, after Tenerife. From a geological point of view, Fuerteventura is the oldest island in the archipelago.
|
2001-11-07T21:32:56Z
|
2023-12-28T01:05:50Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuerteventura
|
11,476 |
Fairmount, Indiana
|
Fairmount is a town in Fairmount Township, Grant County in the east central part of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 2,954 at the 2010 census. It is 55 miles (88 km) northeast of Indianapolis. Largely a bedroom community for nearby Marion, Fairmount is best known as the boyhood home of actor James Dean, who is buried there.
According to the 2010 census, Fairmount has a total area of 1.58 square miles (4.09 km), all land.
As of the census of 2010, there were 2,954 people, 1,241 households, and 837 families living in the town. The population density was 1,869.6 inhabitants per square mile (721.9/km). There were 1,350 housing units at an average density of 854.4 per square mile (329.9/km). The racial makeup of the town was 98.6% White, 0.1% African American, 0.2% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 0.2% from other races, and 0.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.9% of the population.
There were 1,241 households, of which 31.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.6% were married couples living together, 14.1% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.8% had a male householder with no wife present, and 32.6% were non-families. 28.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 2.85.
The median age in the town was 40.3 years. 23.9% of residents were under the age of 18; 8.4% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 23.2% were from 25 to 44; 28% were from 45 to 64; and 16.5% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the town was 48.5% male and 51.5% female.
As of the census of 2000, there were 2,992 people, 1,226 households, and 859 families living in the town. The population density was 2,033.0 inhabitants per square mile (784.9/km). There were 1,325 housing units at an average density of 900.3 per square mile (347.6/km). The racial makeup of the town was 98.30% White, 0.17% Black or African American, 0.70% Native American, 0.20% Asian, 0.07% from other races, and 0.57% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.43% of the population.
There were 1,226 households, out of which 31.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.5% were married couples living together, 11.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.9% were non-families. 26.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.44 and the average family size was 2.91.
In the town, the population was spread out, with 25.2% under the age of 18, 8.2% from 18 to 24, 28.2% from 25 to 44, 24.3% from 45 to 64, and 14.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 90.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.0 males.
The median income for a household in the town was $33,843, and the median income for a family was $44,033. Males had a median income of $31,136 versus $23,041 for females. The per capita income for the town was $18,029. About 7.4% of families and 9.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 11.8% of those under age 18 and 7.8% of those age 65 or over.
The Fairmount area was settled in the 1830s mostly by Quakers from North Carolina. The town was laid out in 1850 and named for Fairmount Park in Philadelphia; it was formally incorporated in 1870.
After a large deposit of natural gas was found in 1887, Fairmount became part of the Indiana Gas Boom and a center of the glass industry for the rest of the 19th century. Shortly after the depletion of the gas in 1900 the automobile industry set up factories in the nearby large cities, and Fairmount became a bedroom community, restoring some of its lost prosperity.
In the 1940s, James Dean lived with an aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on a farm north of Fairmount. He attended Fairmount High School, graduating in 1949. After his death in 1955, Dean was buried in Park Cemetery. In 1996, a small Memorial Park north of the town's business district was dedicated in his memory with a bronze bust by Hollywood artist Kenneth Kendall.
During the prosperity of the 1960s, Fairmount enjoyed a time of building with a new town hall, water works, post office and elementary school. At the end of the decade the local school district merged with a neighboring one, forming the Madison-Grant united school district. A new high school was built for this district, and Fairmount High School became a middle school. When a new junior high school was opened in 1986, the Fairmount High School building was permanently closed.
The Baldwin Addition Historic District, Fairmount Commercial Historic District, and J.W. Patterson House are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Madison-Grant United School Corporation operates public schools Fairmount is assigned to.
Schools serving Fairmount:
The town has a lending library, the Fairmount Public Library.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fairmount is a town in Fairmount Township, Grant County in the east central part of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 2,954 at the 2010 census. It is 55 miles (88 km) northeast of Indianapolis. Largely a bedroom community for nearby Marion, Fairmount is best known as the boyhood home of actor James Dean, who is buried there.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "According to the 2010 census, Fairmount has a total area of 1.58 square miles (4.09 km), all land.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "As of the census of 2010, there were 2,954 people, 1,241 households, and 837 families living in the town. The population density was 1,869.6 inhabitants per square mile (721.9/km). There were 1,350 housing units at an average density of 854.4 per square mile (329.9/km). The racial makeup of the town was 98.6% White, 0.1% African American, 0.2% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 0.2% from other races, and 0.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.9% of the population.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "There were 1,241 households, of which 31.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.6% were married couples living together, 14.1% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.8% had a male householder with no wife present, and 32.6% were non-families. 28.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 2.85.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The median age in the town was 40.3 years. 23.9% of residents were under the age of 18; 8.4% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 23.2% were from 25 to 44; 28% were from 45 to 64; and 16.5% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the town was 48.5% male and 51.5% female.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "As of the census of 2000, there were 2,992 people, 1,226 households, and 859 families living in the town. The population density was 2,033.0 inhabitants per square mile (784.9/km). There were 1,325 housing units at an average density of 900.3 per square mile (347.6/km). The racial makeup of the town was 98.30% White, 0.17% Black or African American, 0.70% Native American, 0.20% Asian, 0.07% from other races, and 0.57% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.43% of the population.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "There were 1,226 households, out of which 31.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.5% were married couples living together, 11.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.9% were non-families. 26.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.44 and the average family size was 2.91.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In the town, the population was spread out, with 25.2% under the age of 18, 8.2% from 18 to 24, 28.2% from 25 to 44, 24.3% from 45 to 64, and 14.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 90.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.0 males.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The median income for a household in the town was $33,843, and the median income for a family was $44,033. Males had a median income of $31,136 versus $23,041 for females. The per capita income for the town was $18,029. About 7.4% of families and 9.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 11.8% of those under age 18 and 7.8% of those age 65 or over.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Fairmount area was settled in the 1830s mostly by Quakers from North Carolina. The town was laid out in 1850 and named for Fairmount Park in Philadelphia; it was formally incorporated in 1870.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "After a large deposit of natural gas was found in 1887, Fairmount became part of the Indiana Gas Boom and a center of the glass industry for the rest of the 19th century. Shortly after the depletion of the gas in 1900 the automobile industry set up factories in the nearby large cities, and Fairmount became a bedroom community, restoring some of its lost prosperity.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In the 1940s, James Dean lived with an aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on a farm north of Fairmount. He attended Fairmount High School, graduating in 1949. After his death in 1955, Dean was buried in Park Cemetery. In 1996, a small Memorial Park north of the town's business district was dedicated in his memory with a bronze bust by Hollywood artist Kenneth Kendall.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "During the prosperity of the 1960s, Fairmount enjoyed a time of building with a new town hall, water works, post office and elementary school. At the end of the decade the local school district merged with a neighboring one, forming the Madison-Grant united school district. A new high school was built for this district, and Fairmount High School became a middle school. When a new junior high school was opened in 1986, the Fairmount High School building was permanently closed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Baldwin Addition Historic District, Fairmount Commercial Historic District, and J.W. Patterson House are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Madison-Grant United School Corporation operates public schools Fairmount is assigned to.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Schools serving Fairmount:",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The town has a lending library, the Fairmount Public Library.",
"title": "Education"
}
] |
Fairmount is a town in Fairmount Township, Grant County in the east central part of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 2,954 at the 2010 census. It is 55 miles (88 km) northeast of Indianapolis. Largely a bedroom community for nearby Marion, Fairmount is best known as the boyhood home of actor James Dean, who is buried there.
|
2001-11-07T22:30:30Z
|
2023-12-30T05:05:45Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairmount,_Indiana
|
11,477 |
Epistles to the Thessalonians
|
There are two Epistles to the Thessalonians in the Bible:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "There are two Epistles to the Thessalonians in the Bible:",
"title": ""
}
] |
There are two Epistles to the Thessalonians in the Bible: First Epistle to the Thessalonians
Second Epistle to the Thessalonians
|
2020-07-08T14:38:10Z
|
[
"Template:Disambiguation"
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistles_to_the_Thessalonians
|
|
11,478 |
Free verse
|
Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French vers libre form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.
Free verse does not "proceed by a strict set of rules … is not a literary type, and does not conform to a formal structure." It is not considered to be completely free. In 1948, Charles Allen wrote, "The only freedom cadenced verse obtains is a limited freedom from the tight demands of the metered line." Free verse contains some elements of form, including the poetic line, which may vary freely; rhythm; strophes or strophic rhythms; stanzaic patterns and rhythmic units or cadences. It is said that verse is free "when it is not primarily obtained by the metered line." Donald Hall goes as far as to say that "the form of free verse is as binding and as liberating as the form of a rondeau," and T. S. Eliot wrote, "No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job."
Kenneth Allott, the poet and critic, said the adoption by some poets of vers libre arose from "mere desire for novelty, the imitation of Whitman, the study of Jacobean dramatic blank verse, and the awareness of what French poets had already done to the alexandrine in France." The American critic John Livingston Lowes in 1916 observed "Free verse may be written as very beautiful prose; prose may be written as very beautiful free verse. Which is which?"
Some poets have considered free verse restrictive in its own way. In 1922, Robert Bridges voiced his reservations in the essay "Humdrum and Harum-Scarum". Robert Frost, in a comment regarding Carl Sandburg, later remarked that writing free verse was like "playing tennis without a net." Sandburg responded saying, in part, “There have been poets who could and did play more than one game of tennis with unseen rackets, volleying airy and fantastic balls over an insubstantial net, on a frail moonlight fabric of a court." William Carlos Williams said, "Being an art form, a verse cannot be free in the sense of having no limitations or guiding principles." Yvor Winters, the poet and critic, said, "…the greatest fluidity of statement is possible where the greatest clarity of form prevails. … The free verse that is really verse—the best that is, of W.C. Williams, H. D., Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, and Ezra Pound—is, in its peculiar fashion, the antithesis of free."
In Welsh poetry, however, the term has a completely different meaning. According to Jan Morris, "When Welsh poets speak of Free Verse, they mean forms like the sonnet or the ode, which obey the same rules as English poesy. Strict Metres verse still honours the immensely complex rules laid down for correct poetic composition 600 years ago."
Vers libre is a free-verse poetic form of flexibility, complexity, and naturalness created in the late 19th century in France, in 1886. It was largely through the activities of La Vogue, a weekly journal founded by Gustave Kahn, as well as the appearance of a band of poets unequaled at any one time in the history of French poetry. Their style of poetry was dubbed 'Counter-Romanticism' and it was led by Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Laforgue and Corbière. It was concerned with synaethesis (the harmony or equilibrium of sensation) and later described as "the moment when French poetry began to take consciousness of itself as poetry." Gustave Kahn was commonly supposed to have invented the term vers libre and according to F. S. Flint, he "was undoubtedly the first theorist of the technique(s)." Later in 1912, Robert de Souza published his conclusion on the genre, voicing that "A vers libre was possible which would keep all the essential characteristics of vers Classique, but would free it from the encumbrances which usage had made appear indispensable." Thus the practice of vers libre was not the abandoning of pattern, but the creation of an original and complicated metrical form for each poem.
The formal stimuli for vers libre were vers libéré (French verse of the late 19th century that liberated itself from classical rules of versification whilst observing the principle of isosyllabism and regular patterned rhyme) and vers libre Classique (a minor French genre of the 17th and 18th century which conformed to classic concepts, but in which lines of different length were irregularly and unpredictably combined) and vers Populaire (versification derived from oral aspects of popular song). Remy de Gourmont's Livre des Masques gave definition to the whole vers libre movement; he notes that there should arise, at regular intervals, a full and complete line, which reassures the ear and guides the rhythm.
The unit of vers libre is not the foot, the number of the syllables, the quantity, or the line. The unit is the strophe, which may be the whole poem or only a part. Each strophe is a complete circle. Vers libre is "verse-formal based upon cadence that allows the lines to flow as they will when read aloud by an intelligent reader."
Unrhymed cadence in vers libre is built upon "organic rhythm" or the rhythm of the speaking voice with its necessity for breathing, rather than upon a strict metrical system. For vers libre addresses the ear, not the eye. Vers libre is liberated from traditional rules concerning meter, caesura, and line end stopping. Every syllable pronounced is of nearly equal value but is less strongly accented than in English; being less intense requires less discipline to mold the accents into the poem's rhythm. This new technique, as defined by Kahn, consists of the denial of a regular number of syllables as the basis for verification; the length of the line is long and short, oscillating with images used by the poet following the contours of his or her thoughts and is free rather than regular.
Although free verse requires no meter, rhyme, or other traditional poetic techniques, a poet can still use them to create some sense of structure. A clear example of this can be found in Walt Whitman's poems, where he repeats certain phrases and uses commas to create both a rhythm and structure.
Pattern and discipline are to be found in good free verse: the internal pattern of sounds, the choice of exact words, and the effect of associations give free verse its beauty. With the Imagists free verse became a discipline and acquired status as a legitimate poetic form. Herbert Read, however, noted that "the Imagist Ezra Pound gave free verse its musical structure to an extent that paradoxically it was no longer free."
Unrestrained by traditional boundaries, the poet possesses more license to express and has more control over the development of the poem. This can allow for a more spontaneous and individualized poetic art product.
Technically, free verse has been described as spaced prose, a mosaic of verse and prose experience.
Vers libre, until 1912, had hardly been heard of outside France until T. E. Hulme and F. S. Flint shared their knowledge in 1909 with the Poets Club in London. This later became the heart of the Imagist movement through Flint's advocacy of the genre. Thus, vers libre influenced Imagism in the discovery of new forms and rhythms.
Imagism, in the wake of French Symbolism (i.e. vers libre of French Symbolist poets) was the wellspring out of which the main current of Modernism in English flowed. T. S. Eliot later identified this as "the point de repere usually taken as the starting point of modern poetry," as hundreds of poets were led to adopt vers libre as their medium.
As the French-language term vers libre suggests, this technique of using more irregular cadences is often said to have its origin in the practices of 19th-century French poets such as Gustave Kahn and Jules Laforgue, in his Derniers vers of 1890. Taupin, the US-based French poet and critic, concluded that free verse and vers libre are not synonymous, since "the French language tends to give equal weight to each spoken syllable, whereas English syllables vary in quantity according to whether stressed or unstressed."
The sort of cadencing that we now recognize in free verse can be traced back at least as far as the Biblical Hebrew psalmist poetry of the Bible. By referring to the Psalms, it is possible to argue that free verse in English first appeared in the 1380s in the John Wycliffe translation of the Psalms and was repeated in different form in most biblical translations ever since.
Walt Whitman, who based his long lines in his poetry collection Leaves of Grass on the phrasing of the King James Bible, influenced later American free verse composers, notably Allen Ginsberg. One form of free verse was employed by Christopher Smart in his long poem Jubilate Agno (Latin: Rejoice in the Lamb), written some time between 1759 and 1763 but not published until 1939.
Many poets of the Victorian era experimented with free verse. Christina Rossetti, Coventry Patmore, and T. E. Brown all wrote examples of rhymed but unmetered verse, poems such as W. E. Henley's "Discharged" (from his In Hospital sequence).
Free verse in English was persuasively advocated by critic T. E. Hulme in his A Lecture on Modern Poetry (1908). Later in the preface to Some Imagist Poets 1916, he comments, "Only the name is new, you will find something much like vers libre in Dryden's Threnodia Augustalis; a great deal of Milton's Samson Agonistes, and the oldest in Chaucer's House of Fame."
In France, a few pieces in Arthur Rimbaud's prose poem collection Illuminations were arranged in manuscript in lines, rather than prose, and in the Netherlands, tachtiger (i.e., a member of the 1880s generation of innovative poets) Frederik van Eeden employed the form at least once in his poem "Waterlelie" ("Water Lily").
Goethe in some early poems, such as "Prometheus" and also Hölderlin used free verse occasionally, due in part to a misinterpretation of the meter used in Pindar's poetry. Hölderlin also continued to write unmetered poems after discovering this error.
The German poet Heinrich Heine made an important contribution to the development of free verse with 22 poems, written in two-poem cycles, called Die Nordsee (The North Sea) (written 1825–1826). These were first published in Buch der Lieder (Book of Songs) in 1827.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French vers libre form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Free verse does not \"proceed by a strict set of rules … is not a literary type, and does not conform to a formal structure.\" It is not considered to be completely free. In 1948, Charles Allen wrote, \"The only freedom cadenced verse obtains is a limited freedom from the tight demands of the metered line.\" Free verse contains some elements of form, including the poetic line, which may vary freely; rhythm; strophes or strophic rhythms; stanzaic patterns and rhythmic units or cadences. It is said that verse is free \"when it is not primarily obtained by the metered line.\" Donald Hall goes as far as to say that \"the form of free verse is as binding and as liberating as the form of a rondeau,\" and T. S. Eliot wrote, \"No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job.\"",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Kenneth Allott, the poet and critic, said the adoption by some poets of vers libre arose from \"mere desire for novelty, the imitation of Whitman, the study of Jacobean dramatic blank verse, and the awareness of what French poets had already done to the alexandrine in France.\" The American critic John Livingston Lowes in 1916 observed \"Free verse may be written as very beautiful prose; prose may be written as very beautiful free verse. Which is which?\"",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Some poets have considered free verse restrictive in its own way. In 1922, Robert Bridges voiced his reservations in the essay \"Humdrum and Harum-Scarum\". Robert Frost, in a comment regarding Carl Sandburg, later remarked that writing free verse was like \"playing tennis without a net.\" Sandburg responded saying, in part, “There have been poets who could and did play more than one game of tennis with unseen rackets, volleying airy and fantastic balls over an insubstantial net, on a frail moonlight fabric of a court.\" William Carlos Williams said, \"Being an art form, a verse cannot be free in the sense of having no limitations or guiding principles.\" Yvor Winters, the poet and critic, said, \"…the greatest fluidity of statement is possible where the greatest clarity of form prevails. … The free verse that is really verse—the best that is, of W.C. Williams, H. D., Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, and Ezra Pound—is, in its peculiar fashion, the antithesis of free.\"",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In Welsh poetry, however, the term has a completely different meaning. According to Jan Morris, \"When Welsh poets speak of Free Verse, they mean forms like the sonnet or the ode, which obey the same rules as English poesy. Strict Metres verse still honours the immensely complex rules laid down for correct poetic composition 600 years ago.\"",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Vers libre is a free-verse poetic form of flexibility, complexity, and naturalness created in the late 19th century in France, in 1886. It was largely through the activities of La Vogue, a weekly journal founded by Gustave Kahn, as well as the appearance of a band of poets unequaled at any one time in the history of French poetry. Their style of poetry was dubbed 'Counter-Romanticism' and it was led by Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Laforgue and Corbière. It was concerned with synaethesis (the harmony or equilibrium of sensation) and later described as \"the moment when French poetry began to take consciousness of itself as poetry.\" Gustave Kahn was commonly supposed to have invented the term vers libre and according to F. S. Flint, he \"was undoubtedly the first theorist of the technique(s).\" Later in 1912, Robert de Souza published his conclusion on the genre, voicing that \"A vers libre was possible which would keep all the essential characteristics of vers Classique, but would free it from the encumbrances which usage had made appear indispensable.\" Thus the practice of vers libre was not the abandoning of pattern, but the creation of an original and complicated metrical form for each poem.",
"title": "Vers libre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The formal stimuli for vers libre were vers libéré (French verse of the late 19th century that liberated itself from classical rules of versification whilst observing the principle of isosyllabism and regular patterned rhyme) and vers libre Classique (a minor French genre of the 17th and 18th century which conformed to classic concepts, but in which lines of different length were irregularly and unpredictably combined) and vers Populaire (versification derived from oral aspects of popular song). Remy de Gourmont's Livre des Masques gave definition to the whole vers libre movement; he notes that there should arise, at regular intervals, a full and complete line, which reassures the ear and guides the rhythm.",
"title": "Vers libre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The unit of vers libre is not the foot, the number of the syllables, the quantity, or the line. The unit is the strophe, which may be the whole poem or only a part. Each strophe is a complete circle. Vers libre is \"verse-formal based upon cadence that allows the lines to flow as they will when read aloud by an intelligent reader.\"",
"title": "Vers libre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Unrhymed cadence in vers libre is built upon \"organic rhythm\" or the rhythm of the speaking voice with its necessity for breathing, rather than upon a strict metrical system. For vers libre addresses the ear, not the eye. Vers libre is liberated from traditional rules concerning meter, caesura, and line end stopping. Every syllable pronounced is of nearly equal value but is less strongly accented than in English; being less intense requires less discipline to mold the accents into the poem's rhythm. This new technique, as defined by Kahn, consists of the denial of a regular number of syllables as the basis for verification; the length of the line is long and short, oscillating with images used by the poet following the contours of his or her thoughts and is free rather than regular.",
"title": "Vers libre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Although free verse requires no meter, rhyme, or other traditional poetic techniques, a poet can still use them to create some sense of structure. A clear example of this can be found in Walt Whitman's poems, where he repeats certain phrases and uses commas to create both a rhythm and structure.",
"title": "Vers libre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Pattern and discipline are to be found in good free verse: the internal pattern of sounds, the choice of exact words, and the effect of associations give free verse its beauty. With the Imagists free verse became a discipline and acquired status as a legitimate poetic form. Herbert Read, however, noted that \"the Imagist Ezra Pound gave free verse its musical structure to an extent that paradoxically it was no longer free.\"",
"title": "Vers libre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Unrestrained by traditional boundaries, the poet possesses more license to express and has more control over the development of the poem. This can allow for a more spontaneous and individualized poetic art product.",
"title": "Vers libre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Technically, free verse has been described as spaced prose, a mosaic of verse and prose experience.",
"title": "Vers libre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Vers libre, until 1912, had hardly been heard of outside France until T. E. Hulme and F. S. Flint shared their knowledge in 1909 with the Poets Club in London. This later became the heart of the Imagist movement through Flint's advocacy of the genre. Thus, vers libre influenced Imagism in the discovery of new forms and rhythms.",
"title": "Vers libre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Imagism, in the wake of French Symbolism (i.e. vers libre of French Symbolist poets) was the wellspring out of which the main current of Modernism in English flowed. T. S. Eliot later identified this as \"the point de repere usually taken as the starting point of modern poetry,\" as hundreds of poets were led to adopt vers libre as their medium.",
"title": "Vers libre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "As the French-language term vers libre suggests, this technique of using more irregular cadences is often said to have its origin in the practices of 19th-century French poets such as Gustave Kahn and Jules Laforgue, in his Derniers vers of 1890. Taupin, the US-based French poet and critic, concluded that free verse and vers libre are not synonymous, since \"the French language tends to give equal weight to each spoken syllable, whereas English syllables vary in quantity according to whether stressed or unstressed.\"",
"title": "Antecedents"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The sort of cadencing that we now recognize in free verse can be traced back at least as far as the Biblical Hebrew psalmist poetry of the Bible. By referring to the Psalms, it is possible to argue that free verse in English first appeared in the 1380s in the John Wycliffe translation of the Psalms and was repeated in different form in most biblical translations ever since.",
"title": "Antecedents"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Walt Whitman, who based his long lines in his poetry collection Leaves of Grass on the phrasing of the King James Bible, influenced later American free verse composers, notably Allen Ginsberg. One form of free verse was employed by Christopher Smart in his long poem Jubilate Agno (Latin: Rejoice in the Lamb), written some time between 1759 and 1763 but not published until 1939.",
"title": "Antecedents"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Many poets of the Victorian era experimented with free verse. Christina Rossetti, Coventry Patmore, and T. E. Brown all wrote examples of rhymed but unmetered verse, poems such as W. E. Henley's \"Discharged\" (from his In Hospital sequence).",
"title": "Antecedents"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Free verse in English was persuasively advocated by critic T. E. Hulme in his A Lecture on Modern Poetry (1908). Later in the preface to Some Imagist Poets 1916, he comments, \"Only the name is new, you will find something much like vers libre in Dryden's Threnodia Augustalis; a great deal of Milton's Samson Agonistes, and the oldest in Chaucer's House of Fame.\"",
"title": "Antecedents"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In France, a few pieces in Arthur Rimbaud's prose poem collection Illuminations were arranged in manuscript in lines, rather than prose, and in the Netherlands, tachtiger (i.e., a member of the 1880s generation of innovative poets) Frederik van Eeden employed the form at least once in his poem \"Waterlelie\" (\"Water Lily\").",
"title": "Antecedents"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Goethe in some early poems, such as \"Prometheus\" and also Hölderlin used free verse occasionally, due in part to a misinterpretation of the meter used in Pindar's poetry. Hölderlin also continued to write unmetered poems after discovering this error.",
"title": "Antecedents"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The German poet Heinrich Heine made an important contribution to the development of free verse with 22 poems, written in two-poem cycles, called Die Nordsee (The North Sea) (written 1825–1826). These were first published in Buch der Lieder (Book of Songs) in 1827.",
"title": "Antecedents"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "",
"title": "Further reading"
}
] |
Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French vers libre form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.
|
2002-02-25T15:51:15Z
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2023-10-27T16:36:14Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_verse
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F. W. de Klerk
|
Frederik Willem de Klerk OMG DMS (/də ˈklɜːrk, də ˈklɛərk/ də-KLURK, də-KLAIRK, Afrikaans: [ˈfriədərək ˈvələm də ˈklɛrk]; 18 March 1936 – 11 November 2021) was a South African politician who served as state president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as deputy president from 1994 to 1996. As South Africa's last head of state from the era of white-minority rule, he and his government dismantled the apartheid system and introduced universal suffrage. Ideologically a social conservative and an economic liberal, he led the National Party (NP) from 1989 to 1997.
Born in Johannesburg to an influential Afrikaner family, de Klerk studied at Potchefstroom University before pursuing a career in law. Joining the NP, to which he had family ties, he was elected to parliament and sat in the white-minority government of P. W. Botha, holding a succession of ministerial posts. As a minister, he supported and enforced apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged white South Africans. After Botha resigned in 1989, de Klerk replaced him, first as leader of the NP and then as State President. Although observers expected him to continue Botha's defence of apartheid, de Klerk decided to end the policy. He was aware that growing ethnic animosity and violence was leading South Africa into a racial civil war. Amid this violence, the state security forces committed widespread human rights abuses and encouraged violence between the Xhosa and Zulu people, although de Klerk later denied sanctioning such actions. He permitted anti-apartheid marches to take place, legalised a range of previously banned anti-apartheid political parties, and freed imprisoned anti-apartheid activists such as Nelson Mandela. He also dismantled South Africa's nuclear weapons program.
De Klerk negotiated with Mandela to fully dismantle apartheid and establish a transition to universal suffrage. In 1993, he publicly apologised for apartheid's harmful effects. He oversaw the 1994 non-racial election in which Mandela led the African National Congress (ANC) to victory; de Klerk's NP took second place. De Klerk then became Deputy President in Mandela's ANC-led coalition, the Government of National Unity. In this position, he supported the government's continued liberal economic policies but opposed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to investigate past human rights abuses because he wanted total amnesty for political crimes. His working relationship with Mandela was strained, although he later spoke fondly of him. In May 1996, after the NP objected to the new constitution, de Klerk withdrew it from the coalition government; the party disbanded the following year and reformed as the New National Party. In 1997, he retired from active politics and thereafter lectured internationally.
De Klerk was a controversial figure among many sections of South African society. He received many awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize for dismantling apartheid and bringing universal suffrage to South Africa. Conversely, he received criticism from anti-apartheid activists for offering only a qualified apology for apartheid, and for ignoring the human rights abuses by state security forces. He was also condemned by pro-apartheid Afrikaners, who contended that by abandoning apartheid, he betrayed the interests of the country's Afrikaner minority.
F. W. de Klerk was born on 18 March 1936 in Mayfair, a suburb of Johannesburg. His parents were Johannes "Jan" de Klerk and Hendrina Cornelia Coetzer—"her forefather was a Kutzer who stems from Austria." He was his parents' second son, having a brother, Willem de Klerk, who was eight years his senior. De Klerk's first language was Afrikaans and the earliest of his distant ancestors to arrive in what is now South Africa did so in the late 1680s.
De Klerk had a secure and comfortable upbringing, and his family had played a leading role in Afrikaner society; they had longstanding affiliations with South Africa's National Party. His paternal great-grandfather, Jan van Rooy, had been a Senator, while his paternal grandfather, Willem, had been a clergyman who fought in the Second Boer War and stood twice, unsuccessfully, as a National Party candidate. His paternal aunt's husband was J. G. Strijdom, a former Prime Minister. His own father, Jan de Klerk, was also a senator, served as the secretary of the National Party in Transvaal, president of the senate for seven years, acting state president, and as a member of the country's cabinet for fifteen years under three prime ministers. In this environment, de Klerk was exposed to politics from childhood. He and family members would be encouraged to hold family debates; his more conservative opinions would be challenged by his brother Willem, who was sympathetic to the more liberal, "enlightened" faction of the National Party. Willem became a political analyst and later split from the National Party to found the liberal Democratic Party.
The name "de Klerk" is derived from Le Clerc, Le Clercq and De Clercq, and is of French Huguenot origin (meaning "clergyman" or "literate" in old French). De Klerk noted that he was also of Dutch descent, with an Indian ancestor from the late-1690s or early 1700s. He was also said to have been descended from the Khoi interpreter known as Krotoa or Eva.
When de Klerk was twelve years old, the apartheid system was officially institutionalised by the South African government; his father had been one of its originators. He therefore was, according to his brother, "one of a generation that grew up with the concept of apartheid". He was inculturated in the norms and values of Afrikaner society, including festivals like Kruger Day, loyalty to the Afrikaner nation, and stories of the "age of injustice" that the Afrikaner faced under the British. He was brought up in the Gereformeerde Kerk, the smallest and most socially conservative of South Africa's three Dutch Reformed Churches.
The de Klerk family moved around South Africa during his childhood, and he changed schools seven times over seven years. He eventually became a boarder at the Hoërskool Monument (Monument High School) in Krugersdorp, where he graduated with a first-class pass in 1953. He was nevertheless disappointed not to get the four distinctions he was hoping for.
Between 1954 and 1958, de Klerk studied at Potchefstroom University, graduating with both a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Law. He later noted that during this legal training, he "became accustomed to thinking in terms of legal principles". While studying there, he became editor of the student newspaper, vice-chair of the student council, and a member of the Afrikaanse Studentebond's (a large South African youth movement) national executive council. At university, he was initiated into the Broederbond, a secret society for the Afrikaner social elite. As a student, he played both tennis and hockey and was known as "something of a ladies' man". At the university, he began a relationship with Marike Willemse, the daughter of a professor at the University of Pretoria. The couple married in 1959, when de Klerk was 23 and his wife was 22.
After university, de Klerk pursued a legal career, becoming an articled clerk with the firm Pelser in Klerksdorp. Relocating to Pretoria, he became an articled clerk for another law firm, Mac-Robert.
In 1962, he set up his own law partnership in Vereeniging, Transvaal, which he built into a successful business over ten years.
During this period, he involved himself in a range of other activities. He was the national chair of the Junior Rapportryers for two years, and chair of the Law Society of Vaal Triangle. He was also on the council of the local technikon, on the council of his church, and on a local school board.
In 1972, his alma mater offered him a chair in its law faculty, which he accepted. Within a matter of days he was also approached by members of the National Party, who requested that he stand for the party at Vereeniging. De Klerk's candidature was successful and in November he was elected to the House of Assembly. There, he established a reputation as a formidable debater. He took on a number of roles in the party and government. He became the information officer of the Transvaal National Party, responsible for its propaganda output, and helped to establish a new National Party youth movement. He joined various party parliamentary study groups, including those on the Bantustans, labour, justice, and home affairs. As a member of various parliamentary groups, de Klerk went on several foreign visits, to Israel, West Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It was in the latter in 1976 that he observed what he later described as the pervasive racism of US society, later noting that he "saw more racial incidents in one month there than in South Africa in a year". In South Africa, de Klerk also played a senior role in two select committees, one formulating a policy on opening hotels to non-Whites and the other formulating a new censorship law that was less strict than the one that had preceded it.
In 1975, Prime Minister John Vorster predicted that de Klerk would one day become leader of South Africa. Vorster planned to promote de Klerk to the position of a deputy minister in January 1976, but instead the job went to Andries Treurnicht. In April 1978, de Klerk was promoted to the position of Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions. In this role, he restored full autonomy to sporting control bodies which had for a time been under the jurisdiction of the government. As minister of Post and Telecommunications, he finalised contracts that oversaw the electrification of that sector. As Minister of Mining, he formalised a policy on coal exports and the structuring of Eskom and the Atomic Energy Corporation. He then became Minister of the Interior, he oversaw the repeal of the Mixed Marriages Act.
In 1981, de Klerk was awarded the Decoration for Meritorious Service for his work in the government. As education minister between 1984 and 1989, he upheld the apartheid system in South Africa's schools, and extended the department to cover all racial groups.
For most of his career, de Klerk had a very conservative reputation, and was seen as someone who would obstruct change in South Africa. He had been a forceful proponent of apartheid's system of racial segregation and was perceived as an advocate of the white minority's interests. While serving under P. W. Botha's government, de Klerk was never part of Botha's inner circle.
P. W. Botha resigned as leader of the National Party after an apparent stroke, and de Klerk defeated Botha's preferred successor, finance minister Barend du Plessis, in the race to succeed him. On 2 February 1989, he was elected leader of the National Party. He defeated main rival Barend du Plessis to the position by a majority of eight votes, 69–61. Soon after, he called for the introduction of a new South African constitution, hinting that it would need to provide greater concession to non-white racial groups. After becoming party leader, de Klerk extended his foreign contacts. He travelled to London, where he met with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Although she opposed the anti-apartheid movement's calls for economic sanctions against South Africa, at the meeting she urged de Klerk to release the imprisoned anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela. He also expressed a desire to meet with representatives of the US government in Washington D.C., although American secretary of state James Baker informed him that the US government considered it inopportune to have de Klerk meet with President George H. W. Bush.
Botha resigned on 14 August 1989, and de Klerk was named acting State President of South Africa until 20 September, when he was elected to a full five-year term as State President. After he became acting State President, ANC leaders spoke out against him, believing that he would be no different from his predecessors; he was widely regarded as a staunch supporter of apartheid. The prominent anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu shared this assessment, stating: "I don't think we've got to even begin to pretend that there is any reason for thinking that we are entering a new phase. It's just musical chairs". Tutu and Allan Boesak had been planning a protest march in Cape Town, which the security chiefs wanted to prevent. De Klerk nevertheless turned down their proposal to ban it, agreeing to let the march proceed and stating that "the door to a new South Africa is open, it is not necessary to batter it down". The march took place and was attended by approximately 30,000 people. Further protest marches followed in Grahamstown, Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Durban. De Klerk later noted that his security forces could not have prevented the marchers from gathering: "The choice, therefore, was between breaking up an illegal march with all of the attendant risks of violence and negative publicity, or of allowing the march to continue, subject to conditions that could help to avoid violence and ensure good public order." This decision marked a clear departure from the Botha era.
As State President, he authorised the continuation of secret talks in Geneva between his National Intelligence Service and two exiled ANC leaders, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. In October, he personally agreed to meet with Tutu, Boesak, and Frank Chikane in a private meeting in Pretoria. That month, he also released a number of elderly anti-apartheid activists then imprisoned, including Walter Sisulu. He also ordered the closure of the National Security Management System. In December he visited Mandela in prison, speaking with him for three hours about the idea of transitioning away from white-minority rule. The collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the dissolution of the Soviet Union meant that he no longer feared that Marxists would manipulate the ANC. As he later related, the collapse of "the Marxist economic system in Eastern Europe... serves as a warning to those who insist on persisting with it in Africa. Those who seek to force this failure of a system on South Africa should engage in a total revision of their point of view. It should be clear to all that it is not the answer here either."
History has placed a tremendous responsibility on the shoulders of this country's leadership, namely the responsibility of moving our country away from the current course of conflict and confrontation... The hope of millions of South Africans is fixed on us. The future of southern Africa depends on us. We dare not waver or fail.
— de Klerk's speech to Parliament, February 1990
On 2 February 1990, in an address to the country's parliament, he introduced plans for sweeping reforms of the political system. A number of banned political parties, including the ANC and Communist Party of South Africa, would be legalised, although he emphasised that this did not constitute an endorsement of their socialist economic policies nor of violent actions carried out by their members. All of those who were imprisoned solely for belonging to a banned organisation would be freed, including Nelson Mandela; the latter was released a week later. He also announced the lifting of the Separate Amenities Act of 1953, which governed the segregation of public facilities. The vision set forth in de Klerk's address was for South Africa to become a Western-style liberal democracy; with a market-oriented economy which valued private enterprise and restricted the government's role in economics.
De Klerk later related that "that speech was mainly aimed at breaking our stalemate in Africa and the West. Internationally we were teetering on the edge of the abyss." Throughout South Africa and across the world, there was astonishment at de Klerk's move. Foreign press coverage was largely positive and de Klerk received messages of support from other governments. Tutu said that "It's incredible... Give him credit. Give him credit, I do." Some black radicals regarded it as a gimmick and that it would prove to be without substance. It was also received negatively by some on the white right-wing, including in the Conservative Party, who believed that de Klerk was betraying the white population. De Klerk believed that the sudden growth of the Conservatives and other white right-wing groups was a passing phase reflecting anxiety and insecurity. These white right-wing groups were aware that they would not get what they wanted through the forthcoming negotiations, and so increasingly tried to derail the negotiations using reactionary violence. The white-dominated liberal Democratic Party, meanwhile, found itself in limbo, as de Klerk embraced much of the platform it had espoused, leaving it without a clear purpose.
Further reforms followed; membership of the National Party was opened up to non-whites. In June, parliament approved new legislation that repealed the Natives Land Act, 1913 and Native Trust and Land Act, 1936. The Population Registration Act, which established the racial classificatory guidelines for South Africa, was rescinded.
In 1990, de Klerk gave orders to end South Africa's nuclear weapons programme; the process of nuclear disarmament was essentially completed in 1991. The existence of the nuclear programme was not officially acknowledged before 1993.
I believe the new political order will and must contain the following elements: a democratic constitution, universal suffrage, no domination, equality before an independent judiciary, the protection of minorities and individual rights, freedom of religion, a healthy economy based on proven economic principles and private initiative, and a dynamic programme for better education, health services, housing and social conditions for all... I am not talking of a rosy and tranquil future, but I believe the broad mainstream of South Africans will gradually build up South Africa into a society that will be worth living and working in.
— de Klerk on a post-apartheid society
His presidency was dominated by the negotiation process, mainly between his NP government and the ANC, which led to the democratisation of South Africa. On 17 March 1992, de Klerk held a whites-only referendum on ending apartheid, with the result being an overwhelming "yes" vote to continue negotiations to end apartheid.
Nelson Mandela was distrustful of the role played by de Klerk in the negotiations, particularly as he believed that de Klerk was knowledgeable about 'third force' attempts to foment violence in the country and destabilise the negotiations. De Klerk's possible role in the 'third force' came to the attention of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but was ultimately never clarified. De Klerk was accused by writer Anthony Sampson of complicity in the violence among the ANC, the Inkatha Freedom Party and elements of the security forces. He also accused de Klerk of permitting his ministers to build their own criminal empires.
On 17 July 1992, the Boipatong massacre by the Inkatha Freedom Party occurred, killing 45 people. The massacre caused a resurgence of international pressure against South Africa over claims of police collusion, leading to a weaker position at the negotiation tables for the National Party. The Goldstone Commission concluded there was no evidence of police collusion in the massacre.
On 30 April 1993, de Klerk issued an apology for the actions of the apartheid government, stating that: "It was not our intention to deprive people of their rights and to cause misery, but eventually apartheid led to just that. Insofar as to what occurred we deeply regret it... Yes we are sorry". Tutu urged people to accept the apology, stating that "saying sorry is not an easy thing to do... We should be magnanimous and accept it as a magnanimous act", although Tutu was privately frustrated that de Klerk's apology had been qualified and had not gone so far as to call apartheid an intrinsically evil policy.
De Klerk authorised the raid on Mthatha against suspected Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA) fighters on 8 October 1993 that killed three teenagers and two twelve year olds. The Minister of Defence said the raid had been undertaken to pre-empt attacks by the APLA on civilians and that one of the victims had brandished a weapon. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded the raid was a "gross violation of human rights"
On 10 December 1993, de Klerk and Mandela were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo for their work in ending apartheid.
South Africa held its first universal elections in 1994 from 26 to 29 April. The ANC won the election with 62 per cent, while the National Party received 20 per cent. De Klerk became deputy president in the national unity government under Nelson Mandela.
De Klerk had been unhappy that changes had been made to the inauguration ceremony, rendering it multi-religious rather than reflecting the newly elected leader's particular denomination. When he was being sworn in, and the chief justice said "So help me God", de Klerk did not repeat this, instead stating, in Afrikaans: "So help me the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit".
Mandela reappointed de Klerk's finance minister, Derek Keys, and retained Chris Stals, a former member of the Broederbond, as the Governor of the South African Reserve Bank. De Klerk supported the coalition's economic policies, stating that it "accepted a broad framework of responsible economic policies".
De Klerk's working relationship with Mandela was often strained, with the former finding it difficult adjusting to the fact that he was no longer State President. De Klerk also felt that Mandela deliberately humiliated him, while Mandela found de Klerk to be needlessly provocative in cabinet. One dispute occurred in September 1995, after Mandela gave a Johannesburg speech criticising the National Party. Angered, de Klerk avoided Mandela until the latter requested they meet. The two ran into each other, and they publicly argued in the streets. Mandela later expressed regret for their disagreement but did not apologise for his original comments. De Klerk was also having problems from within his own party, some of whose members claimed that he was neglecting the party while in the government.
Many in the National Party—including many members of its executive committee—were unhappy with the other parties' agreed upon new constitution in May 1996. The party had wanted the constitution to guarantee that it would be represented in the government until 2004, although it did not do so. On 9 May, de Klerk withdrew the National Party from the coalition government. The decision shocked several of his six fellow Afrikaner cabinet colleagues; Pik Botha, for example, was left without a job as a result. Roelf Meyer felt betrayed by de Klerk's act, while Leon Wessels thought that de Klerk had not tried hard enough to make the coalition work. De Klerk declared that he would lead the National Party in vigorous opposition to Mandela's government to ensure "a proper multi-party democracy, without which there may be a danger of South Africa lapsing into the African pattern of one-party states".
In de Klerk's view, his greatest defeat in the negotiations with Mandela had been his inability to secure a blanket amnesty for all those working for the government or state during the apartheid period. De Klerk was unhappy with the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). He had hoped that the TRC would be made up of an equal number of individuals from both the old and new governments, as there had been in the Chilean human rights commission. Instead, the TRC was designed to broadly reflect the wider diversity of South African society, and contained only two members who had explicitly supported apartheid, one a member of a right-wing group that had opposed de Klerk's National Party. De Klerk did not object to Tutu being selected as the TRC's chair for he regarded him as politically independent of Mandela's government, but he was upset that the white Progressive Party MP Alex Boraine had been selected as its deputy chair, later saying of Boraine: "beneath an urbane and deceptively affable exterior beat the heart of a zealot and an inquisitor."
De Klerk appeared before the TRC hearing to testify for Vlakplaas commanders who were accused of having committed human rights abuses during the apartheid era. He acknowledged that security forces had resorted to "unconventional strategies" in dealing with anti-apartheid revolutionaries, but that "within my knowledge and experience, they never included the authorization of assassination, murder, torture, rape, assault or the like". After further evidence of said abuses was produced by the commission, de Klerk stated that he found the revelations to be "as shocking and as abhorrent as anybody else" but insisted that he and other senior party members were not willing to accept responsibility for the "criminal actions of a handful of operatives", stating that their behaviour was "not authorized [and] not intended" by his government. Given the widespread and systemic nature of the abuses that had taken place, as well as statements by security officers that their actions had been sanctioned by higher ranking figures, Tutu questioned how de Klerk and other government figures could not have been aware of them. Tutu had hoped that de Klerk or another senior white political figure from the apartheid era would openly accept responsibility for the human rights abuses, thereby allowing South Africa to move on; this was something that de Klerk would not do.
The TRC found de Klerk guilty of being an accessory to gross violations of human rights on the basis that as State President he had been told that P. W. Botha had authorised the bombing of Khotso House but had not revealed this information to the committee. De Klerk challenged the TRC on this point, and it backed down. When the final TRC report was released in 2002, it made a more limited accusation: that de Klerk had failed to give full disclosure about events that took place during his presidency and that in view of his knowledge about the Khotso House bombing, his statement that none of his colleagues had authorised gross human rights abuses was "indefensible". In his later autobiography, de Klerk acknowledged that the TRC did significant damage to his public image.
In 1994, de Klerk was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
In 1997, de Klerk was offered the Harper Fellowship at Yale Law School. He declined, citing protests at the university. De Klerk did, however, speak at Central Connecticut State University the day before his fellowship would have begun.
In 1999, de Klerk and his wife of 38 years, Marike de Klerk, were divorced following the discovery of his affair with Elita Georgiades, then the wife of Tony Georgiades, a Greek shipping tycoon who had allegedly given de Klerk and the NP financial support. Soon after his divorce, de Klerk and Georgiades were married. His divorce and remarriage scandalised conservative South African opinion, especially among the Calvinist Afrikaners. In 1999, his autobiography, The Last Trek – A New Beginning, was published. In 2002, following the murder of his former wife, the manuscript of her own autobiography, A Place Where the Sun Shines Again, was submitted to de Klerk, who urged the publishers to suppress a chapter dealing with his infidelity.
In 2000, de Klerk established the pro-peace FW de Klerk Foundation of which he was the chairman. De Klerk was also chairman of the Global Leadership Foundation, headquartered in London, which he set up in 2004, an organisation which works to support democratic leadership, prevent and resolve conflict through mediation and promote good governance in the form of democratic institutions, open markets, human rights and the rule of law. It does so by making available, discreetly and in confidence, the experience of former leaders to today's national leaders. It is a not-for-profit organisation composed of former heads of government and senior governmental and international organisation officials who work closely with heads of government on governance-related issues of concern to them.
On 3 December 2001, Marike de Klerk was found stabbed and strangled to death in her Cape Town flat. De Klerk, who was on a brief visit to Stockholm, Sweden, to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the Nobel Prize foundation, immediately returned to mourn his dead ex-wife. The atrocity was reportedly condemned strongly by South African president Thabo Mbeki and Winnie Mandela, among others, who openly spoke in favour of Marike de Klerk. On 6 December 21-year-old security guard Luyanda Mboniswa was arrested for the murder. On 15 May 2003, he received two life sentences for murder, as well as three years for breaking into Marike de Klerk's apartment.
In 2005, de Klerk quit the New National Party and sought a new political home after the NNP merged with the ruling ANC. That same year, while giving an interview to US journalist Richard Stengel, de Klerk was asked whether South Africa had turned out the way he envisioned it back in 1990. His response was:
There are a number of imperfections in the new South Africa where I would have hoped that things would be better, but on balance I think we have basically achieved what we set out to achieve. And if I were to draw balance sheets on where South Africa stands now, I would say that the positive outweighs the negative by far. There is a tendency by commentators across the world to focus on the few negatives which are quite negative, like how are we handling AIDS, like our role vis-à-vis Zimbabwe. But the positives – the stability in South Africa, the adherence to well-balanced economic policies, fighting inflation, doing all the right things in order to lay the basis and the foundation for sustained economic growth – are in place.
In 2008, he repeated in a speech that "despite all the negatives facing South Africa, he was very positive about the country".
In 2006, he underwent surgery for a malignant tumor in his colon. His condition deteriorated sharply, and he underwent a tracheotomy after developing respiratory problems. He recovered and on 11 September 2006 gave a speech at Kent State University Stark Campus.
In January 2007, de Klerk was a speaker promoting peace and democracy in the world at the "Towards a Global Forum on New Democracies" event in Taipei, Taiwan, along with other dignitaries including Poland's Lech Wałęsa and Taiwan's president Chen Shui-Bian.
De Klerk was an Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society of Trinity College Dublin, and Honorary Chairman of the Prague Society for International Cooperation. He also received the gold medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse from the College Historical Society of Trinity College, Dublin, for his contribution to ending apartheid.
De Klerk was also a member of the advisory board of the Global Panel Foundation based in Berlin, Copenhagen, New York, Prague, Sydney and Toronto—founded by the Dutch entrepreneur Bas Spuybroek in 1988, with the support of Dutch billionaire Frans Lurvink and former Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek. The Global Panel Foundation is known for its behind-the-scenes work in public policy and the annual presentation of the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award with the Prague Society for International Cooperation.
De Klerk was a member of the advisory board of the WORLD.MINDS Foundation, based in Switzerland. WORLD.MINDS is known for establishing close personal ties between leaders in government, science and business.
After the inauguration of Jacob Zuma as South Africa's president in May 2009, de Klerk said he was optimistic that Zuma and his government can "confound the prophets of doom".
In a BBC interview broadcast in April 2012, he said he lived in an all-white neighbourhood. He had five servants, three coloured and two black: "We are one great big family together; we have the best of relationships." About Nelson Mandela, he said, "When Mandela goes it will be a moment when all South Africans put away their political differences, will take hands, and will together honour maybe the biggest known South African that has ever lived."
De Klerk received a pacemaker in July 2013.
Upon hearing of the death of Mandela, de Klerk said: "He was a great unifier and a very, very special man in this regard beyond everything else he did. This emphasis on reconciliation was his biggest legacy." He attended the memorial service for him on 10 December 2013.
In 2015, de Klerk wrote to The Times newspaper in the UK criticising a campaign to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes from Oriel College, Oxford. He was subsequently criticised by some activists who described it as "ironic" that the last apartheid president should be defending a statue of a man labelled by critics as the "architect of apartheid". South Africa's far-left Economic Freedom Fighters called for him to be stripped of his Nobel Peace Prize. In 2020, de Klerk told an interviewer that the description of apartheid as a "crime against humanity" "was and remains an agitprop project initiated by the Soviets and their ANC/SACP allies to stigmatize white South Africans by associating them with genuine crimes against humanity." This generated controversy in South Africa, and further calls for the removal of his Nobel Prize. De Klerk's Foundation retracted his statement several days later.
Allow me in this last message to share with you the fact that since the early 80s, my views changed completely. It was as if I had a conversion. And in my heart of hearts, I realized that apartheid was wrong. I realized that we had arrived at a place which was morally unjustifiable. My conversion, to which I refer didn't end with the admission to myself of the total unacceptability of apartheid. It motivated us in the National Party to take the initiatives we took from the time that I became leader of the National Party. And more specifically, during my presidency. We did not only admit the wrongness of apartheid, we took far-reaching measures to ensure negotiation and a new dispensation which could bring justice to all.
— de Klerk's final message
On 19 March 2021, it was announced that de Klerk had been diagnosed with mesothelioma. He died from complications of the disease in his sleep at his home in Cape Town on 11 November 2021, at the age of 85. He was the last surviving State President of South Africa.
After his death, a video message from de Klerk was released from the FW de Klerk Foundation, apologising "without qualification" for the harm caused from apartheid and pleading that the government and all South Africans would embrace the constitution in a balanced manner while also promoting economic growth, guarding the independence and impartiality of the courts, as well as promoting non-racialism and non-discrimination in South Africa.
On 16 November 2021, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a four-day mourning period for de Klerk and ordered for all of the national South African flags to fly at half-mast from 17 to 21 November "as a mark of respect." Though the de Klerk family determined that he would have a private cremation and funeral, the South African government agreed to hold a state memorial service for de Klerk "in which government leaders, leaders of political parties and representatives of civil society will participate" at a later date. The state memorial service was held in Cape Town on 12 December 2021, and saw Ramaphosa deliver the keynote speech.
De Klerk was widely regarded as a politically conservative figure in South Africa. At the same time, he was flexible rather than dogmatic in his approach to political issues. He often hedged his bets and sought to accommodate divergent perspectives, favouring compromise over confrontation.
Within the National Party, he continually strove for unity, coming to be regarded—according to his brother—as "a party man, a veritable Mr National Party". To stem defections from the right-wing end of the National Party, he made "ultra-conservative noises". This general approach led to the perception that he was "trying to be all things to all men".
De Klerk stated that within the party, he "never formed part of a political school of thought, and I deliberately kept out of the cliques and foments of the enlightened and conservative factions in the party. If the policy I propounded was ultra-conservative, then that was the policy; it was not necessarily I who was ultra-conservative. I saw my role in the party as that of an interpreter of the party's real median policy at any stage."
De Klerk stated that "The silver thread throughout my career was my advocacy of National Party policy in all its various formulations. I refrained from adjusting that policy or adapting it to my own liking or convictions. I analyzed it as it was formulated, to the letter."
For much of his career, de Klerk believed in apartheid and its system of racial segregation. According to his brother, de Klerk underwent a "political conversion" that took him from supporting apartheid to facilitating its demolition. This change was not "a dramatic event" however, but "was built... on pragmatism – it evolved as a process."
He did not believe that South Africa would become a "non-racial society", but rather sought to build a "non-racist society" in which ethnic divisions remained; in his view "I do not believe in the existence of anything like a non-racial society in the literal sense of the word", citing the example of the United States and United Kingdom where there was no legal racial segregation but that distinct racial groups continued to exist.
De Klerk accepted the principle of freedom of religion, although still believed that the state should promote Christianity.
De Klerk wrote in opposition to gender-based violence, arguing that "holding perpetrators accountable, irrespective of how long ago the crime was committed, is essential to stamping out impunity and preventing future atrocities".
Glad and Blanton stated that de Klerk's "political choices were undergirded by self-confidence and commitment to the common good." His brother Willem stated that de Klerk's demeanour was marked by "soberness, humility and calm", that he was an honest, intelligent, and open minded individual, and that he had a "natural cordiality" and a "solid sense of courtesy and good manners". He felt that de Klerk's "charisma" came not from an "exceptionally strong individualism" but from "his rationality, logic and balance". He was, according to de Klerk, "a man of compromise rather than a political innovator or entrepreneur".
Willem stated that "he keeps an ear to the ground and is sensitive to the slightest tremors", and that it was this which made him "a superb politician". Willem also stated that his brother was "a team-man who consults others, takes them into his confidence, honestly shares information with his colleagues, and has a knack of making people feel importance and at peace".
His former wife Marike described de Klerk as being "extremely sensitive to beautiful things", exhibiting something akin to an artistic temperament.
Willem also noted that "in the most profound sense", de Klerk was driven by his concern for Afrikanerdom and "the survival of his own people in their fatherland". De Klerk was deeply upset that many Afrikaners did not realise that his reforms to dismantle apartheid were carried out with the intention of preserving a future for the Afrikaner people in South Africa.
With Marike, de Klerk had three children: Susan, who became a teacher, Jan, who became a farmer in Western Transvaal, and Willem, who went into public relations. Willem stated that de Klerk had a close relationship with his children, and that he was "a loving man who hugs and cuddles".
De Klerk was a heavy smoker but gave up smoking towards the end of 2005. He also enjoyed a glass of whisky or wine while relaxing. He enjoyed playing golf and hunting, as well as going for brisk walks.
De Klerk's Nobel Prize medal was stolen from his home in November 2022.
Glad and Blanton stated that de Klerk, along with Mandela, "accomplished the rare feat of bringing about systemic revolution through peaceful means." His brother noted that de Klerk's role in South African history was "to dismantle more than three centuries of white supremacy", and that in doing so his was "not a role of white surrender, but a role of white conversion to a new role" in society. In September 1990, Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education awarded de Klerk an honorary doctorate.
South Africa's Conservative Party came to regard him as its most hated adversary.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Frederik Willem de Klerk OMG DMS (/də ˈklɜːrk, də ˈklɛərk/ də-KLURK, də-KLAIRK, Afrikaans: [ˈfriədərək ˈvələm də ˈklɛrk]; 18 March 1936 – 11 November 2021) was a South African politician who served as state president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as deputy president from 1994 to 1996. As South Africa's last head of state from the era of white-minority rule, he and his government dismantled the apartheid system and introduced universal suffrage. Ideologically a social conservative and an economic liberal, he led the National Party (NP) from 1989 to 1997.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Born in Johannesburg to an influential Afrikaner family, de Klerk studied at Potchefstroom University before pursuing a career in law. Joining the NP, to which he had family ties, he was elected to parliament and sat in the white-minority government of P. W. Botha, holding a succession of ministerial posts. As a minister, he supported and enforced apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged white South Africans. After Botha resigned in 1989, de Klerk replaced him, first as leader of the NP and then as State President. Although observers expected him to continue Botha's defence of apartheid, de Klerk decided to end the policy. He was aware that growing ethnic animosity and violence was leading South Africa into a racial civil war. Amid this violence, the state security forces committed widespread human rights abuses and encouraged violence between the Xhosa and Zulu people, although de Klerk later denied sanctioning such actions. He permitted anti-apartheid marches to take place, legalised a range of previously banned anti-apartheid political parties, and freed imprisoned anti-apartheid activists such as Nelson Mandela. He also dismantled South Africa's nuclear weapons program.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "De Klerk negotiated with Mandela to fully dismantle apartheid and establish a transition to universal suffrage. In 1993, he publicly apologised for apartheid's harmful effects. He oversaw the 1994 non-racial election in which Mandela led the African National Congress (ANC) to victory; de Klerk's NP took second place. De Klerk then became Deputy President in Mandela's ANC-led coalition, the Government of National Unity. In this position, he supported the government's continued liberal economic policies but opposed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to investigate past human rights abuses because he wanted total amnesty for political crimes. His working relationship with Mandela was strained, although he later spoke fondly of him. In May 1996, after the NP objected to the new constitution, de Klerk withdrew it from the coalition government; the party disbanded the following year and reformed as the New National Party. In 1997, he retired from active politics and thereafter lectured internationally.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "De Klerk was a controversial figure among many sections of South African society. He received many awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize for dismantling apartheid and bringing universal suffrage to South Africa. Conversely, he received criticism from anti-apartheid activists for offering only a qualified apology for apartheid, and for ignoring the human rights abuses by state security forces. He was also condemned by pro-apartheid Afrikaners, who contended that by abandoning apartheid, he betrayed the interests of the country's Afrikaner minority.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "F. W. de Klerk was born on 18 March 1936 in Mayfair, a suburb of Johannesburg. His parents were Johannes \"Jan\" de Klerk and Hendrina Cornelia Coetzer—\"her forefather was a Kutzer who stems from Austria.\" He was his parents' second son, having a brother, Willem de Klerk, who was eight years his senior. De Klerk's first language was Afrikaans and the earliest of his distant ancestors to arrive in what is now South Africa did so in the late 1680s.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "De Klerk had a secure and comfortable upbringing, and his family had played a leading role in Afrikaner society; they had longstanding affiliations with South Africa's National Party. His paternal great-grandfather, Jan van Rooy, had been a Senator, while his paternal grandfather, Willem, had been a clergyman who fought in the Second Boer War and stood twice, unsuccessfully, as a National Party candidate. His paternal aunt's husband was J. G. Strijdom, a former Prime Minister. His own father, Jan de Klerk, was also a senator, served as the secretary of the National Party in Transvaal, president of the senate for seven years, acting state president, and as a member of the country's cabinet for fifteen years under three prime ministers. In this environment, de Klerk was exposed to politics from childhood. He and family members would be encouraged to hold family debates; his more conservative opinions would be challenged by his brother Willem, who was sympathetic to the more liberal, \"enlightened\" faction of the National Party. Willem became a political analyst and later split from the National Party to found the liberal Democratic Party.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The name \"de Klerk\" is derived from Le Clerc, Le Clercq and De Clercq, and is of French Huguenot origin (meaning \"clergyman\" or \"literate\" in old French). De Klerk noted that he was also of Dutch descent, with an Indian ancestor from the late-1690s or early 1700s. He was also said to have been descended from the Khoi interpreter known as Krotoa or Eva.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "When de Klerk was twelve years old, the apartheid system was officially institutionalised by the South African government; his father had been one of its originators. He therefore was, according to his brother, \"one of a generation that grew up with the concept of apartheid\". He was inculturated in the norms and values of Afrikaner society, including festivals like Kruger Day, loyalty to the Afrikaner nation, and stories of the \"age of injustice\" that the Afrikaner faced under the British. He was brought up in the Gereformeerde Kerk, the smallest and most socially conservative of South Africa's three Dutch Reformed Churches.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The de Klerk family moved around South Africa during his childhood, and he changed schools seven times over seven years. He eventually became a boarder at the Hoërskool Monument (Monument High School) in Krugersdorp, where he graduated with a first-class pass in 1953. He was nevertheless disappointed not to get the four distinctions he was hoping for.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Between 1954 and 1958, de Klerk studied at Potchefstroom University, graduating with both a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Law. He later noted that during this legal training, he \"became accustomed to thinking in terms of legal principles\". While studying there, he became editor of the student newspaper, vice-chair of the student council, and a member of the Afrikaanse Studentebond's (a large South African youth movement) national executive council. At university, he was initiated into the Broederbond, a secret society for the Afrikaner social elite. As a student, he played both tennis and hockey and was known as \"something of a ladies' man\". At the university, he began a relationship with Marike Willemse, the daughter of a professor at the University of Pretoria. The couple married in 1959, when de Klerk was 23 and his wife was 22.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "After university, de Klerk pursued a legal career, becoming an articled clerk with the firm Pelser in Klerksdorp. Relocating to Pretoria, he became an articled clerk for another law firm, Mac-Robert.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1962, he set up his own law partnership in Vereeniging, Transvaal, which he built into a successful business over ten years.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "During this period, he involved himself in a range of other activities. He was the national chair of the Junior Rapportryers for two years, and chair of the Law Society of Vaal Triangle. He was also on the council of the local technikon, on the council of his church, and on a local school board.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 1972, his alma mater offered him a chair in its law faculty, which he accepted. Within a matter of days he was also approached by members of the National Party, who requested that he stand for the party at Vereeniging. De Klerk's candidature was successful and in November he was elected to the House of Assembly. There, he established a reputation as a formidable debater. He took on a number of roles in the party and government. He became the information officer of the Transvaal National Party, responsible for its propaganda output, and helped to establish a new National Party youth movement. He joined various party parliamentary study groups, including those on the Bantustans, labour, justice, and home affairs. As a member of various parliamentary groups, de Klerk went on several foreign visits, to Israel, West Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It was in the latter in 1976 that he observed what he later described as the pervasive racism of US society, later noting that he \"saw more racial incidents in one month there than in South Africa in a year\". In South Africa, de Klerk also played a senior role in two select committees, one formulating a policy on opening hotels to non-Whites and the other formulating a new censorship law that was less strict than the one that had preceded it.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In 1975, Prime Minister John Vorster predicted that de Klerk would one day become leader of South Africa. Vorster planned to promote de Klerk to the position of a deputy minister in January 1976, but instead the job went to Andries Treurnicht. In April 1978, de Klerk was promoted to the position of Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions. In this role, he restored full autonomy to sporting control bodies which had for a time been under the jurisdiction of the government. As minister of Post and Telecommunications, he finalised contracts that oversaw the electrification of that sector. As Minister of Mining, he formalised a policy on coal exports and the structuring of Eskom and the Atomic Energy Corporation. He then became Minister of the Interior, he oversaw the repeal of the Mixed Marriages Act.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1981, de Klerk was awarded the Decoration for Meritorious Service for his work in the government. As education minister between 1984 and 1989, he upheld the apartheid system in South Africa's schools, and extended the department to cover all racial groups.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "For most of his career, de Klerk had a very conservative reputation, and was seen as someone who would obstruct change in South Africa. He had been a forceful proponent of apartheid's system of racial segregation and was perceived as an advocate of the white minority's interests. While serving under P. W. Botha's government, de Klerk was never part of Botha's inner circle.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "P. W. Botha resigned as leader of the National Party after an apparent stroke, and de Klerk defeated Botha's preferred successor, finance minister Barend du Plessis, in the race to succeed him. On 2 February 1989, he was elected leader of the National Party. He defeated main rival Barend du Plessis to the position by a majority of eight votes, 69–61. Soon after, he called for the introduction of a new South African constitution, hinting that it would need to provide greater concession to non-white racial groups. After becoming party leader, de Klerk extended his foreign contacts. He travelled to London, where he met with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Although she opposed the anti-apartheid movement's calls for economic sanctions against South Africa, at the meeting she urged de Klerk to release the imprisoned anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela. He also expressed a desire to meet with representatives of the US government in Washington D.C., although American secretary of state James Baker informed him that the US government considered it inopportune to have de Klerk meet with President George H. W. Bush.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Botha resigned on 14 August 1989, and de Klerk was named acting State President of South Africa until 20 September, when he was elected to a full five-year term as State President. After he became acting State President, ANC leaders spoke out against him, believing that he would be no different from his predecessors; he was widely regarded as a staunch supporter of apartheid. The prominent anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu shared this assessment, stating: \"I don't think we've got to even begin to pretend that there is any reason for thinking that we are entering a new phase. It's just musical chairs\". Tutu and Allan Boesak had been planning a protest march in Cape Town, which the security chiefs wanted to prevent. De Klerk nevertheless turned down their proposal to ban it, agreeing to let the march proceed and stating that \"the door to a new South Africa is open, it is not necessary to batter it down\". The march took place and was attended by approximately 30,000 people. Further protest marches followed in Grahamstown, Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Durban. De Klerk later noted that his security forces could not have prevented the marchers from gathering: \"The choice, therefore, was between breaking up an illegal march with all of the attendant risks of violence and negative publicity, or of allowing the march to continue, subject to conditions that could help to avoid violence and ensure good public order.\" This decision marked a clear departure from the Botha era.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "As State President, he authorised the continuation of secret talks in Geneva between his National Intelligence Service and two exiled ANC leaders, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. In October, he personally agreed to meet with Tutu, Boesak, and Frank Chikane in a private meeting in Pretoria. That month, he also released a number of elderly anti-apartheid activists then imprisoned, including Walter Sisulu. He also ordered the closure of the National Security Management System. In December he visited Mandela in prison, speaking with him for three hours about the idea of transitioning away from white-minority rule. The collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the dissolution of the Soviet Union meant that he no longer feared that Marxists would manipulate the ANC. As he later related, the collapse of \"the Marxist economic system in Eastern Europe... serves as a warning to those who insist on persisting with it in Africa. Those who seek to force this failure of a system on South Africa should engage in a total revision of their point of view. It should be clear to all that it is not the answer here either.\"",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "History has placed a tremendous responsibility on the shoulders of this country's leadership, namely the responsibility of moving our country away from the current course of conflict and confrontation... The hope of millions of South Africans is fixed on us. The future of southern Africa depends on us. We dare not waver or fail.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "— de Klerk's speech to Parliament, February 1990",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "On 2 February 1990, in an address to the country's parliament, he introduced plans for sweeping reforms of the political system. A number of banned political parties, including the ANC and Communist Party of South Africa, would be legalised, although he emphasised that this did not constitute an endorsement of their socialist economic policies nor of violent actions carried out by their members. All of those who were imprisoned solely for belonging to a banned organisation would be freed, including Nelson Mandela; the latter was released a week later. He also announced the lifting of the Separate Amenities Act of 1953, which governed the segregation of public facilities. The vision set forth in de Klerk's address was for South Africa to become a Western-style liberal democracy; with a market-oriented economy which valued private enterprise and restricted the government's role in economics.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "De Klerk later related that \"that speech was mainly aimed at breaking our stalemate in Africa and the West. Internationally we were teetering on the edge of the abyss.\" Throughout South Africa and across the world, there was astonishment at de Klerk's move. Foreign press coverage was largely positive and de Klerk received messages of support from other governments. Tutu said that \"It's incredible... Give him credit. Give him credit, I do.\" Some black radicals regarded it as a gimmick and that it would prove to be without substance. It was also received negatively by some on the white right-wing, including in the Conservative Party, who believed that de Klerk was betraying the white population. De Klerk believed that the sudden growth of the Conservatives and other white right-wing groups was a passing phase reflecting anxiety and insecurity. These white right-wing groups were aware that they would not get what they wanted through the forthcoming negotiations, and so increasingly tried to derail the negotiations using reactionary violence. The white-dominated liberal Democratic Party, meanwhile, found itself in limbo, as de Klerk embraced much of the platform it had espoused, leaving it without a clear purpose.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Further reforms followed; membership of the National Party was opened up to non-whites. In June, parliament approved new legislation that repealed the Natives Land Act, 1913 and Native Trust and Land Act, 1936. The Population Registration Act, which established the racial classificatory guidelines for South Africa, was rescinded.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In 1990, de Klerk gave orders to end South Africa's nuclear weapons programme; the process of nuclear disarmament was essentially completed in 1991. The existence of the nuclear programme was not officially acknowledged before 1993.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "I believe the new political order will and must contain the following elements: a democratic constitution, universal suffrage, no domination, equality before an independent judiciary, the protection of minorities and individual rights, freedom of religion, a healthy economy based on proven economic principles and private initiative, and a dynamic programme for better education, health services, housing and social conditions for all... I am not talking of a rosy and tranquil future, but I believe the broad mainstream of South Africans will gradually build up South Africa into a society that will be worth living and working in.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "— de Klerk on a post-apartheid society",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "His presidency was dominated by the negotiation process, mainly between his NP government and the ANC, which led to the democratisation of South Africa. On 17 March 1992, de Klerk held a whites-only referendum on ending apartheid, with the result being an overwhelming \"yes\" vote to continue negotiations to end apartheid.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Nelson Mandela was distrustful of the role played by de Klerk in the negotiations, particularly as he believed that de Klerk was knowledgeable about 'third force' attempts to foment violence in the country and destabilise the negotiations. De Klerk's possible role in the 'third force' came to the attention of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but was ultimately never clarified. De Klerk was accused by writer Anthony Sampson of complicity in the violence among the ANC, the Inkatha Freedom Party and elements of the security forces. He also accused de Klerk of permitting his ministers to build their own criminal empires.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "On 17 July 1992, the Boipatong massacre by the Inkatha Freedom Party occurred, killing 45 people. The massacre caused a resurgence of international pressure against South Africa over claims of police collusion, leading to a weaker position at the negotiation tables for the National Party. The Goldstone Commission concluded there was no evidence of police collusion in the massacre.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "On 30 April 1993, de Klerk issued an apology for the actions of the apartheid government, stating that: \"It was not our intention to deprive people of their rights and to cause misery, but eventually apartheid led to just that. Insofar as to what occurred we deeply regret it... Yes we are sorry\". Tutu urged people to accept the apology, stating that \"saying sorry is not an easy thing to do... We should be magnanimous and accept it as a magnanimous act\", although Tutu was privately frustrated that de Klerk's apology had been qualified and had not gone so far as to call apartheid an intrinsically evil policy.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "De Klerk authorised the raid on Mthatha against suspected Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA) fighters on 8 October 1993 that killed three teenagers and two twelve year olds. The Minister of Defence said the raid had been undertaken to pre-empt attacks by the APLA on civilians and that one of the victims had brandished a weapon. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded the raid was a \"gross violation of human rights\"",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "On 10 December 1993, de Klerk and Mandela were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo for their work in ending apartheid.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "South Africa held its first universal elections in 1994 from 26 to 29 April. The ANC won the election with 62 per cent, while the National Party received 20 per cent. De Klerk became deputy president in the national unity government under Nelson Mandela.",
"title": "State presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "De Klerk had been unhappy that changes had been made to the inauguration ceremony, rendering it multi-religious rather than reflecting the newly elected leader's particular denomination. When he was being sworn in, and the chief justice said \"So help me God\", de Klerk did not repeat this, instead stating, in Afrikaans: \"So help me the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit\".",
"title": "Deputy presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Mandela reappointed de Klerk's finance minister, Derek Keys, and retained Chris Stals, a former member of the Broederbond, as the Governor of the South African Reserve Bank. De Klerk supported the coalition's economic policies, stating that it \"accepted a broad framework of responsible economic policies\".",
"title": "Deputy presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "De Klerk's working relationship with Mandela was often strained, with the former finding it difficult adjusting to the fact that he was no longer State President. De Klerk also felt that Mandela deliberately humiliated him, while Mandela found de Klerk to be needlessly provocative in cabinet. One dispute occurred in September 1995, after Mandela gave a Johannesburg speech criticising the National Party. Angered, de Klerk avoided Mandela until the latter requested they meet. The two ran into each other, and they publicly argued in the streets. Mandela later expressed regret for their disagreement but did not apologise for his original comments. De Klerk was also having problems from within his own party, some of whose members claimed that he was neglecting the party while in the government.",
"title": "Deputy presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Many in the National Party—including many members of its executive committee—were unhappy with the other parties' agreed upon new constitution in May 1996. The party had wanted the constitution to guarantee that it would be represented in the government until 2004, although it did not do so. On 9 May, de Klerk withdrew the National Party from the coalition government. The decision shocked several of his six fellow Afrikaner cabinet colleagues; Pik Botha, for example, was left without a job as a result. Roelf Meyer felt betrayed by de Klerk's act, while Leon Wessels thought that de Klerk had not tried hard enough to make the coalition work. De Klerk declared that he would lead the National Party in vigorous opposition to Mandela's government to ensure \"a proper multi-party democracy, without which there may be a danger of South Africa lapsing into the African pattern of one-party states\".",
"title": "Deputy presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In de Klerk's view, his greatest defeat in the negotiations with Mandela had been his inability to secure a blanket amnesty for all those working for the government or state during the apartheid period. De Klerk was unhappy with the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). He had hoped that the TRC would be made up of an equal number of individuals from both the old and new governments, as there had been in the Chilean human rights commission. Instead, the TRC was designed to broadly reflect the wider diversity of South African society, and contained only two members who had explicitly supported apartheid, one a member of a right-wing group that had opposed de Klerk's National Party. De Klerk did not object to Tutu being selected as the TRC's chair for he regarded him as politically independent of Mandela's government, but he was upset that the white Progressive Party MP Alex Boraine had been selected as its deputy chair, later saying of Boraine: \"beneath an urbane and deceptively affable exterior beat the heart of a zealot and an inquisitor.\"",
"title": "Deputy presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "De Klerk appeared before the TRC hearing to testify for Vlakplaas commanders who were accused of having committed human rights abuses during the apartheid era. He acknowledged that security forces had resorted to \"unconventional strategies\" in dealing with anti-apartheid revolutionaries, but that \"within my knowledge and experience, they never included the authorization of assassination, murder, torture, rape, assault or the like\". After further evidence of said abuses was produced by the commission, de Klerk stated that he found the revelations to be \"as shocking and as abhorrent as anybody else\" but insisted that he and other senior party members were not willing to accept responsibility for the \"criminal actions of a handful of operatives\", stating that their behaviour was \"not authorized [and] not intended\" by his government. Given the widespread and systemic nature of the abuses that had taken place, as well as statements by security officers that their actions had been sanctioned by higher ranking figures, Tutu questioned how de Klerk and other government figures could not have been aware of them. Tutu had hoped that de Klerk or another senior white political figure from the apartheid era would openly accept responsibility for the human rights abuses, thereby allowing South Africa to move on; this was something that de Klerk would not do.",
"title": "Deputy presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The TRC found de Klerk guilty of being an accessory to gross violations of human rights on the basis that as State President he had been told that P. W. Botha had authorised the bombing of Khotso House but had not revealed this information to the committee. De Klerk challenged the TRC on this point, and it backed down. When the final TRC report was released in 2002, it made a more limited accusation: that de Klerk had failed to give full disclosure about events that took place during his presidency and that in view of his knowledge about the Khotso House bombing, his statement that none of his colleagues had authorised gross human rights abuses was \"indefensible\". In his later autobiography, de Klerk acknowledged that the TRC did significant damage to his public image.",
"title": "Deputy presidency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In 1994, de Klerk was elected to the American Philosophical Society.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In 1997, de Klerk was offered the Harper Fellowship at Yale Law School. He declined, citing protests at the university. De Klerk did, however, speak at Central Connecticut State University the day before his fellowship would have begun.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In 1999, de Klerk and his wife of 38 years, Marike de Klerk, were divorced following the discovery of his affair with Elita Georgiades, then the wife of Tony Georgiades, a Greek shipping tycoon who had allegedly given de Klerk and the NP financial support. Soon after his divorce, de Klerk and Georgiades were married. His divorce and remarriage scandalised conservative South African opinion, especially among the Calvinist Afrikaners. In 1999, his autobiography, The Last Trek – A New Beginning, was published. In 2002, following the murder of his former wife, the manuscript of her own autobiography, A Place Where the Sun Shines Again, was submitted to de Klerk, who urged the publishers to suppress a chapter dealing with his infidelity.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "In 2000, de Klerk established the pro-peace FW de Klerk Foundation of which he was the chairman. De Klerk was also chairman of the Global Leadership Foundation, headquartered in London, which he set up in 2004, an organisation which works to support democratic leadership, prevent and resolve conflict through mediation and promote good governance in the form of democratic institutions, open markets, human rights and the rule of law. It does so by making available, discreetly and in confidence, the experience of former leaders to today's national leaders. It is a not-for-profit organisation composed of former heads of government and senior governmental and international organisation officials who work closely with heads of government on governance-related issues of concern to them.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "On 3 December 2001, Marike de Klerk was found stabbed and strangled to death in her Cape Town flat. De Klerk, who was on a brief visit to Stockholm, Sweden, to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the Nobel Prize foundation, immediately returned to mourn his dead ex-wife. The atrocity was reportedly condemned strongly by South African president Thabo Mbeki and Winnie Mandela, among others, who openly spoke in favour of Marike de Klerk. On 6 December 21-year-old security guard Luyanda Mboniswa was arrested for the murder. On 15 May 2003, he received two life sentences for murder, as well as three years for breaking into Marike de Klerk's apartment.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In 2005, de Klerk quit the New National Party and sought a new political home after the NNP merged with the ruling ANC. That same year, while giving an interview to US journalist Richard Stengel, de Klerk was asked whether South Africa had turned out the way he envisioned it back in 1990. His response was:",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "There are a number of imperfections in the new South Africa where I would have hoped that things would be better, but on balance I think we have basically achieved what we set out to achieve. And if I were to draw balance sheets on where South Africa stands now, I would say that the positive outweighs the negative by far. There is a tendency by commentators across the world to focus on the few negatives which are quite negative, like how are we handling AIDS, like our role vis-à-vis Zimbabwe. But the positives – the stability in South Africa, the adherence to well-balanced economic policies, fighting inflation, doing all the right things in order to lay the basis and the foundation for sustained economic growth – are in place.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "In 2008, he repeated in a speech that \"despite all the negatives facing South Africa, he was very positive about the country\".",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "In 2006, he underwent surgery for a malignant tumor in his colon. His condition deteriorated sharply, and he underwent a tracheotomy after developing respiratory problems. He recovered and on 11 September 2006 gave a speech at Kent State University Stark Campus.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "In January 2007, de Klerk was a speaker promoting peace and democracy in the world at the \"Towards a Global Forum on New Democracies\" event in Taipei, Taiwan, along with other dignitaries including Poland's Lech Wałęsa and Taiwan's president Chen Shui-Bian.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "De Klerk was an Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society of Trinity College Dublin, and Honorary Chairman of the Prague Society for International Cooperation. He also received the gold medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse from the College Historical Society of Trinity College, Dublin, for his contribution to ending apartheid.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "De Klerk was also a member of the advisory board of the Global Panel Foundation based in Berlin, Copenhagen, New York, Prague, Sydney and Toronto—founded by the Dutch entrepreneur Bas Spuybroek in 1988, with the support of Dutch billionaire Frans Lurvink and former Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek. The Global Panel Foundation is known for its behind-the-scenes work in public policy and the annual presentation of the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award with the Prague Society for International Cooperation.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "De Klerk was a member of the advisory board of the WORLD.MINDS Foundation, based in Switzerland. WORLD.MINDS is known for establishing close personal ties between leaders in government, science and business.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "After the inauguration of Jacob Zuma as South Africa's president in May 2009, de Klerk said he was optimistic that Zuma and his government can \"confound the prophets of doom\".",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "In a BBC interview broadcast in April 2012, he said he lived in an all-white neighbourhood. He had five servants, three coloured and two black: \"We are one great big family together; we have the best of relationships.\" About Nelson Mandela, he said, \"When Mandela goes it will be a moment when all South Africans put away their political differences, will take hands, and will together honour maybe the biggest known South African that has ever lived.\"",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "De Klerk received a pacemaker in July 2013.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Upon hearing of the death of Mandela, de Klerk said: \"He was a great unifier and a very, very special man in this regard beyond everything else he did. This emphasis on reconciliation was his biggest legacy.\" He attended the memorial service for him on 10 December 2013.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "In 2015, de Klerk wrote to The Times newspaper in the UK criticising a campaign to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes from Oriel College, Oxford. He was subsequently criticised by some activists who described it as \"ironic\" that the last apartheid president should be defending a statue of a man labelled by critics as the \"architect of apartheid\". South Africa's far-left Economic Freedom Fighters called for him to be stripped of his Nobel Peace Prize. In 2020, de Klerk told an interviewer that the description of apartheid as a \"crime against humanity\" \"was and remains an agitprop project initiated by the Soviets and their ANC/SACP allies to stigmatize white South Africans by associating them with genuine crimes against humanity.\" This generated controversy in South Africa, and further calls for the removal of his Nobel Prize. De Klerk's Foundation retracted his statement several days later.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Allow me in this last message to share with you the fact that since the early 80s, my views changed completely. It was as if I had a conversion. And in my heart of hearts, I realized that apartheid was wrong. I realized that we had arrived at a place which was morally unjustifiable. My conversion, to which I refer didn't end with the admission to myself of the total unacceptability of apartheid. It motivated us in the National Party to take the initiatives we took from the time that I became leader of the National Party. And more specifically, during my presidency. We did not only admit the wrongness of apartheid, we took far-reaching measures to ensure negotiation and a new dispensation which could bring justice to all.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "— de Klerk's final message",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "On 19 March 2021, it was announced that de Klerk had been diagnosed with mesothelioma. He died from complications of the disease in his sleep at his home in Cape Town on 11 November 2021, at the age of 85. He was the last surviving State President of South Africa.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "After his death, a video message from de Klerk was released from the FW de Klerk Foundation, apologising \"without qualification\" for the harm caused from apartheid and pleading that the government and all South Africans would embrace the constitution in a balanced manner while also promoting economic growth, guarding the independence and impartiality of the courts, as well as promoting non-racialism and non-discrimination in South Africa.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "On 16 November 2021, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a four-day mourning period for de Klerk and ordered for all of the national South African flags to fly at half-mast from 17 to 21 November \"as a mark of respect.\" Though the de Klerk family determined that he would have a private cremation and funeral, the South African government agreed to hold a state memorial service for de Klerk \"in which government leaders, leaders of political parties and representatives of civil society will participate\" at a later date. The state memorial service was held in Cape Town on 12 December 2021, and saw Ramaphosa deliver the keynote speech.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "De Klerk was widely regarded as a politically conservative figure in South Africa. At the same time, he was flexible rather than dogmatic in his approach to political issues. He often hedged his bets and sought to accommodate divergent perspectives, favouring compromise over confrontation.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Within the National Party, he continually strove for unity, coming to be regarded—according to his brother—as \"a party man, a veritable Mr National Party\". To stem defections from the right-wing end of the National Party, he made \"ultra-conservative noises\". This general approach led to the perception that he was \"trying to be all things to all men\".",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "De Klerk stated that within the party, he \"never formed part of a political school of thought, and I deliberately kept out of the cliques and foments of the enlightened and conservative factions in the party. If the policy I propounded was ultra-conservative, then that was the policy; it was not necessarily I who was ultra-conservative. I saw my role in the party as that of an interpreter of the party's real median policy at any stage.\"",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "De Klerk stated that \"The silver thread throughout my career was my advocacy of National Party policy in all its various formulations. I refrained from adjusting that policy or adapting it to my own liking or convictions. I analyzed it as it was formulated, to the letter.\"",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "For much of his career, de Klerk believed in apartheid and its system of racial segregation. According to his brother, de Klerk underwent a \"political conversion\" that took him from supporting apartheid to facilitating its demolition. This change was not \"a dramatic event\" however, but \"was built... on pragmatism – it evolved as a process.\"",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "He did not believe that South Africa would become a \"non-racial society\", but rather sought to build a \"non-racist society\" in which ethnic divisions remained; in his view \"I do not believe in the existence of anything like a non-racial society in the literal sense of the word\", citing the example of the United States and United Kingdom where there was no legal racial segregation but that distinct racial groups continued to exist.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "De Klerk accepted the principle of freedom of religion, although still believed that the state should promote Christianity.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "De Klerk wrote in opposition to gender-based violence, arguing that \"holding perpetrators accountable, irrespective of how long ago the crime was committed, is essential to stamping out impunity and preventing future atrocities\".",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Glad and Blanton stated that de Klerk's \"political choices were undergirded by self-confidence and commitment to the common good.\" His brother Willem stated that de Klerk's demeanour was marked by \"soberness, humility and calm\", that he was an honest, intelligent, and open minded individual, and that he had a \"natural cordiality\" and a \"solid sense of courtesy and good manners\". He felt that de Klerk's \"charisma\" came not from an \"exceptionally strong individualism\" but from \"his rationality, logic and balance\". He was, according to de Klerk, \"a man of compromise rather than a political innovator or entrepreneur\".",
"title": "Personality and personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Willem stated that \"he keeps an ear to the ground and is sensitive to the slightest tremors\", and that it was this which made him \"a superb politician\". Willem also stated that his brother was \"a team-man who consults others, takes them into his confidence, honestly shares information with his colleagues, and has a knack of making people feel importance and at peace\".",
"title": "Personality and personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "His former wife Marike described de Klerk as being \"extremely sensitive to beautiful things\", exhibiting something akin to an artistic temperament.",
"title": "Personality and personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Willem also noted that \"in the most profound sense\", de Klerk was driven by his concern for Afrikanerdom and \"the survival of his own people in their fatherland\". De Klerk was deeply upset that many Afrikaners did not realise that his reforms to dismantle apartheid were carried out with the intention of preserving a future for the Afrikaner people in South Africa.",
"title": "Personality and personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "With Marike, de Klerk had three children: Susan, who became a teacher, Jan, who became a farmer in Western Transvaal, and Willem, who went into public relations. Willem stated that de Klerk had a close relationship with his children, and that he was \"a loving man who hugs and cuddles\".",
"title": "Personality and personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "De Klerk was a heavy smoker but gave up smoking towards the end of 2005. He also enjoyed a glass of whisky or wine while relaxing. He enjoyed playing golf and hunting, as well as going for brisk walks.",
"title": "Personality and personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "De Klerk's Nobel Prize medal was stolen from his home in November 2022.",
"title": "Personality and personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Glad and Blanton stated that de Klerk, along with Mandela, \"accomplished the rare feat of bringing about systemic revolution through peaceful means.\" His brother noted that de Klerk's role in South African history was \"to dismantle more than three centuries of white supremacy\", and that in doing so his was \"not a role of white surrender, but a role of white conversion to a new role\" in society. In September 1990, Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education awarded de Klerk an honorary doctorate.",
"title": "Reception and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "South Africa's Conservative Party came to regard him as its most hated adversary.",
"title": "Reception and legacy"
}
] |
Frederik Willem de Klerk was a South African politician who served as state president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as deputy president from 1994 to 1996. As South Africa's last head of state from the era of white-minority rule, he and his government dismantled the apartheid system and introduced universal suffrage. Ideologically a social conservative and an economic liberal, he led the National Party (NP) from 1989 to 1997. Born in Johannesburg to an influential Afrikaner family, de Klerk studied at Potchefstroom University before pursuing a career in law. Joining the NP, to which he had family ties, he was elected to parliament and sat in the white-minority government of P. W. Botha, holding a succession of ministerial posts. As a minister, he supported and enforced apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged white South Africans. After Botha resigned in 1989, de Klerk replaced him, first as leader of the NP and then as State President. Although observers expected him to continue Botha's defence of apartheid, de Klerk decided to end the policy. He was aware that growing ethnic animosity and violence was leading South Africa into a racial civil war. Amid this violence, the state security forces committed widespread human rights abuses and encouraged violence between the Xhosa and Zulu people, although de Klerk later denied sanctioning such actions. He permitted anti-apartheid marches to take place, legalised a range of previously banned anti-apartheid political parties, and freed imprisoned anti-apartheid activists such as Nelson Mandela. He also dismantled South Africa's nuclear weapons program. De Klerk negotiated with Mandela to fully dismantle apartheid and establish a transition to universal suffrage. In 1993, he publicly apologised for apartheid's harmful effects. He oversaw the 1994 non-racial election in which Mandela led the African National Congress (ANC) to victory; de Klerk's NP took second place. De Klerk then became Deputy President in Mandela's ANC-led coalition, the Government of National Unity. In this position, he supported the government's continued liberal economic policies but opposed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to investigate past human rights abuses because he wanted total amnesty for political crimes. His working relationship with Mandela was strained, although he later spoke fondly of him. In May 1996, after the NP objected to the new constitution, de Klerk withdrew it from the coalition government; the party disbanded the following year and reformed as the New National Party. In 1997, he retired from active politics and thereafter lectured internationally. De Klerk was a controversial figure among many sections of South African society. He received many awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize for dismantling apartheid and bringing universal suffrage to South Africa. Conversely, he received criticism from anti-apartheid activists for offering only a qualified apology for apartheid, and for ignoring the human rights abuses by state security forces. He was also condemned by pro-apartheid Afrikaners, who contended that by abandoning apartheid, he betrayed the interests of the country's Afrikaner minority.
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2001-11-08T14:52:19Z
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2023-12-13T13:30:10Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._W._de_Klerk
|
11,488 |
Furlong
|
A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and United States customary units equal to one eighth of a mile, equivalent to any of 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods, 10 chains or approximately 201 metres. It is now mostly confined to use in horse racing, where in many countries it is the standard measurement of race lengths, and agriculture, where it is used to measure rural field lengths and distances.
In the United States, some states use older definitions for surveying purposes, leading to variations in the length of the furlong of two parts per million, or about 0.4 millimetres (1⁄64 inch). This variation is too small to have practical consequences in most applications.
Using the international definition of the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres, one furlong is 201.168 metres, and five furlongs are about 1 kilometre (1.00584 km exactly).
The name furlong derives from the Old English words furh (furrow) and lang (long). Dating back at least to early Anglo-Saxon times, it originally referred to the length of the furrow in one acre of a ploughed open field (a medieval communal field which was divided into strips). The furlong (meaning furrow length) was the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting. This was standardised to be exactly 40 rods or 10 chains. The system of long furrows arose because turning a team of oxen pulling a heavy plough was difficult. This offset the drainage advantages of short furrows and meant furrows were made as long as possible. An acre is an area that is one furlong long and one chain (66 feet or 22 yards) wide. For this reason, the furlong was once also called an acre's length, though in modern usage an area of one acre can be of any shape. The term furlong, or shot, was also used to describe a grouping of adjacent strips within an open field.
Among the early Anglo-Saxons, the rod was the fundamental unit of land measurement. A furlong was 40 rods; an acre 4 by 40 rods, or 4 rods by 1 furlong, and thus 160 square rods; there are 10 acres in a square furlong. At the time, the Saxons used the North German foot, which was about 10 percent longer than the foot of the international 1959 agreement. When England changed to a shorter foot in the late 13th century, rods and furlongs remained unchanged, since property boundaries were already defined in rods and furlongs. The only thing that changed was the number of feet and yards in a rod or a furlong, and the number of square feet and square yards in an acre. The definition of the rod went from 15 old feet to 16+1⁄2 new feet, or from 5 old yards to 5+1⁄2 new yards. The furlong went from 600 old feet to 660 new feet, or from 200 old yards to 220 new yards. The acre went from 36,000 old square feet to 43,560 new square feet, or from 4,000 old square yards to 4,840 new square yards.
The furlong was historically viewed as being equivalent to the Roman stade (stadium), which in turn derived from the Greek system. For example, the King James Bible uses the term "furlong" in place of the Greek stadion, although more recent translations often use miles or kilometres in the main text and give the original numbers in footnotes.
In the Roman system, there were 625 feet to the stadium, eight stadia to the mile, and three miles to the league. A league was considered to be the distance a man could walk in one hour, and the mile (from mille, meaning "thousand") consisted of 1,000 passus (paces, five feet, or double-step).
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, medieval Europe continued with the Roman system, which the people proceeded to diversify, leading to serious complications in trade, taxation, etc. Around the year 1300, by royal decree England standardized a long list of measures. Among the important units of distance and length at the time were the foot, yard, rod (or pole), furlong, and the mile. The rod was defined as 5+1⁄2 yards or 16+1⁄2 feet, and the mile was eight furlongs, so the definition of the furlong became 40 rods and that of the mile became 5,280 feet (eight furlongs/mile times 40 rods/furlong times 16+1⁄2 feet/rod). The invention of the measuring chain in the 1620s led to the introduction of an intermediate unit of length, the chain of 22 yards, being equal to four rods, and to one-tenth of a furlong.
A description from 1675 states, "Dimensurator or Measuring Instrument whereof the mosts usual has been the Chain, and the common length for English Measures four Poles, as answering indifferently to the Englishs Mile and Acre, 10 such Chains in length making a Furlong, and 10 single square Chains an Acre, so that a square Mile contains 640 square Acres." —John Ogilby, Britannia, 1675
The official use of the furlong was abolished in the United Kingdom under the Weights and Measures Act 1985, an act that also abolished the official use of many other traditional units of measurement.
In Myanmar, furlongs are currently used in conjunction with miles to indicate distances on highway signs. Mileposts on the Yangon–Mandalay Expressway use miles and furlongs.
In the rest of the world, the furlong has very limited use, with the notable exception of horse racing in most English-speaking countries, including Canada and the United States. The distances for horse racing in Australia were converted to metric in 1972, but in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and the United States, races are still given in miles and furlongs. Also distances along English canals navigated by narrowboats are commonly expressed in miles and furlongs.
The city of Chicago's street numbering system allots a measure of 800 address units to each mile, in keeping with the city's system of eight blocks per mile. This means that every block in a typical Chicago neighborhood (in either north–south or east–west direction but rarely both) is approximately one furlong in length. Salt Lake City's blocks are also each a square furlong in the downtown area. The blocks become less regular in shape farther from the center, but the numbering system (800 units to each mile) remains the same everywhere in Salt Lake County. Blocks in central Logan, Utah, and in large sections of Phoenix, Arizona, are similarly a square furlong in extent (eight to a mile, which explains the series of freeway exits: 19th Ave, 27th, 35th, 43rd, 51st, 59th ...). City blocks in the Hoddle Grid of Melbourne are also one furlong in length.
Much of Ontario, Canada, was originally surveyed on a ten-furlong grid, with major roads being laid out along the grid lines. Now that distances are shown on road signs in kilometres, these major roads are almost exactly two kilometres apart. The exits on highways running through Toronto, for example, are generally at intervals of two kilometres.
The Bangor City Forest in Bangor, Maine has its trail system marked in miles and furlongs.
The furlong is also a base unit of the humorous FFF system of units.
The exact length of the furlong varies slightly among English-speaking countries. In Canada and the United Kingdom, which define the furlong in terms of the international yard of exactly 0.9144 metres, a furlong is 201.168 m. Australia does not formally define the furlong, but it does define the chain and link in terms of the international yard.
The United States previously defined the furlong, chain, rod, and link in terms of the U.S. survey foot of exactly 1200⁄3937 metre, resulting in a furlong approximately 201.1684 m long. The difference of approximately two parts per million between the old U.S. value and the "international" value was insignificant for most practical measurements.
In October 2019, U.S. National Geodetic Survey and National Institute of Standards and Technology announced their joint intent to retire the U.S. survey foot, with effect from the end of 2022. The furlong in U.S. Customary units is thereafter defined based on the International 1959 foot, giving the length of the furlong as exact 201.168 meters in the United States as well.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and United States customary units equal to one eighth of a mile, equivalent to any of 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods, 10 chains or approximately 201 metres. It is now mostly confined to use in horse racing, where in many countries it is the standard measurement of race lengths, and agriculture, where it is used to measure rural field lengths and distances.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In the United States, some states use older definitions for surveying purposes, leading to variations in the length of the furlong of two parts per million, or about 0.4 millimetres (1⁄64 inch). This variation is too small to have practical consequences in most applications.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Using the international definition of the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres, one furlong is 201.168 metres, and five furlongs are about 1 kilometre (1.00584 km exactly).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The name furlong derives from the Old English words furh (furrow) and lang (long). Dating back at least to early Anglo-Saxon times, it originally referred to the length of the furrow in one acre of a ploughed open field (a medieval communal field which was divided into strips). The furlong (meaning furrow length) was the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting. This was standardised to be exactly 40 rods or 10 chains. The system of long furrows arose because turning a team of oxen pulling a heavy plough was difficult. This offset the drainage advantages of short furrows and meant furrows were made as long as possible. An acre is an area that is one furlong long and one chain (66 feet or 22 yards) wide. For this reason, the furlong was once also called an acre's length, though in modern usage an area of one acre can be of any shape. The term furlong, or shot, was also used to describe a grouping of adjacent strips within an open field.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Among the early Anglo-Saxons, the rod was the fundamental unit of land measurement. A furlong was 40 rods; an acre 4 by 40 rods, or 4 rods by 1 furlong, and thus 160 square rods; there are 10 acres in a square furlong. At the time, the Saxons used the North German foot, which was about 10 percent longer than the foot of the international 1959 agreement. When England changed to a shorter foot in the late 13th century, rods and furlongs remained unchanged, since property boundaries were already defined in rods and furlongs. The only thing that changed was the number of feet and yards in a rod or a furlong, and the number of square feet and square yards in an acre. The definition of the rod went from 15 old feet to 16+1⁄2 new feet, or from 5 old yards to 5+1⁄2 new yards. The furlong went from 600 old feet to 660 new feet, or from 200 old yards to 220 new yards. The acre went from 36,000 old square feet to 43,560 new square feet, or from 4,000 old square yards to 4,840 new square yards.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The furlong was historically viewed as being equivalent to the Roman stade (stadium), which in turn derived from the Greek system. For example, the King James Bible uses the term \"furlong\" in place of the Greek stadion, although more recent translations often use miles or kilometres in the main text and give the original numbers in footnotes.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In the Roman system, there were 625 feet to the stadium, eight stadia to the mile, and three miles to the league. A league was considered to be the distance a man could walk in one hour, and the mile (from mille, meaning \"thousand\") consisted of 1,000 passus (paces, five feet, or double-step).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, medieval Europe continued with the Roman system, which the people proceeded to diversify, leading to serious complications in trade, taxation, etc. Around the year 1300, by royal decree England standardized a long list of measures. Among the important units of distance and length at the time were the foot, yard, rod (or pole), furlong, and the mile. The rod was defined as 5+1⁄2 yards or 16+1⁄2 feet, and the mile was eight furlongs, so the definition of the furlong became 40 rods and that of the mile became 5,280 feet (eight furlongs/mile times 40 rods/furlong times 16+1⁄2 feet/rod). The invention of the measuring chain in the 1620s led to the introduction of an intermediate unit of length, the chain of 22 yards, being equal to four rods, and to one-tenth of a furlong.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "A description from 1675 states, \"Dimensurator or Measuring Instrument whereof the mosts usual has been the Chain, and the common length for English Measures four Poles, as answering indifferently to the Englishs Mile and Acre, 10 such Chains in length making a Furlong, and 10 single square Chains an Acre, so that a square Mile contains 640 square Acres.\" —John Ogilby, Britannia, 1675",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The official use of the furlong was abolished in the United Kingdom under the Weights and Measures Act 1985, an act that also abolished the official use of many other traditional units of measurement.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In Myanmar, furlongs are currently used in conjunction with miles to indicate distances on highway signs. Mileposts on the Yangon–Mandalay Expressway use miles and furlongs.",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In the rest of the world, the furlong has very limited use, with the notable exception of horse racing in most English-speaking countries, including Canada and the United States. The distances for horse racing in Australia were converted to metric in 1972, but in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and the United States, races are still given in miles and furlongs. Also distances along English canals navigated by narrowboats are commonly expressed in miles and furlongs.",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The city of Chicago's street numbering system allots a measure of 800 address units to each mile, in keeping with the city's system of eight blocks per mile. This means that every block in a typical Chicago neighborhood (in either north–south or east–west direction but rarely both) is approximately one furlong in length. Salt Lake City's blocks are also each a square furlong in the downtown area. The blocks become less regular in shape farther from the center, but the numbering system (800 units to each mile) remains the same everywhere in Salt Lake County. Blocks in central Logan, Utah, and in large sections of Phoenix, Arizona, are similarly a square furlong in extent (eight to a mile, which explains the series of freeway exits: 19th Ave, 27th, 35th, 43rd, 51st, 59th ...). City blocks in the Hoddle Grid of Melbourne are also one furlong in length.",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Much of Ontario, Canada, was originally surveyed on a ten-furlong grid, with major roads being laid out along the grid lines. Now that distances are shown on road signs in kilometres, these major roads are almost exactly two kilometres apart. The exits on highways running through Toronto, for example, are generally at intervals of two kilometres.",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The Bangor City Forest in Bangor, Maine has its trail system marked in miles and furlongs.",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The furlong is also a base unit of the humorous FFF system of units.",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The exact length of the furlong varies slightly among English-speaking countries. In Canada and the United Kingdom, which define the furlong in terms of the international yard of exactly 0.9144 metres, a furlong is 201.168 m. Australia does not formally define the furlong, but it does define the chain and link in terms of the international yard.",
"title": "Definition of length"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The United States previously defined the furlong, chain, rod, and link in terms of the U.S. survey foot of exactly 1200⁄3937 metre, resulting in a furlong approximately 201.1684 m long. The difference of approximately two parts per million between the old U.S. value and the \"international\" value was insignificant for most practical measurements.",
"title": "Definition of length"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In October 2019, U.S. National Geodetic Survey and National Institute of Standards and Technology announced their joint intent to retire the U.S. survey foot, with effect from the end of 2022. The furlong in U.S. Customary units is thereafter defined based on the International 1959 foot, giving the length of the furlong as exact 201.168 meters in the United States as well.",
"title": "Definition of length"
}
] |
A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and United States customary units equal to one eighth of a mile, equivalent to any of 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods, 10 chains or approximately 201 metres. It is now mostly confined to use in horse racing, where in many countries it is the standard measurement of race lengths, and agriculture, where it is used to measure rural field lengths and distances. In the United States, some states use older definitions for surveying purposes, leading to variations in the length of the furlong of two parts per million, or about 0.4 millimetres. This variation is too small to have practical consequences in most applications. Using the international definition of the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres, one furlong is 201.168 metres, and five furlongs are about 1 kilometre.
|
2001-11-11T04:33:34Z
|
2023-12-11T01:32:49Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furlong
|
11,489 |
File
|
File or filing may refer to:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "File or filing may refer to:",
"title": ""
}
] |
File or filing may refer to:
|
2001-11-11T15:02:49Z
|
2023-11-30T08:22:26Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File
|
11,490 |
Fundamental frequency
|
The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the fundamental, is defined as the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform. In music, the fundamental is the musical pitch of a note that is perceived as the lowest partial present. In terms of a superposition of sinusoids, the fundamental frequency is the lowest frequency sinusoidal in the sum of harmonically related frequencies, or the frequency of the difference between adjacent frequencies. In some contexts, the fundamental is usually abbreviated as f0, indicating the lowest frequency counting from zero. In other contexts, it is more common to abbreviate it as f1, the first harmonic. (The second harmonic is then f2 = 2⋅f1, etc. In this context, the zeroth harmonic would be 0 Hz.)
According to Benward's and Saker's Music: In Theory and Practice:
Since the fundamental is the lowest frequency and is also perceived as the loudest, the ear identifies it as the specific pitch of the musical tone [harmonic spectrum].... The individual partials are not heard separately but are blended together by the ear into a single tone.
All sinusoidal and many non-sinusoidal waveforms repeat exactly over time – they are periodic. The period of a waveform is the smallest value T {\displaystyle T} for which the following is true:
Where x ( t ) {\displaystyle x(t)} is the value of the waveform t {\displaystyle t} . This means that the waveform's values over any interval of length are T {\displaystyle T} is all that is required to describe the waveform completely (for example, by the associated Fourier series). Since any multiple of period T {\displaystyle T} also satisfies this definition, the fundamental period is defined as the smallest period over which the function may be described completely. The fundamental frequency is defined as its reciprocal:
When the units of time are seconds, the frequency is in s − 1 {\displaystyle s^{-1}} , also known as Hertz.
For a pipe of length L {\displaystyle L} with one end closed and the other end open the wavelength of the fundamental harmonic is 4 L {\displaystyle 4L} , as indicated by the first two animations. Hence,
Therefore, using the relation
where v {\displaystyle v} is the speed of the wave, the fundamental frequency can be found in terms of the speed of the wave and the length of the pipe:
If the ends of the same pipe are now both closed or both opened as in the last two animations, the wavelength of the fundamental harmonic becomes 2 L {\displaystyle 2L} . By the same method as above, the fundamental frequency is found to be
In music, the fundamental is the musical pitch of a note that is perceived as the lowest partial present. The fundamental may be created by vibration over the full length of a string or air column, or a higher harmonic chosen by the player. The fundamental is one of the harmonics. A harmonic is any member of the harmonic series, an ideal set of frequencies that are positive integer multiples of a common fundamental frequency. The reason a fundamental is also considered a harmonic is because it is 1 times itself.
The fundamental is the frequency at which the entire wave vibrates. Overtones are other sinusoidal components present at frequencies above the fundamental. All of the frequency components that make up the total waveform, including the fundamental and the overtones, are called partials. Together they form the harmonic series. Overtones which are perfect integer multiples of the fundamental are called harmonics. When an overtone is near to being harmonic, but not exact, it is sometimes called a harmonic partial, although they are often referred to simply as harmonics. Sometimes overtones are created that are not anywhere near a harmonic, and are just called partials or inharmonic overtones.
The fundamental frequency is considered the first harmonic and the first partial. The numbering of the partials and harmonics is then usually the same; the second partial is the second harmonic, etc. But if there are inharmonic partials, the numbering no longer coincides. Overtones are numbered as they appear above the fundamental. So strictly speaking, the first overtone is the second partial (and usually the second harmonic). As this can result in confusion, only harmonics are usually referred to by their numbers, and overtones and partials are described by their relationships to those harmonics.
Consider a spring, fixed at one end and having a mass attached to the other; this would be a single degree of freedom (SDoF) oscillator. Once set into motion, it will oscillate at its natural frequency. For a single degree of freedom oscillator, a system in which the motion can be described by a single coordinate, the natural frequency depends on two system properties: mass and stiffness; (providing the system is undamped). The natural frequency, or fundamental frequency, ω0, can be found using the following equation:
where:
To determine the natural frequency in Hz, the omega value is divided by 2π. Or:
where:
While doing a modal analysis, the frequency of the 1st mode is the fundamental frequency.
This is also expressed as:
where:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the fundamental, is defined as the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform. In music, the fundamental is the musical pitch of a note that is perceived as the lowest partial present. In terms of a superposition of sinusoids, the fundamental frequency is the lowest frequency sinusoidal in the sum of harmonically related frequencies, or the frequency of the difference between adjacent frequencies. In some contexts, the fundamental is usually abbreviated as f0, indicating the lowest frequency counting from zero. In other contexts, it is more common to abbreviate it as f1, the first harmonic. (The second harmonic is then f2 = 2⋅f1, etc. In this context, the zeroth harmonic would be 0 Hz.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "According to Benward's and Saker's Music: In Theory and Practice:",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Since the fundamental is the lowest frequency and is also perceived as the loudest, the ear identifies it as the specific pitch of the musical tone [harmonic spectrum].... The individual partials are not heard separately but are blended together by the ear into a single tone.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "All sinusoidal and many non-sinusoidal waveforms repeat exactly over time – they are periodic. The period of a waveform is the smallest value T {\\displaystyle T} for which the following is true:",
"title": "Explanation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Where x ( t ) {\\displaystyle x(t)} is the value of the waveform t {\\displaystyle t} . This means that the waveform's values over any interval of length are T {\\displaystyle T} is all that is required to describe the waveform completely (for example, by the associated Fourier series). Since any multiple of period T {\\displaystyle T} also satisfies this definition, the fundamental period is defined as the smallest period over which the function may be described completely. The fundamental frequency is defined as its reciprocal:",
"title": "Explanation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "When the units of time are seconds, the frequency is in s − 1 {\\displaystyle s^{-1}} , also known as Hertz.",
"title": "Explanation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "For a pipe of length L {\\displaystyle L} with one end closed and the other end open the wavelength of the fundamental harmonic is 4 L {\\displaystyle 4L} , as indicated by the first two animations. Hence,",
"title": "Explanation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Therefore, using the relation",
"title": "Explanation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "where v {\\displaystyle v} is the speed of the wave, the fundamental frequency can be found in terms of the speed of the wave and the length of the pipe:",
"title": "Explanation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "If the ends of the same pipe are now both closed or both opened as in the last two animations, the wavelength of the fundamental harmonic becomes 2 L {\\displaystyle 2L} . By the same method as above, the fundamental frequency is found to be",
"title": "Explanation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In music, the fundamental is the musical pitch of a note that is perceived as the lowest partial present. The fundamental may be created by vibration over the full length of a string or air column, or a higher harmonic chosen by the player. The fundamental is one of the harmonics. A harmonic is any member of the harmonic series, an ideal set of frequencies that are positive integer multiples of a common fundamental frequency. The reason a fundamental is also considered a harmonic is because it is 1 times itself.",
"title": "In music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The fundamental is the frequency at which the entire wave vibrates. Overtones are other sinusoidal components present at frequencies above the fundamental. All of the frequency components that make up the total waveform, including the fundamental and the overtones, are called partials. Together they form the harmonic series. Overtones which are perfect integer multiples of the fundamental are called harmonics. When an overtone is near to being harmonic, but not exact, it is sometimes called a harmonic partial, although they are often referred to simply as harmonics. Sometimes overtones are created that are not anywhere near a harmonic, and are just called partials or inharmonic overtones.",
"title": "In music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The fundamental frequency is considered the first harmonic and the first partial. The numbering of the partials and harmonics is then usually the same; the second partial is the second harmonic, etc. But if there are inharmonic partials, the numbering no longer coincides. Overtones are numbered as they appear above the fundamental. So strictly speaking, the first overtone is the second partial (and usually the second harmonic). As this can result in confusion, only harmonics are usually referred to by their numbers, and overtones and partials are described by their relationships to those harmonics.",
"title": "In music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Consider a spring, fixed at one end and having a mass attached to the other; this would be a single degree of freedom (SDoF) oscillator. Once set into motion, it will oscillate at its natural frequency. For a single degree of freedom oscillator, a system in which the motion can be described by a single coordinate, the natural frequency depends on two system properties: mass and stiffness; (providing the system is undamped). The natural frequency, or fundamental frequency, ω0, can be found using the following equation:",
"title": "Mechanical systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "where:",
"title": "Mechanical systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "To determine the natural frequency in Hz, the omega value is divided by 2π. Or:",
"title": "Mechanical systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "where:",
"title": "Mechanical systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "While doing a modal analysis, the frequency of the 1st mode is the fundamental frequency.",
"title": "Mechanical systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "This is also expressed as:",
"title": "Mechanical systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "where:",
"title": "Mechanical systems"
}
] |
The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the fundamental, is defined as the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform. In music, the fundamental is the musical pitch of a note that is perceived as the lowest partial present. In terms of a superposition of sinusoids, the fundamental frequency is the lowest frequency sinusoidal in the sum of harmonically related frequencies, or the frequency of the difference between adjacent frequencies. In some contexts, the fundamental is usually abbreviated as f0, indicating the lowest frequency counting from zero. In other contexts, it is more common to abbreviate it as f1, the first harmonic. According to Benward's and Saker's Music: In Theory and Practice:
|
2002-02-25T15:51:15Z
|
2023-11-05T06:42:26Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_frequency
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11,491 |
Fable
|
Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying.
A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind. Conversely, an animal tale specifically includes talking animals as characters.
Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the New Testament, "μῦθος" ("mythos") was rendered by the translators as "fable" in the First Epistle to Timothy, the Second Epistle to Timothy, the Epistle to Titus and the First Epistle of Peter.
A person who writes fables is referred to as a fabulist.
The fable is one of the most enduring forms of folk literature, spread abroad, modern researchers agree, less by literary anthologies than by oral transmission. Fables can be found in the literature of almost every country.
The varying corpus denoted Aesopica or Aesop's Fables includes most of the best-known western fables, which are attributed to the legendary Aesop, supposed to have been a slave in ancient Greece around 550 BCE. When Babrius set down fables from the Aesopica in verse for a Hellenistic Prince "Alexander", he expressly stated at the head of Book II that this type of "myth" that Aesop had introduced to the "sons of the Hellenes" had been an invention of "Syrians" from the time of "Ninos" (personifying Nineveh to Greeks) and Belos ("ruler"). Epicharmus of Kos and Phormis are reported as having been among the first to invent comic fables. Many familiar fables of Aesop include "The Crow and the Pitcher", "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Lion and the Mouse". In ancient Greek and Roman education, the fable was the first of the progymnasmata—training exercises in prose composition and public speaking—wherein students would be asked to learn fables, expand upon them, invent their own, and finally use them as persuasive examples in longer forensic or deliberative speeches. The need of instructors to teach, and students to learn, a wide range of fables as material for their declamations resulted in their being gathered together in collections, like those of Aesop.
African oral culture has a rich story-telling tradition. As they have for thousands of years, people of all ages in Africa continue to interact with nature, including plants, animals and earthly structures such as rivers, plains, and mountains. Grandparents enjoy enormous respect in African societies and fill the new role of story-telling during retirement years. Children and, to some extent, adults are mesmerized by good story-tellers when they become animated in their quest to tell a good fable.
Joel Chandler Harris wrote African-American fables in the Southern context of slavery under the name of Uncle Remus. His stories of the animal characters Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear are modern examples of African-American story-telling, this though should not transcend critiques and controversies as to whether or not Uncle Remus was a racist or apologist for slavery. The Disney movie Song of the South introduced many of the stories to the public and others not familiar with the role that storytelling played in the life of cultures and groups without training in speaking, reading, writing, or the cultures to which they had been relocated to from world practices of capturing Africans and other indigenous populations to provide slave labor to colonized countries.
India has a rich tradition of fables, many derived from traditional stories and related to local natural elements. Indian fables often teach a particular moral. In some stories the gods have animal aspects, while in others the characters are archetypal talking animals similar to those found in other cultures. Hundreds of fables were composed in ancient India during the first millennium BCE, often as stories within frame stories. Indian fables have a mixed cast of humans and animals. The dialogues are often longer than in fables of Aesop and often comical as the animals try to outwit one another by trickery and deceit. In Indian fables, humanity is not presented as superior to the animals. Prime examples of the fable in India are the Panchatantra and the Jataka tales. These included Vishnu Sarma's Panchatantra, the Hitopadesha, Vikram and The Vampire, and Syntipas' Seven Wise Masters, which were collections of fables that were later influential throughout the Old World. Ben E. Perry (compiler of the "Perry Index" of Aesop's fables) has argued controversially that some of the Buddhist Jataka tales and some of the fables in the Panchatantra may have been influenced by similar Greek and Near Eastern ones. Earlier Indian epics such as Vyasa's Mahabharata and Valmiki's Ramayana also contained fables within the main story, often as side stories or back-story. The most famous folk stories from the Near East were the One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights.
The Panchatantra is an ancient Indian assortment of fables. The earliest recorded work, ascribed to Vishnu Sharma, dates to around 300 BCE. The tales are likely much older than the compilation, having been passed down orally prior to the book's compilation. The word "Panchatantra" is a blend of the words "pancha" (which means "five" in Sanskrit) and "tantra" (which means "weave"). It implies weaving together multiple threads of narrative and moral lessons together to form a book.
Fables had a further long tradition through the Middle Ages and became part of European high literature. During the 17th century, the French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695) saw the soul of the fable in the moral—a rule of behavior. Starting with the Aesopian pattern, La Fontaine set out to satirize the court, the church, the rising bourgeoisie, indeed the entire human scene of his time. La Fontaine's model was subsequently emulated by England's John Gay (1685–1732); Poland's Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801); Italy's Lorenzo Pignotti (1739–1812) and Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi (1754–1827); Serbia's Dositej Obradović (1745–1801) and Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa (1750–1791); France's Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–1794); and Russia's Ivan Krylov (1769–1844).
In modern times, while the fable has been trivialized in children's books, it has also been fully adapted to modern adult literature. Felix Salten's Bambi (1923) is a Bildungsroman—a story of a protagonist's coming-of-age—cast in the form of a fable. James Thurber used the ancient fable style in his books Fables for Our Time (1940) and Further Fables for Our Time (1956), and in his stories "The Princess and the Tin Box" in The Beast in Me and Other Animals (1948) and "The Last Clock: A Fable for the Time, Such As It Is, of Man" in Lanterns and Lances (1961). Władysław Reymont's The Revolt (1922), a metaphor for the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, described a revolt by animals that take over their farm in order to introduce "equality". George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) similarly satirized Stalinist Communism in particular, and totalitarianism in general, in the guise of animal fable.
In the 21st century, the Neapolitan writer Sabatino Scia is the author of more than two hundred fables that he describes as "western protest fables". The characters are not only animals, but also things, beings, and elements from nature. Scia's aim is the same as in the traditional fable, playing the role of revealer of human society. In Latin America, the brothers Juan and Victor Ataucuri Garcia have contributed to the resurgence of the fable. But they do so with a novel idea: use the fable as a means of dissemination of traditional literature of that place. In the book "Fábulas Peruanas" Archived 2015-09-23 at the Wayback Machine, published in 2003, they have collected myths, legends, and beliefs of Andean and Amazonian Peru, to write as fables. The result has been an extraordinary work rich in regional nuances. Here we discover the relationship between man and his origin, with nature, with its history, its customs and beliefs then become norms and values.
|
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"text": "Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a \"moral\"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying.",
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},
{
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"text": "A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind. Conversely, an animal tale specifically includes talking animals as characters.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the New Testament, \"μῦθος\" (\"mythos\") was rendered by the translators as \"fable\" in the First Epistle to Timothy, the Second Epistle to Timothy, the Epistle to Titus and the First Epistle of Peter.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A person who writes fables is referred to as a fabulist.",
"title": ""
},
{
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"text": "The fable is one of the most enduring forms of folk literature, spread abroad, modern researchers agree, less by literary anthologies than by oral transmission. Fables can be found in the literature of almost every country.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The varying corpus denoted Aesopica or Aesop's Fables includes most of the best-known western fables, which are attributed to the legendary Aesop, supposed to have been a slave in ancient Greece around 550 BCE. When Babrius set down fables from the Aesopica in verse for a Hellenistic Prince \"Alexander\", he expressly stated at the head of Book II that this type of \"myth\" that Aesop had introduced to the \"sons of the Hellenes\" had been an invention of \"Syrians\" from the time of \"Ninos\" (personifying Nineveh to Greeks) and Belos (\"ruler\"). Epicharmus of Kos and Phormis are reported as having been among the first to invent comic fables. Many familiar fables of Aesop include \"The Crow and the Pitcher\", \"The Tortoise and the Hare\" and \"The Lion and the Mouse\". In ancient Greek and Roman education, the fable was the first of the progymnasmata—training exercises in prose composition and public speaking—wherein students would be asked to learn fables, expand upon them, invent their own, and finally use them as persuasive examples in longer forensic or deliberative speeches. The need of instructors to teach, and students to learn, a wide range of fables as material for their declamations resulted in their being gathered together in collections, like those of Aesop.",
"title": "History"
},
{
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"text": "African oral culture has a rich story-telling tradition. As they have for thousands of years, people of all ages in Africa continue to interact with nature, including plants, animals and earthly structures such as rivers, plains, and mountains. Grandparents enjoy enormous respect in African societies and fill the new role of story-telling during retirement years. Children and, to some extent, adults are mesmerized by good story-tellers when they become animated in their quest to tell a good fable.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Joel Chandler Harris wrote African-American fables in the Southern context of slavery under the name of Uncle Remus. His stories of the animal characters Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear are modern examples of African-American story-telling, this though should not transcend critiques and controversies as to whether or not Uncle Remus was a racist or apologist for slavery. The Disney movie Song of the South introduced many of the stories to the public and others not familiar with the role that storytelling played in the life of cultures and groups without training in speaking, reading, writing, or the cultures to which they had been relocated to from world practices of capturing Africans and other indigenous populations to provide slave labor to colonized countries.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "India has a rich tradition of fables, many derived from traditional stories and related to local natural elements. Indian fables often teach a particular moral. In some stories the gods have animal aspects, while in others the characters are archetypal talking animals similar to those found in other cultures. Hundreds of fables were composed in ancient India during the first millennium BCE, often as stories within frame stories. Indian fables have a mixed cast of humans and animals. The dialogues are often longer than in fables of Aesop and often comical as the animals try to outwit one another by trickery and deceit. In Indian fables, humanity is not presented as superior to the animals. Prime examples of the fable in India are the Panchatantra and the Jataka tales. These included Vishnu Sarma's Panchatantra, the Hitopadesha, Vikram and The Vampire, and Syntipas' Seven Wise Masters, which were collections of fables that were later influential throughout the Old World. Ben E. Perry (compiler of the \"Perry Index\" of Aesop's fables) has argued controversially that some of the Buddhist Jataka tales and some of the fables in the Panchatantra may have been influenced by similar Greek and Near Eastern ones. Earlier Indian epics such as Vyasa's Mahabharata and Valmiki's Ramayana also contained fables within the main story, often as side stories or back-story. The most famous folk stories from the Near East were the One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Panchatantra is an ancient Indian assortment of fables. The earliest recorded work, ascribed to Vishnu Sharma, dates to around 300 BCE. The tales are likely much older than the compilation, having been passed down orally prior to the book's compilation. The word \"Panchatantra\" is a blend of the words \"pancha\" (which means \"five\" in Sanskrit) and \"tantra\" (which means \"weave\"). It implies weaving together multiple threads of narrative and moral lessons together to form a book.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Fables had a further long tradition through the Middle Ages and became part of European high literature. During the 17th century, the French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695) saw the soul of the fable in the moral—a rule of behavior. Starting with the Aesopian pattern, La Fontaine set out to satirize the court, the church, the rising bourgeoisie, indeed the entire human scene of his time. La Fontaine's model was subsequently emulated by England's John Gay (1685–1732); Poland's Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801); Italy's Lorenzo Pignotti (1739–1812) and Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi (1754–1827); Serbia's Dositej Obradović (1745–1801) and Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa (1750–1791); France's Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–1794); and Russia's Ivan Krylov (1769–1844).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In modern times, while the fable has been trivialized in children's books, it has also been fully adapted to modern adult literature. Felix Salten's Bambi (1923) is a Bildungsroman—a story of a protagonist's coming-of-age—cast in the form of a fable. James Thurber used the ancient fable style in his books Fables for Our Time (1940) and Further Fables for Our Time (1956), and in his stories \"The Princess and the Tin Box\" in The Beast in Me and Other Animals (1948) and \"The Last Clock: A Fable for the Time, Such As It Is, of Man\" in Lanterns and Lances (1961). Władysław Reymont's The Revolt (1922), a metaphor for the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, described a revolt by animals that take over their farm in order to introduce \"equality\". George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) similarly satirized Stalinist Communism in particular, and totalitarianism in general, in the guise of animal fable.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In the 21st century, the Neapolitan writer Sabatino Scia is the author of more than two hundred fables that he describes as \"western protest fables\". The characters are not only animals, but also things, beings, and elements from nature. Scia's aim is the same as in the traditional fable, playing the role of revealer of human society. In Latin America, the brothers Juan and Victor Ataucuri Garcia have contributed to the resurgence of the fable. But they do so with a novel idea: use the fable as a means of dissemination of traditional literature of that place. In the book \"Fábulas Peruanas\" Archived 2015-09-23 at the Wayback Machine, published in 2003, they have collected myths, legends, and beliefs of Andean and Amazonian Peru, to write as fables. The result has been an extraordinary work rich in regional nuances. Here we discover the relationship between man and his origin, with nature, with its history, its customs and beliefs then become norms and values.",
"title": "History"
}
] |
Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson, which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying. A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind. Conversely, an animal tale specifically includes talking animals as characters. Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the New Testament, "μῦθος" ("mythos") was rendered by the translators as "fable" in the First Epistle to Timothy, the Second Epistle to Timothy, the Epistle to Titus and the First Epistle of Peter. A person who writes fables is referred to as a fabulist.
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2001-11-12T05:16:15Z
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2023-12-13T11:45:49Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fable
|
11,492 |
Foot
|
The foot (PL: feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made up of one or more segments or bones, generally including claws and/or nails.
The word "foot", in the sense of meaning the "terminal part of the leg of a vertebrate animal" comes from Old English fot, from Proto-Germanic *fot (source also of Old Frisian fot, Old Saxon fot, Old Norse fotr, Danish fod, Swedish fot, Dutch voet, Old High German fuoz, German Fuß, Gothic fotus, all meaning "foot"), from PIE root *ped- "foot". The plural form feet is an instance of i-mutation.
The human foot is a strong and complex mechanical structure containing 26 bones, 33 joints (20 of which are actively articulated), and more than a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The joints of the foot are the ankle and subtalar joint and the interphalangeal joints of the foot. An anthropometric study of 1197 North American adult Caucasian males (mean age 35.5 years) found that a man's foot length was 26.3 cm with a standard deviation of 1.2 cm.
The foot can be subdivided into the hindfoot, the midfoot, and the forefoot:
The hindfoot is composed of the talus (or ankle bone) and the calcaneus (or heel bone). The two long bones of the lower leg, the tibia and fibula, are connected to the top of the talus to form the ankle. Connected to the talus at the subtalar joint, the calcaneus, the largest bone of the foot, is cushioned underneath by a layer of fat.
The five irregular bones of the midfoot, the cuboid, navicular, and three cuneiform bones, form the arches of the foot which serve as a shock absorber. The midfoot is connected to the hind- and fore-foot by muscles and the plantar fascia.
The forefoot is composed of five toes and the corresponding five proximal long bones forming the metatarsus. Similar to the fingers of the hand, the bones of the toes are called phalanges and the big toe has two phalanges while the other four toes have three phalanges each. The joints between the phalanges are called interphalangeal and those between the metatarsus and phalanges are called metatarsophalangeal (MTP).
Both the midfoot and forefoot constitute the dorsum (the area facing upward while standing) and the planum (the area facing downward while standing).
The instep is the arched part of the top of the foot between the toes and the ankle.
There can be many sesamoid bones near the metatarsophalangeal joints, although they are only regularly present in the distal portion of the first metatarsal bone.
The human foot has two longitudinal arches and a transverse arch maintained by the interlocking shapes of the foot bones, strong ligaments, and pulling muscles during activity. The slight mobility of these arches when weight is applied to and removed from the foot makes walking and running more economical in terms of energy. As can be examined in a footprint, the medial longitudinal arch curves above the ground. This arch stretches from the heel bone over the "keystone" ankle bone to the three medial metatarsals. In contrast, the lateral longitudinal arch is very low. With the cuboid serving as its keystone, it redistributes part of the weight to the calcaneus and the distal end of the fifth metatarsal. The two longitudinal arches serve as pillars for the transverse arch which run obliquely across the tarsometatarsal joints. Excessive strain on the tendons and ligaments of the feet can result in fallen arches or flat feet.
The muscles acting on the foot can be classified into extrinsic muscles, those originating on the anterior or posterior aspect of the lower leg, and intrinsic muscles, originating on the dorsal (top) or plantar (base) aspects of the foot.
All muscles originating on the lower leg except the popliteus muscle are attached to the bones of the foot. The tibia and fibula and the interosseous membrane separate these muscles into anterior and posterior groups, in their turn subdivided into subgroups and layers.
Extensor group: the tibialis anterior originates on the proximal half of the tibia and the interosseous membrane and is inserted near the tarsometatarsal joint of the first digit. In the non-weight-bearing leg, the tibialis anterior dorsiflexes the foot and lift its medial edge (supination). In the weight-bearing leg, it brings the leg toward the back of the foot, like in rapid walking. The extensor digitorum longus arises on the lateral tibial condyle and along the fibula, and is inserted on the second to fifth digits and proximally on the fifth metatarsal. The extensor digitorum longus acts similar to the tibialis anterior except that it also dorsiflexes the digits. The extensor hallucis longus originates medially on the fibula and is inserted on the first digit. It dorsiflexes the big toe and also acts on the ankle in the unstressed leg. In the weight-bearing leg, it acts similarly to the tibialis anterior.
Peroneal group: the peroneus longus arises on the proximal aspect of the fibula and peroneus brevis below it. Together, their tendons pass behind the lateral malleolus. Distally, the peroneus longus crosses the plantar side of the foot to reach its insertion on the first tarsometatarsal joint, while the peroneus brevis reaches the proximal part of the fifth metatarsal. These two muscles are the strongest pronators and aid in plantar flexion. The peroneus longus also acts like a bowstring that braces the transverse arch of the foot.
The superficial layer of posterior leg muscles is formed by the triceps surae and the plantaris. The triceps surae consists of the soleus and the two heads of the gastrocnemius. The heads of gastrocnemius arise on the femur, proximal to the condyles, and the soleus arises on the proximal dorsal parts of the tibia and fibula. The tendons of these muscles merge to be inserted onto the calcaneus as the Achilles tendon. The plantaris originates on the femur proximal to the lateral head of the gastrocnemius and its long tendon is embedded medially into the Achilles tendon. The triceps surae is the primary plantar flexor. Its strength becomes most obvious during ballet dancing. It is fully activated only with the knee extended, because the gastrocnemius is shortened during flexion of the knee. During walking it not only lifts the heel, but also flexes the knee, assisted by the plantaris.
In the deep layer of posterior muscles, the tibialis posterior arises proximally on the back of the interosseous membrane and adjoining bones, and divides into two parts in the sole of the foot to attach to the tarsus. In the non-weight-bearing leg, it produces plantar flexion and supination, and, in the weight-bearing leg, it proximates the heel to the calf. The flexor hallucis longus arises on the back of the fibula on the lateral side, and its relatively thick muscle belly extends distally down to the flexor retinaculum where it passes over to the medial side to stretch across the sole to the distal phalanx of the first digit. The popliteus is also part of this group, but, with its oblique course across the back of the knee, does not act on the foot.
On the top of the foot, the tendons of extensor digitorum brevis and extensor hallucis brevis lie deep in the system of long extrinsic extensor tendons. They both arise on the calcaneus and extend into the dorsal aponeurosis of digits one to four, just beyond the penultimate joints. They act to dorsiflex the digits. Similar to the intrinsic muscles of the hand, there are three groups of muscles in the sole of foot, those of the first and last digits, and a central group:
Muscles of the big toe: the abductor hallucis stretches medially along the border of the sole, from the calcaneus to the first digit. Below its tendon, the tendons of the long flexors pass through the tarsal canal. The abductor hallucis is an abductor and a weak flexor, and also helps maintain the arch of the foot. The flexor hallucis brevis arises on the medial cuneiform bone and related ligaments and tendons. An important plantar flexor, it is crucial to ballet dancing. Both these muscles are inserted with two heads proximally and distally to the first metatarsophalangeal joint. The adductor hallucis is part of this group, though it originally formed a separate system (see contrahens). It has two heads, the oblique head originating obliquely across the central part of the midfoot, and the transverse head originating near the metatarsophalangeal joints of digits five to three. Both heads are inserted into the lateral sesamoid bone of the first digit. The adductor hallucis acts as a tensor of the plantar arches and also adducts the big toe and might plantar flex the proximal phalanx.
Muscles of the little toe: Stretching laterally from the calcaneus to the proximal phalanx of the fifth digit, the abductor digiti minimi form the lateral margin of the foot and are the largest of the muscles of the fifth digit. Arising from the base of the fifth metatarsal, the flexor digiti minimi is inserted together with abductor on the first phalanx. Often absent, the opponens digiti minimi originates near the cuboid bone and is inserted on the fifth metatarsal bone. These three muscles act to support the arch of the foot and to plantar flex the fifth digit.
Central muscle group: The four lumbricals arise on the medial side of the tendons of flexor digitorum longus and are inserted on the medial margins of the proximal phalanges. The quadratus plantae originates with two slips from the lateral and medial margins of the calcaneus and inserts into the lateral margin of the flexor digitorum tendon. It is also known as the flexor accessorius. The flexor digitorum brevis arises inferiorly on the calcaneus and its three tendons are inserted into the middle phalanges of digits two to four (sometimes also the fifth digit). These tendons divide before their insertions and the tendons of flexor digitorum longus pass through these divisions. Flexor digitorum brevis flexes the middle phalanges. It is occasionally absent. Between the toes, the dorsal and plantar interossei stretch from the metatarsals to the proximal phalanges of digits two to five. The plantar interossei adduct and the dorsal interossei abduct these digits, and are also plantar flexors at the metatarsophalangeal joints.
Due to their position and function, feet are exposed to a variety of potential infections and injuries, including athlete's foot, bunions, ingrown toenails, Morton's neuroma, plantar fasciitis, plantar warts, and stress fractures. In addition, there are several genetic disorders that can affect the shape and function of the feet, including clubfoot or flat feet.
This leaves humans more vulnerable to medical problems that are caused by poor leg and foot alignments. Also, the wearing of shoes, sneakers and boots can impede proper alignment and movement within the ankle and foot. For example, high-heeled shoes are known to throw off the natural weight balance (this can also affect the lower back). For the sake of posture, flat soles with no heels are advised.
A doctor who specializes in the treatment of the feet practices podiatry and is called a podiatrist. A pedorthist specializes in the use and modification of footwear to treat problems related to the lower limbs.
Fractures of the foot include:
In anatomy, pronation is a rotational movement of the forearm (at the radioulnar joint) or foot (at the subtalar and talocalcaneonavicular joints). Pronation of the foot refers to how the body distributes weight as it cycles through the gait. During the gait cycle the foot can pronate in many different ways based on rearfoot and forefoot function. Types of pronation include neutral pronation, underpronation (supination), and overpronation.
An individual who neutrally pronates initially strikes the ground on the lateral side of the heel. As the individual transfers weight from the heel to the metatarsus, the foot will roll in a medial direction, such that the weight is distributed evenly across the metatarsus. In this stage of the gait, the knee will generally, but not always, track directly over the hallux.
This rolling inward motion as the foot progresses from heel to toe is the way that the body naturally absorbs shock. Neutral pronation is the most ideal, efficient type of gait when using a heel strike gait; in a forefoot strike, the body absorbs shock instead via flexion of the foot.
As with a neutral pronator, an individual who overpronates initially strikes the ground on the lateral side of the heel. As the individual transfers weight from the heel to the metatarsus, however, the foot will roll too far in a medial direction, such that the weight is distributed unevenly across the metatarsus, with excessive weight borne on the hallux. In this stage of the gait, the knee will generally, but not always, track inward.
An overpronator does not absorb shock efficiently. Imagine someone jumping onto a diving board, but the board is so flimsy that when it is struck, it bends and allows the person to plunge straight down into the water instead of back into the air. Similarly, an overpronator's arches will collapse, or the ankles will roll inward (or a combination of the two) as they cycle through the gait. An individual whose bone structure involves external rotation at the hip, knee, or ankle will be more likely to overpronate than one whose bone structure has internal rotation or central alignment. An individual who overpronates tends to wear down their running shoes on the medial (inside) side of the shoe toward the toe area.
When choosing a running or walking shoe, a person with overpronation can choose shoes that have good inside support—usually by strong material at the inside sole and arch of the shoe. It is usually visible. The inside support area is marked by strong greyish material to support the weight when a person lands on the outside foot and then roll onto the inside foot.
An individual who underpronates also initially strikes the ground on the lateral side of the heel. As the individual transfers weight from the heel to the metatarsus, the foot will not roll far enough in a medial direction. The weight is distributed unevenly across the metatarsus, with excessive weight borne on the fifth metatarsal, toward the lateral side of the foot. In this stage of the gait, the knee will generally, but not always, track laterally of the hallux.
Like an overpronator, an underpronator does not absorb shock efficiently – but for the opposite reason. The underpronated foot is like a diving board that, instead of failing to spring someone in the air because it is too flimsy, fails to do so because it is too rigid. There is virtually no give. An underpronator's arches or ankles do not experience much motion as they cycle through the gait. An individual whose bone structure involves internal rotation at the hip, knee, or ankle will be more likely to underpronate than one whose bone structure has external rotation or central alignment. Usually – but not always – those who are bow-legged tend to underpronate. An individual who underpronates tends to wear down their running shoes on the lateral (outside) side of the shoe toward the rear of the shoe in the heel area.
Humans usually wear shoes or similar footwear for protection from hazards when walking outside. There are a number of contexts where it is considered inappropriate to wear shoes. Some people consider it rude to wear shoes into a house and a Māori Marae should only be entered with bare feet.
Foot fetishism is the most common sexual fetish.
A paw is the soft foot of a mammal, generally a quadruped, that has claws or nails (e.g., a cat or dog's paw). A hard foot is called a hoof. Depending on style of locomotion, animals can be classified as plantigrade (sole walking), digitigrade (toe walking), or unguligrade (nail walking).
The metatarsals are the bones that make up the main part of the foot in humans, and part of the leg in large animals or paw in smaller animals. The number of metatarsals are directly related to the mode of locomotion with many larger animals having their digits reduced to two (elk, cow, sheep) or one (horse). The metatarsal bones of feet and paws are tightly grouped compared to, most notably, the human hand where the thumb metacarpal diverges from the rest of the metacarpus.
The word "foot" is used to refer to a "...linear measure was in Old English (the exact length has varied over time), this being considered the length of a man's foot; a unit of measure used widely and anciently. In this sense the plural is often foot. The current inch and foot are implied from measurements in 12c." The word "foot" also has a musical meaning; a "...metrical foot (late Old English, translating Latin pes, Greek pous in the same sense) is commonly taken to represent one rise and one fall of a foot: keeping time according to some, dancing according to others."
The word "foot" was used in Middle English to mean "a person" (c. 1200). The expression "...to put one's best foot foremost first recorded 1849 (Shakespeare has the better foot before, 1596)". The expression to "...put one's foot in (one's) mouth "say something stupid" was first used in 1942. The expression "put (one's) foot in something" meaning to "make a mess of it" was used in 1823.
The word "footloose" was first used in the 1690s, meaning "free to move the feet, unshackled"; the more "figurative sense of "free to act as one pleases" was first used in 1873. Like "footloose", "flat-footed" at first had its obvious literal meaning (in 1600, it meant "with flat feet") but by 1912 it meant "unprepared" (U.S. baseball slang).
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The foot (PL: feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made up of one or more segments or bones, generally including claws and/or nails.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The word \"foot\", in the sense of meaning the \"terminal part of the leg of a vertebrate animal\" comes from Old English fot, from Proto-Germanic *fot (source also of Old Frisian fot, Old Saxon fot, Old Norse fotr, Danish fod, Swedish fot, Dutch voet, Old High German fuoz, German Fuß, Gothic fotus, all meaning \"foot\"), from PIE root *ped- \"foot\". The plural form feet is an instance of i-mutation.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The human foot is a strong and complex mechanical structure containing 26 bones, 33 joints (20 of which are actively articulated), and more than a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The joints of the foot are the ankle and subtalar joint and the interphalangeal joints of the foot. An anthropometric study of 1197 North American adult Caucasian males (mean age 35.5 years) found that a man's foot length was 26.3 cm with a standard deviation of 1.2 cm.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The foot can be subdivided into the hindfoot, the midfoot, and the forefoot:",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The hindfoot is composed of the talus (or ankle bone) and the calcaneus (or heel bone). The two long bones of the lower leg, the tibia and fibula, are connected to the top of the talus to form the ankle. Connected to the talus at the subtalar joint, the calcaneus, the largest bone of the foot, is cushioned underneath by a layer of fat.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The five irregular bones of the midfoot, the cuboid, navicular, and three cuneiform bones, form the arches of the foot which serve as a shock absorber. The midfoot is connected to the hind- and fore-foot by muscles and the plantar fascia.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The forefoot is composed of five toes and the corresponding five proximal long bones forming the metatarsus. Similar to the fingers of the hand, the bones of the toes are called phalanges and the big toe has two phalanges while the other four toes have three phalanges each. The joints between the phalanges are called interphalangeal and those between the metatarsus and phalanges are called metatarsophalangeal (MTP).",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Both the midfoot and forefoot constitute the dorsum (the area facing upward while standing) and the planum (the area facing downward while standing).",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The instep is the arched part of the top of the foot between the toes and the ankle.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "There can be many sesamoid bones near the metatarsophalangeal joints, although they are only regularly present in the distal portion of the first metatarsal bone.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The human foot has two longitudinal arches and a transverse arch maintained by the interlocking shapes of the foot bones, strong ligaments, and pulling muscles during activity. The slight mobility of these arches when weight is applied to and removed from the foot makes walking and running more economical in terms of energy. As can be examined in a footprint, the medial longitudinal arch curves above the ground. This arch stretches from the heel bone over the \"keystone\" ankle bone to the three medial metatarsals. In contrast, the lateral longitudinal arch is very low. With the cuboid serving as its keystone, it redistributes part of the weight to the calcaneus and the distal end of the fifth metatarsal. The two longitudinal arches serve as pillars for the transverse arch which run obliquely across the tarsometatarsal joints. Excessive strain on the tendons and ligaments of the feet can result in fallen arches or flat feet.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The muscles acting on the foot can be classified into extrinsic muscles, those originating on the anterior or posterior aspect of the lower leg, and intrinsic muscles, originating on the dorsal (top) or plantar (base) aspects of the foot.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "All muscles originating on the lower leg except the popliteus muscle are attached to the bones of the foot. The tibia and fibula and the interosseous membrane separate these muscles into anterior and posterior groups, in their turn subdivided into subgroups and layers.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Extensor group: the tibialis anterior originates on the proximal half of the tibia and the interosseous membrane and is inserted near the tarsometatarsal joint of the first digit. In the non-weight-bearing leg, the tibialis anterior dorsiflexes the foot and lift its medial edge (supination). In the weight-bearing leg, it brings the leg toward the back of the foot, like in rapid walking. The extensor digitorum longus arises on the lateral tibial condyle and along the fibula, and is inserted on the second to fifth digits and proximally on the fifth metatarsal. The extensor digitorum longus acts similar to the tibialis anterior except that it also dorsiflexes the digits. The extensor hallucis longus originates medially on the fibula and is inserted on the first digit. It dorsiflexes the big toe and also acts on the ankle in the unstressed leg. In the weight-bearing leg, it acts similarly to the tibialis anterior.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Peroneal group: the peroneus longus arises on the proximal aspect of the fibula and peroneus brevis below it. Together, their tendons pass behind the lateral malleolus. Distally, the peroneus longus crosses the plantar side of the foot to reach its insertion on the first tarsometatarsal joint, while the peroneus brevis reaches the proximal part of the fifth metatarsal. These two muscles are the strongest pronators and aid in plantar flexion. The peroneus longus also acts like a bowstring that braces the transverse arch of the foot.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The superficial layer of posterior leg muscles is formed by the triceps surae and the plantaris. The triceps surae consists of the soleus and the two heads of the gastrocnemius. The heads of gastrocnemius arise on the femur, proximal to the condyles, and the soleus arises on the proximal dorsal parts of the tibia and fibula. The tendons of these muscles merge to be inserted onto the calcaneus as the Achilles tendon. The plantaris originates on the femur proximal to the lateral head of the gastrocnemius and its long tendon is embedded medially into the Achilles tendon. The triceps surae is the primary plantar flexor. Its strength becomes most obvious during ballet dancing. It is fully activated only with the knee extended, because the gastrocnemius is shortened during flexion of the knee. During walking it not only lifts the heel, but also flexes the knee, assisted by the plantaris.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In the deep layer of posterior muscles, the tibialis posterior arises proximally on the back of the interosseous membrane and adjoining bones, and divides into two parts in the sole of the foot to attach to the tarsus. In the non-weight-bearing leg, it produces plantar flexion and supination, and, in the weight-bearing leg, it proximates the heel to the calf. The flexor hallucis longus arises on the back of the fibula on the lateral side, and its relatively thick muscle belly extends distally down to the flexor retinaculum where it passes over to the medial side to stretch across the sole to the distal phalanx of the first digit. The popliteus is also part of this group, but, with its oblique course across the back of the knee, does not act on the foot.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "On the top of the foot, the tendons of extensor digitorum brevis and extensor hallucis brevis lie deep in the system of long extrinsic extensor tendons. They both arise on the calcaneus and extend into the dorsal aponeurosis of digits one to four, just beyond the penultimate joints. They act to dorsiflex the digits. Similar to the intrinsic muscles of the hand, there are three groups of muscles in the sole of foot, those of the first and last digits, and a central group:",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Muscles of the big toe: the abductor hallucis stretches medially along the border of the sole, from the calcaneus to the first digit. Below its tendon, the tendons of the long flexors pass through the tarsal canal. The abductor hallucis is an abductor and a weak flexor, and also helps maintain the arch of the foot. The flexor hallucis brevis arises on the medial cuneiform bone and related ligaments and tendons. An important plantar flexor, it is crucial to ballet dancing. Both these muscles are inserted with two heads proximally and distally to the first metatarsophalangeal joint. The adductor hallucis is part of this group, though it originally formed a separate system (see contrahens). It has two heads, the oblique head originating obliquely across the central part of the midfoot, and the transverse head originating near the metatarsophalangeal joints of digits five to three. Both heads are inserted into the lateral sesamoid bone of the first digit. The adductor hallucis acts as a tensor of the plantar arches and also adducts the big toe and might plantar flex the proximal phalanx.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Muscles of the little toe: Stretching laterally from the calcaneus to the proximal phalanx of the fifth digit, the abductor digiti minimi form the lateral margin of the foot and are the largest of the muscles of the fifth digit. Arising from the base of the fifth metatarsal, the flexor digiti minimi is inserted together with abductor on the first phalanx. Often absent, the opponens digiti minimi originates near the cuboid bone and is inserted on the fifth metatarsal bone. These three muscles act to support the arch of the foot and to plantar flex the fifth digit.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Central muscle group: The four lumbricals arise on the medial side of the tendons of flexor digitorum longus and are inserted on the medial margins of the proximal phalanges. The quadratus plantae originates with two slips from the lateral and medial margins of the calcaneus and inserts into the lateral margin of the flexor digitorum tendon. It is also known as the flexor accessorius. The flexor digitorum brevis arises inferiorly on the calcaneus and its three tendons are inserted into the middle phalanges of digits two to four (sometimes also the fifth digit). These tendons divide before their insertions and the tendons of flexor digitorum longus pass through these divisions. Flexor digitorum brevis flexes the middle phalanges. It is occasionally absent. Between the toes, the dorsal and plantar interossei stretch from the metatarsals to the proximal phalanges of digits two to five. The plantar interossei adduct and the dorsal interossei abduct these digits, and are also plantar flexors at the metatarsophalangeal joints.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Due to their position and function, feet are exposed to a variety of potential infections and injuries, including athlete's foot, bunions, ingrown toenails, Morton's neuroma, plantar fasciitis, plantar warts, and stress fractures. In addition, there are several genetic disorders that can affect the shape and function of the feet, including clubfoot or flat feet.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "This leaves humans more vulnerable to medical problems that are caused by poor leg and foot alignments. Also, the wearing of shoes, sneakers and boots can impede proper alignment and movement within the ankle and foot. For example, high-heeled shoes are known to throw off the natural weight balance (this can also affect the lower back). For the sake of posture, flat soles with no heels are advised.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "A doctor who specializes in the treatment of the feet practices podiatry and is called a podiatrist. A pedorthist specializes in the use and modification of footwear to treat problems related to the lower limbs.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Fractures of the foot include:",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In anatomy, pronation is a rotational movement of the forearm (at the radioulnar joint) or foot (at the subtalar and talocalcaneonavicular joints). Pronation of the foot refers to how the body distributes weight as it cycles through the gait. During the gait cycle the foot can pronate in many different ways based on rearfoot and forefoot function. Types of pronation include neutral pronation, underpronation (supination), and overpronation.",
"title": "Pronation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "An individual who neutrally pronates initially strikes the ground on the lateral side of the heel. As the individual transfers weight from the heel to the metatarsus, the foot will roll in a medial direction, such that the weight is distributed evenly across the metatarsus. In this stage of the gait, the knee will generally, but not always, track directly over the hallux.",
"title": "Pronation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "This rolling inward motion as the foot progresses from heel to toe is the way that the body naturally absorbs shock. Neutral pronation is the most ideal, efficient type of gait when using a heel strike gait; in a forefoot strike, the body absorbs shock instead via flexion of the foot.",
"title": "Pronation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "As with a neutral pronator, an individual who overpronates initially strikes the ground on the lateral side of the heel. As the individual transfers weight from the heel to the metatarsus, however, the foot will roll too far in a medial direction, such that the weight is distributed unevenly across the metatarsus, with excessive weight borne on the hallux. In this stage of the gait, the knee will generally, but not always, track inward.",
"title": "Pronation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "An overpronator does not absorb shock efficiently. Imagine someone jumping onto a diving board, but the board is so flimsy that when it is struck, it bends and allows the person to plunge straight down into the water instead of back into the air. Similarly, an overpronator's arches will collapse, or the ankles will roll inward (or a combination of the two) as they cycle through the gait. An individual whose bone structure involves external rotation at the hip, knee, or ankle will be more likely to overpronate than one whose bone structure has internal rotation or central alignment. An individual who overpronates tends to wear down their running shoes on the medial (inside) side of the shoe toward the toe area.",
"title": "Pronation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "When choosing a running or walking shoe, a person with overpronation can choose shoes that have good inside support—usually by strong material at the inside sole and arch of the shoe. It is usually visible. The inside support area is marked by strong greyish material to support the weight when a person lands on the outside foot and then roll onto the inside foot.",
"title": "Pronation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "An individual who underpronates also initially strikes the ground on the lateral side of the heel. As the individual transfers weight from the heel to the metatarsus, the foot will not roll far enough in a medial direction. The weight is distributed unevenly across the metatarsus, with excessive weight borne on the fifth metatarsal, toward the lateral side of the foot. In this stage of the gait, the knee will generally, but not always, track laterally of the hallux.",
"title": "Pronation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Like an overpronator, an underpronator does not absorb shock efficiently – but for the opposite reason. The underpronated foot is like a diving board that, instead of failing to spring someone in the air because it is too flimsy, fails to do so because it is too rigid. There is virtually no give. An underpronator's arches or ankles do not experience much motion as they cycle through the gait. An individual whose bone structure involves internal rotation at the hip, knee, or ankle will be more likely to underpronate than one whose bone structure has external rotation or central alignment. Usually – but not always – those who are bow-legged tend to underpronate. An individual who underpronates tends to wear down their running shoes on the lateral (outside) side of the shoe toward the rear of the shoe in the heel area.",
"title": "Pronation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Humans usually wear shoes or similar footwear for protection from hazards when walking outside. There are a number of contexts where it is considered inappropriate to wear shoes. Some people consider it rude to wear shoes into a house and a Māori Marae should only be entered with bare feet.",
"title": "Society and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Foot fetishism is the most common sexual fetish.",
"title": "Society and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "A paw is the soft foot of a mammal, generally a quadruped, that has claws or nails (e.g., a cat or dog's paw). A hard foot is called a hoof. Depending on style of locomotion, animals can be classified as plantigrade (sole walking), digitigrade (toe walking), or unguligrade (nail walking).",
"title": "Other animals"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The metatarsals are the bones that make up the main part of the foot in humans, and part of the leg in large animals or paw in smaller animals. The number of metatarsals are directly related to the mode of locomotion with many larger animals having their digits reduced to two (elk, cow, sheep) or one (horse). The metatarsal bones of feet and paws are tightly grouped compared to, most notably, the human hand where the thumb metacarpal diverges from the rest of the metacarpus.",
"title": "Other animals"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The word \"foot\" is used to refer to a \"...linear measure was in Old English (the exact length has varied over time), this being considered the length of a man's foot; a unit of measure used widely and anciently. In this sense the plural is often foot. The current inch and foot are implied from measurements in 12c.\" The word \"foot\" also has a musical meaning; a \"...metrical foot (late Old English, translating Latin pes, Greek pous in the same sense) is commonly taken to represent one rise and one fall of a foot: keeping time according to some, dancing according to others.\"",
"title": "Metaphorical and cultural usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The word \"foot\" was used in Middle English to mean \"a person\" (c. 1200). The expression \"...to put one's best foot foremost first recorded 1849 (Shakespeare has the better foot before, 1596)\". The expression to \"...put one's foot in (one's) mouth \"say something stupid\" was first used in 1942. The expression \"put (one's) foot in something\" meaning to \"make a mess of it\" was used in 1823.",
"title": "Metaphorical and cultural usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The word \"footloose\" was first used in the 1690s, meaning \"free to move the feet, unshackled\"; the more \"figurative sense of \"free to act as one pleases\" was first used in 1873. Like \"footloose\", \"flat-footed\" at first had its obvious literal meaning (in 1600, it meant \"with flat feet\") but by 1912 it meant \"unprepared\" (U.S. baseball slang).",
"title": "Metaphorical and cultural usage"
}
] |
The foot is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made up of one or more segments or bones, generally including claws and/or nails.
|
2001-11-12T05:26:54Z
|
2023-10-14T23:53:15Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot
|
11,493 |
Fallout shelter
|
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War.
During a nuclear explosion, matter vaporized in the resulting fireball is exposed to neutrons from the explosion, absorbs them, and becomes radioactive. When this material condenses in the rain, it forms dust and light sandy materials that resemble ground pumice. The fallout emits alpha and beta particles, as well as gamma rays.
Much of this highly radioactive material falls to Earth, subjecting anything within the line of sight to radiation, becoming a significant hazard. A fallout shelter is designed to allow its occupants to minimize exposure to harmful fallout until radioactivity has decayed to a safer level, over a few weeks or months.
During the Cold War, many countries built fallout shelters for high-ranking government officials and crucial military facilities, such as Project Greek Island and the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker in the United States and Canada's Emergency Government Headquarters. Plans were made, however, to use existing buildings with sturdy below-ground-level basements as makeshift fallout shelters. These buildings were placarded with the orange-yellow and black trefoil sign designed by United States Army Corps of Engineers director of administrative logistics support function Robert W. Blakeley in 1961.
The National Emergency Alarm Repeater (NEAR) program was developed in the United States in 1956 during the Cold War to supplement the existing siren warning systems and radio broadcasts in the event of a nuclear attack. The NEAR civilian alarm device was engineered and tested but the program was not viable and was terminated in 1967.
In the U.S. in September 1961, under the direction of Steuart L. Pittman, the federal government started the Community Fallout Shelter Program. A letter from President Kennedy advising the use of fallout shelters appeared in the September 1961 issue of Life magazine. From 1961 to 1963, home fallout shelter sales grew, but eventually there was a public backlash against the fallout shelter as a consumer product.
In November 1961, in Fortune magazine, an article by Gilbert Burck appeared that outlined the plans of Nelson Rockefeller, Edward Teller, Herman Kahn, and Chet Holifield for an enormous network of concrete-lined underground fallout shelters throughout the United States sufficient to shelter millions of people to serve as a refuge in case of nuclear war.
The United States ended federal funding for the shelters in the 1970s. In 2017, New York City began removing the yellow signs since members of the public are unlikely to find edible food and usable medicine inside those rooms.
The Atomitat was an underground house in Plainview, Texas: it was designed by Jay Swayze and completed in 1962. The house was designed in response to the fear of nuclear war during the Cold War. The house was designed to be an "atomic-habitat" which met the United States Civil Defense specifications. It was the first bunker-house to meet their specifications as a nuclear shelter. Swayze also built an underground house for the 1964 New York World's Fair: it was called the Underground World Home.
Similar projects have been undertaken in Finland, which requires all buildings with area over 600 m to have an NBC (nuclear-biological-chemical) shelter, and Norway, which requires all buildings with an area over 1000 m to have a shelter.
The former Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries often designed their underground mass-transit and subway tunnels to serve as bomb and fallout shelters in the event of an attack. Currently, the deepest subway line in the world is situated in St Petersburg in Russia, with an average depth of 60 meters, while the deepest subway station is Arsenalna in Kyiv, at 105.5 meters.
Germany has protected shelters for 3% of its population, Austria for 30%, Finland for 70%, Sweden for 81%, and Switzerland for 114%.
The Armijska Ratna Komanda D-0, also known as the Ark, was a Cold War-era nuclear bunker and military command centre located near the town of Konjic in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Built to protect Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito and up to 350 members of his inner circle in the event of an atomic exchange, the structure is made up of residential areas, conference rooms, offices, strategic planning rooms, and other areas. The bunker remained a state secret until after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Facility is now under the authority of the Bosnian Ministry of Defense and is managed by the country's military, guarded by a five-soldier detachment, but is designated by KONS as National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina and used as exhibition space for project such as Cultural Event of Europe with strong UNESCO support, and tourist attraction.
Another underground facility is Željava Air Base, situated on the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia under the Plješevica mountain, near the city of Bihać. It was the largest underground airport and military air base in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), and one of the largest in Europe. The role of the facility was to establish, integrate and coordinate a nationwide early warning radar network in SFRY akin to NORAD in the US. The complex contained tunnels in total length of 3.5 km (2.2 mi), and the bunker with four entrances protected by 100-ton pressurized doors, three of which were customized for use by fixed-wing aircraft. capable in housing two full fighter squadrons, one reconnaissance squadron, and associated maintenance facilities. It was designed and built to sustain a direct hit from a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb, equivalent to that dropped on Nagasaki. The underground facility was lined with semicircular concrete shields, arranged every 10 km (6.2 mi), to cushion the impact of incoming strike. The complex included an underground water source, power generators, crew quarters, and other strategic military facilities. It also housed a mess hall that could feed 1,000 people simultaneously, along with stores of food, fuel and arms sufficient to last 30 days. Fuel was supplied by a 20 km (12 mi) underground pipe network connected to a military warehouse on Pokoj Hill near Bihać. Nowadays, they are popular for urban exploration.
Switzerland built an extensive network of fallout shelters, not only through extra hardening of government buildings such as schools, but also through a building regulation requiring nuclear shelters in residential buildings since the 1960s (the first legal basis in this sense dates from 4 October 1963). Later, the law ensured that all residential buildings built after 1978 contained a nuclear shelter able to withstand a blast from a 12-megaton explosion at a distance of 700 metres. The Federal Law on the Protection of the Population and Civil Protection still requires that every inhabitant should have a place in a shelter close to where they live.
The Swiss authorities maintained large communal shelters (such as the Sonnenberg Tunnel until 2006) stocked with over four months of food and fuel. The reference Nuclear War Survival Skills declared that, as of 1986, "Switzerland has the best civil defense system, one that already includes blast shelters for over 85% of all its citizens." As of 2006, there were about 300,000 shelters built in private residences, institutions and hospitals, as well as 5,100 public shelters for a total of 8.6 million places, a level of coverage equal to 114% of the population.
In Switzerland, most residential shelters are no longer stocked with the food and water required for prolonged habitation and a large number have been converted by the owners to other uses (e.g., wine cellars, ski rooms, gyms). But the owner still has the obligation to ensure the maintenance of the shelter.
A basic fallout shelter consists of shields that reduce gamma ray exposure by a factor of 1000. The required shielding can be accomplished with 10 times the thickness of any quantity of material capable of cutting gamma ray exposure in half. Shields that reduce gamma ray intensity by 50% (1/2) include 1 centimetre (0.4 in) of lead, 6 cm (2.4 in) of concrete, 9 cm (3.5 in) of packed earth or 150 metres (500 ft) of air. When multiple thicknesses are built, the shielding multiplies. Thus, a practical fallout shield is ten halving-thicknesses of packed earth, reducing gamma rays by approximately 1024 times (2).
Usually, an expedient purpose-built fallout shelter is a trench; with a strong roof buried by 1 m (3 ft) of earth. The two ends of the trench have ramps or entrances at right angles to the trench, so that gamma rays cannot enter (they can travel only in straight lines). To make the overburden waterproof (in case of rain), a plastic sheet may be buried a few inches below the surface and held down with rocks or bricks.
Blast doors are designed to absorb the shock wave of a nuclear blast, bending and then returning to their original shape.
Dry earth is a reasonably good thermal insulator, but over several weeks of habitation, a shelter will become dangerously hot. The simplest form of effective fan to cool a shelter is a wide, heavy frame with flaps that swing in the shelter's doorway and can be swung from hinges on the ceiling. The flaps open in one direction and close in the other, pumping air. (This is a Kearny air pump, or KAP, named after the inventor, Cresson Kearny.)
Unfiltered air is safe, since the most dangerous fallout has the consistency of sand or finely ground pumice. Such large particles are not easily ingested into the soft tissues of the body, so extensive filters are not required. Any exposure to fine dust is far less hazardous than exposure to the fallout outside the shelter. Dust fine enough to pass the entrance will probably pass through the shelter. Some shelters, however, incorporate NBC-filters for additional protection.
Effective public shelters can be the middle floors of some tall buildings or parking structures, or below ground level in most buildings with more than 10 floors. The thickness of the upper floors must form an effective shield, and the windows of the sheltered area must not view fallout-covered ground that is closer than 1.5 km (1 mi). One of Switzerland's solutions is to use road tunnels passing through the mountains, with some of these shelters being able to protect tens of thousands.
Fallout shelters are not always underground. Above ground buildings with walls and roofs dense enough to afford a meaningful protection factor can be used as a fallout shelter.
A battery-powered radio may be helpful to get reports of fallout patterns and clearance. However, radio and other electronic equipment may be disabled by electromagnetic pulse. For example, even at the height of the Cold War, EMP protection had been completed for only 125 of the approximately 2,771 radio stations in the United States Emergency Broadcast System. Also, only 110 of 3,000 existing Emergency Operating Centers had been protected against EMP effects. The Emergency Broadcast System has since been supplanted in the United States by the Emergency Alert System.
The reference Nuclear War Survival Skills includes the following supplies in a list of "Minimum Pre-Crisis Preparations": one or more shovels, a pick, a bow-saw with an extra blade, a hammer, and 0.1 mm (4 mils) polyethylene film (also any necessary nails, wire, etc.); a homemade shelter-ventilating pump (a KAP); large containers for water; a plastic bottle of sodium hypochlorite bleach; one or two KFMs (Kearny fallout meters) and the knowledge to operate them; at least a 2-week supply of compact, nonperishable food; an efficient portable stove; wooden matches in a waterproof container; essential containers and utensils for storing, transporting, and cooking food; a hose-vented 20 litres (5 US gal) can, with heavy plastic bags for liners, for use as a toilet; tampons; insect screen and fly bait; any special medications needed by family members; pure potassium iodide, a 60 mL (2 US fl oz) bottle, and a medicine dropper; a first-aid kit and a tube of antibiotic ointment; long-burning candles (with small wicks) sufficient for at least 14 nights; an oil lamp; a flashlight and extra batteries; and a transistor radio with extra batteries and a metal box to protect it from electromagnetic pulse.
Inhabitants should have water on hand, 4–8 litres (1–2 US gal) per person per day. Water stored in bulk containers requires less space than water stored in smaller bottles.
Commercially made Geiger counters are expensive and require frequent calibration. It is possible to construct an electrometer-type radiation meter called the Kearny fallout meter, which does not require batteries or professional calibration, from properly-scaled plans with just a coffee can or pail, gypsum board, monofilament fishing line, and aluminum foil. Plans are freely available in the public domain in the reference Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson Kearny.
Inhabitants should plan to remain sheltered for at least two weeks (with an hour out at the end of the first week – see Swiss Civil Defense guidelines), then work outside for gradually increasing amounts of time, to four hours a day at three weeks. The normal work is to sweep or wash fallout into shallow trenches to decontaminate the area. They should sleep in a shelter for several months. Evacuation at three weeks is recommended by official authorities.
If available, inhabitants may take potassium iodide at the rate of 130 mg/day per adult (65 mg/day per child) as an additional measure to protect the thyroid gland from the uptake of dangerous radioactive iodine, a component of most fallout and reactor waste.
In the vast majority of accidents, and in all atomic bomb blasts, the threat due to beta and gamma emitters is greater than that posed by the alpha emitters in the fallout. Alpha particles are identical to a helium-4 nucleus (two protons and two neutrons), and travel at speeds in excess of 5% of the speed of light. Alpha particles have little penetrating power; most cannot penetrate through human skin. Avoiding direct exposure with fallout particles will prevent injury from alpha radiation.
Beta radiation consists of particles (high-speed electrons) given off by some fallout. Most beta particles cannot penetrate more than about 3 metres (10 ft) of air or about 3 mm (1⁄8 in) of water, wood, or human body tissue; or a sheet of aluminum foil. Avoiding direct exposure with fallout particles will prevent most injuries from beta radiation.
The primary dangers associated with beta radiation are internal exposure from ingested fallout particles and beta burns from fallout particles no more than a few days old. Beta burns can result from contact with highly radioactive particles on bare skin; ordinary clothing separating fresh fallout particles from the skin can provide significant shielding.
Gamma radiation penetrates further through matter than alpha or beta radiation. Most of the design of a typical fallout shelter is intended to protect against gamma rays. Gamma rays are better absorbed by materials with high atomic numbers and high density, although neither effect is important compared to the total mass per area in the path of the gamma ray. Thus, lead is only modestly better as a gamma shield than an equal mass of another shielding material such as aluminum, concrete, water or soil.
Some gamma radiation from fallout will penetrate into even the best shelters. However, the radiation dose received while inside a shelter can be significantly reduced with proper shielding. Ten halving thicknesses of a given material can reduce gamma exposure to less than 1⁄1000 of unshielded exposure.
The bulk of the radioactivity in nuclear accident fallout is more long-lived than that in weapons fallout. A good table of the nuclides, such as that provided by the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute, includes the fission yields of the different nuclides. From this data it is possible to calculate the isotopic mixture in the fallout (due to fission products in bomb fallout).
While a person's home may not be a purpose-made shelter, it could be thought of as one if measures are taken to improve the degree of fallout protection.
The main threat of beta radiation exposure comes from hot particles in contact with or close to the skin of a person. Also, swallowed or inhaled hot particles could cause beta burns. As it is important to avoid bringing hot particles into the shelter, one option is to remove one's outer clothing, or follow other decontamination procedures, on entry. Fallout particles will cease to be radioactive enough to cause beta burns within a few days following a nuclear explosion. The danger of gamma radiation will persist for far longer than the threat of beta burns in areas with heavy fallout exposure.
The gamma dose rate due to the contamination brought into the shelter on the clothing of a person is likely to be small (by wartime standards) compared to gamma radiation that penetrates through the walls of the shelter. The following measures can be taken to reduce the amount of gamma radiation entering the shelter:
Fallout shelters feature prominently in the Robert A. Heinlein novel Farnham's Freehold (Heinlein built a fairly extensive shelter near his home in Colorado Springs in 1963), Pulling Through by Dean Ing, A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller and Earth by David Brin.
The 1961 Twilight Zone episode "The Shelter", from a Rod Serling script, deals with the consequences of actually using a shelter. Another episode of the series called "One More Pallbearer" featured a fallout shelter owned by a millionaire. The 1985 adaption of the series had the episode "Shelter Skelter" that featured a fallout shelter.
In the Only Fools and Horses episode "The Russians are Coming", aired in 1981, Derek Trotter buys a lead fallout shelter, then decides to construct it in fear of an impending nuclear war caused by the Soviet Union.
In 1999, the film Blast from the Past was released. It is a romantic comedy film about a nuclear physicist, his wife, and son that enter a well-equipped, spacious fallout shelter during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. They do not emerge until 35 years later, in 1997. The film shows their reaction to contemporary society.
The Fallout series of computer games depicts the remains of human civilization after an immensely destructive global nuclear war; the United States of America had built underground fallout shelters known as vaults, that were advertised to protect the population against a nuclear attack, but almost all of them were in fact meant to lure subjects for long-term human experimentation.
Paranoia, a role-playing game, takes place in a city-sized fallout shelter, which has become ruled by an insane computer.
An episode of the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle features a subplot revolving around Reese and Dewey discovering a previously unknown fallout shelter in their backyard and trapping their father Hal in it, who soon becomes smitten with the shelter's 1960s decor.
The Metro 2033 book series by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky depicts survivors' life in the subway systems below Moscow and Saint-Petersburg after a nuclear exchange between the Russian Federation and the United States of America.
Fallout shelters are often featured on the reality television show Doomsday Preppers.
The Silo series of novellas by Hugh Howey feature extensive fallout-style shelters that protect the inhabitants from an initially unknown disaster.
The 2019 US film The Tomorrow Man centers around a reclusive man whose main preoccupation is tending to his in-home fallout shelter and the conspiracy theories that could put it to use.
Nation specific:
General:
Publications:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "During a nuclear explosion, matter vaporized in the resulting fireball is exposed to neutrons from the explosion, absorbs them, and becomes radioactive. When this material condenses in the rain, it forms dust and light sandy materials that resemble ground pumice. The fallout emits alpha and beta particles, as well as gamma rays.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Much of this highly radioactive material falls to Earth, subjecting anything within the line of sight to radiation, becoming a significant hazard. A fallout shelter is designed to allow its occupants to minimize exposure to harmful fallout until radioactivity has decayed to a safer level, over a few weeks or months.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "During the Cold War, many countries built fallout shelters for high-ranking government officials and crucial military facilities, such as Project Greek Island and the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker in the United States and Canada's Emergency Government Headquarters. Plans were made, however, to use existing buildings with sturdy below-ground-level basements as makeshift fallout shelters. These buildings were placarded with the orange-yellow and black trefoil sign designed by United States Army Corps of Engineers director of administrative logistics support function Robert W. Blakeley in 1961.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The National Emergency Alarm Repeater (NEAR) program was developed in the United States in 1956 during the Cold War to supplement the existing siren warning systems and radio broadcasts in the event of a nuclear attack. The NEAR civilian alarm device was engineered and tested but the program was not viable and was terminated in 1967.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In the U.S. in September 1961, under the direction of Steuart L. Pittman, the federal government started the Community Fallout Shelter Program. A letter from President Kennedy advising the use of fallout shelters appeared in the September 1961 issue of Life magazine. From 1961 to 1963, home fallout shelter sales grew, but eventually there was a public backlash against the fallout shelter as a consumer product.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In November 1961, in Fortune magazine, an article by Gilbert Burck appeared that outlined the plans of Nelson Rockefeller, Edward Teller, Herman Kahn, and Chet Holifield for an enormous network of concrete-lined underground fallout shelters throughout the United States sufficient to shelter millions of people to serve as a refuge in case of nuclear war.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The United States ended federal funding for the shelters in the 1970s. In 2017, New York City began removing the yellow signs since members of the public are unlikely to find edible food and usable medicine inside those rooms.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Atomitat was an underground house in Plainview, Texas: it was designed by Jay Swayze and completed in 1962. The house was designed in response to the fear of nuclear war during the Cold War. The house was designed to be an \"atomic-habitat\" which met the United States Civil Defense specifications. It was the first bunker-house to meet their specifications as a nuclear shelter. Swayze also built an underground house for the 1964 New York World's Fair: it was called the Underground World Home.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Similar projects have been undertaken in Finland, which requires all buildings with area over 600 m to have an NBC (nuclear-biological-chemical) shelter, and Norway, which requires all buildings with an area over 1000 m to have a shelter.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The former Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries often designed their underground mass-transit and subway tunnels to serve as bomb and fallout shelters in the event of an attack. Currently, the deepest subway line in the world is situated in St Petersburg in Russia, with an average depth of 60 meters, while the deepest subway station is Arsenalna in Kyiv, at 105.5 meters.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Germany has protected shelters for 3% of its population, Austria for 30%, Finland for 70%, Sweden for 81%, and Switzerland for 114%.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Armijska Ratna Komanda D-0, also known as the Ark, was a Cold War-era nuclear bunker and military command centre located near the town of Konjic in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Built to protect Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito and up to 350 members of his inner circle in the event of an atomic exchange, the structure is made up of residential areas, conference rooms, offices, strategic planning rooms, and other areas. The bunker remained a state secret until after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Facility is now under the authority of the Bosnian Ministry of Defense and is managed by the country's military, guarded by a five-soldier detachment, but is designated by KONS as National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina and used as exhibition space for project such as Cultural Event of Europe with strong UNESCO support, and tourist attraction.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Another underground facility is Željava Air Base, situated on the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia under the Plješevica mountain, near the city of Bihać. It was the largest underground airport and military air base in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), and one of the largest in Europe. The role of the facility was to establish, integrate and coordinate a nationwide early warning radar network in SFRY akin to NORAD in the US. The complex contained tunnels in total length of 3.5 km (2.2 mi), and the bunker with four entrances protected by 100-ton pressurized doors, three of which were customized for use by fixed-wing aircraft. capable in housing two full fighter squadrons, one reconnaissance squadron, and associated maintenance facilities. It was designed and built to sustain a direct hit from a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb, equivalent to that dropped on Nagasaki. The underground facility was lined with semicircular concrete shields, arranged every 10 km (6.2 mi), to cushion the impact of incoming strike. The complex included an underground water source, power generators, crew quarters, and other strategic military facilities. It also housed a mess hall that could feed 1,000 people simultaneously, along with stores of food, fuel and arms sufficient to last 30 days. Fuel was supplied by a 20 km (12 mi) underground pipe network connected to a military warehouse on Pokoj Hill near Bihać. Nowadays, they are popular for urban exploration.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Switzerland built an extensive network of fallout shelters, not only through extra hardening of government buildings such as schools, but also through a building regulation requiring nuclear shelters in residential buildings since the 1960s (the first legal basis in this sense dates from 4 October 1963). Later, the law ensured that all residential buildings built after 1978 contained a nuclear shelter able to withstand a blast from a 12-megaton explosion at a distance of 700 metres. The Federal Law on the Protection of the Population and Civil Protection still requires that every inhabitant should have a place in a shelter close to where they live.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The Swiss authorities maintained large communal shelters (such as the Sonnenberg Tunnel until 2006) stocked with over four months of food and fuel. The reference Nuclear War Survival Skills declared that, as of 1986, \"Switzerland has the best civil defense system, one that already includes blast shelters for over 85% of all its citizens.\" As of 2006, there were about 300,000 shelters built in private residences, institutions and hospitals, as well as 5,100 public shelters for a total of 8.6 million places, a level of coverage equal to 114% of the population.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In Switzerland, most residential shelters are no longer stocked with the food and water required for prolonged habitation and a large number have been converted by the owners to other uses (e.g., wine cellars, ski rooms, gyms). But the owner still has the obligation to ensure the maintenance of the shelter.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "A basic fallout shelter consists of shields that reduce gamma ray exposure by a factor of 1000. The required shielding can be accomplished with 10 times the thickness of any quantity of material capable of cutting gamma ray exposure in half. Shields that reduce gamma ray intensity by 50% (1/2) include 1 centimetre (0.4 in) of lead, 6 cm (2.4 in) of concrete, 9 cm (3.5 in) of packed earth or 150 metres (500 ft) of air. When multiple thicknesses are built, the shielding multiplies. Thus, a practical fallout shield is ten halving-thicknesses of packed earth, reducing gamma rays by approximately 1024 times (2).",
"title": "Details of shelter construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Usually, an expedient purpose-built fallout shelter is a trench; with a strong roof buried by 1 m (3 ft) of earth. The two ends of the trench have ramps or entrances at right angles to the trench, so that gamma rays cannot enter (they can travel only in straight lines). To make the overburden waterproof (in case of rain), a plastic sheet may be buried a few inches below the surface and held down with rocks or bricks.",
"title": "Details of shelter construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Blast doors are designed to absorb the shock wave of a nuclear blast, bending and then returning to their original shape.",
"title": "Details of shelter construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Dry earth is a reasonably good thermal insulator, but over several weeks of habitation, a shelter will become dangerously hot. The simplest form of effective fan to cool a shelter is a wide, heavy frame with flaps that swing in the shelter's doorway and can be swung from hinges on the ceiling. The flaps open in one direction and close in the other, pumping air. (This is a Kearny air pump, or KAP, named after the inventor, Cresson Kearny.)",
"title": "Details of shelter construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Unfiltered air is safe, since the most dangerous fallout has the consistency of sand or finely ground pumice. Such large particles are not easily ingested into the soft tissues of the body, so extensive filters are not required. Any exposure to fine dust is far less hazardous than exposure to the fallout outside the shelter. Dust fine enough to pass the entrance will probably pass through the shelter. Some shelters, however, incorporate NBC-filters for additional protection.",
"title": "Details of shelter construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Effective public shelters can be the middle floors of some tall buildings or parking structures, or below ground level in most buildings with more than 10 floors. The thickness of the upper floors must form an effective shield, and the windows of the sheltered area must not view fallout-covered ground that is closer than 1.5 km (1 mi). One of Switzerland's solutions is to use road tunnels passing through the mountains, with some of these shelters being able to protect tens of thousands.",
"title": "Details of shelter construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Fallout shelters are not always underground. Above ground buildings with walls and roofs dense enough to afford a meaningful protection factor can be used as a fallout shelter.",
"title": "Details of shelter construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "A battery-powered radio may be helpful to get reports of fallout patterns and clearance. However, radio and other electronic equipment may be disabled by electromagnetic pulse. For example, even at the height of the Cold War, EMP protection had been completed for only 125 of the approximately 2,771 radio stations in the United States Emergency Broadcast System. Also, only 110 of 3,000 existing Emergency Operating Centers had been protected against EMP effects. The Emergency Broadcast System has since been supplanted in the United States by the Emergency Alert System.",
"title": "Details of shelter construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The reference Nuclear War Survival Skills includes the following supplies in a list of \"Minimum Pre-Crisis Preparations\": one or more shovels, a pick, a bow-saw with an extra blade, a hammer, and 0.1 mm (4 mils) polyethylene film (also any necessary nails, wire, etc.); a homemade shelter-ventilating pump (a KAP); large containers for water; a plastic bottle of sodium hypochlorite bleach; one or two KFMs (Kearny fallout meters) and the knowledge to operate them; at least a 2-week supply of compact, nonperishable food; an efficient portable stove; wooden matches in a waterproof container; essential containers and utensils for storing, transporting, and cooking food; a hose-vented 20 litres (5 US gal) can, with heavy plastic bags for liners, for use as a toilet; tampons; insect screen and fly bait; any special medications needed by family members; pure potassium iodide, a 60 mL (2 US fl oz) bottle, and a medicine dropper; a first-aid kit and a tube of antibiotic ointment; long-burning candles (with small wicks) sufficient for at least 14 nights; an oil lamp; a flashlight and extra batteries; and a transistor radio with extra batteries and a metal box to protect it from electromagnetic pulse.",
"title": "Details of shelter construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Inhabitants should have water on hand, 4–8 litres (1–2 US gal) per person per day. Water stored in bulk containers requires less space than water stored in smaller bottles.",
"title": "Details of shelter construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Commercially made Geiger counters are expensive and require frequent calibration. It is possible to construct an electrometer-type radiation meter called the Kearny fallout meter, which does not require batteries or professional calibration, from properly-scaled plans with just a coffee can or pail, gypsum board, monofilament fishing line, and aluminum foil. Plans are freely available in the public domain in the reference Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson Kearny.",
"title": "Details of shelter construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Inhabitants should plan to remain sheltered for at least two weeks (with an hour out at the end of the first week – see Swiss Civil Defense guidelines), then work outside for gradually increasing amounts of time, to four hours a day at three weeks. The normal work is to sweep or wash fallout into shallow trenches to decontaminate the area. They should sleep in a shelter for several months. Evacuation at three weeks is recommended by official authorities.",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "If available, inhabitants may take potassium iodide at the rate of 130 mg/day per adult (65 mg/day per child) as an additional measure to protect the thyroid gland from the uptake of dangerous radioactive iodine, a component of most fallout and reactor waste.",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In the vast majority of accidents, and in all atomic bomb blasts, the threat due to beta and gamma emitters is greater than that posed by the alpha emitters in the fallout. Alpha particles are identical to a helium-4 nucleus (two protons and two neutrons), and travel at speeds in excess of 5% of the speed of light. Alpha particles have little penetrating power; most cannot penetrate through human skin. Avoiding direct exposure with fallout particles will prevent injury from alpha radiation.",
"title": "Different types of radiation emitted by fallout"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Beta radiation consists of particles (high-speed electrons) given off by some fallout. Most beta particles cannot penetrate more than about 3 metres (10 ft) of air or about 3 mm (1⁄8 in) of water, wood, or human body tissue; or a sheet of aluminum foil. Avoiding direct exposure with fallout particles will prevent most injuries from beta radiation.",
"title": "Different types of radiation emitted by fallout"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The primary dangers associated with beta radiation are internal exposure from ingested fallout particles and beta burns from fallout particles no more than a few days old. Beta burns can result from contact with highly radioactive particles on bare skin; ordinary clothing separating fresh fallout particles from the skin can provide significant shielding.",
"title": "Different types of radiation emitted by fallout"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Gamma radiation penetrates further through matter than alpha or beta radiation. Most of the design of a typical fallout shelter is intended to protect against gamma rays. Gamma rays are better absorbed by materials with high atomic numbers and high density, although neither effect is important compared to the total mass per area in the path of the gamma ray. Thus, lead is only modestly better as a gamma shield than an equal mass of another shielding material such as aluminum, concrete, water or soil.",
"title": "Different types of radiation emitted by fallout"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Some gamma radiation from fallout will penetrate into even the best shelters. However, the radiation dose received while inside a shelter can be significantly reduced with proper shielding. Ten halving thicknesses of a given material can reduce gamma exposure to less than 1⁄1000 of unshielded exposure.",
"title": "Different types of radiation emitted by fallout"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The bulk of the radioactivity in nuclear accident fallout is more long-lived than that in weapons fallout. A good table of the nuclides, such as that provided by the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute, includes the fission yields of the different nuclides. From this data it is possible to calculate the isotopic mixture in the fallout (due to fission products in bomb fallout).",
"title": "Weapons versus nuclear accident fallout"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "While a person's home may not be a purpose-made shelter, it could be thought of as one if measures are taken to improve the degree of fallout protection.",
"title": "Other matters and simple improvements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The main threat of beta radiation exposure comes from hot particles in contact with or close to the skin of a person. Also, swallowed or inhaled hot particles could cause beta burns. As it is important to avoid bringing hot particles into the shelter, one option is to remove one's outer clothing, or follow other decontamination procedures, on entry. Fallout particles will cease to be radioactive enough to cause beta burns within a few days following a nuclear explosion. The danger of gamma radiation will persist for far longer than the threat of beta burns in areas with heavy fallout exposure.",
"title": "Other matters and simple improvements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The gamma dose rate due to the contamination brought into the shelter on the clothing of a person is likely to be small (by wartime standards) compared to gamma radiation that penetrates through the walls of the shelter. The following measures can be taken to reduce the amount of gamma radiation entering the shelter:",
"title": "Other matters and simple improvements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Fallout shelters feature prominently in the Robert A. Heinlein novel Farnham's Freehold (Heinlein built a fairly extensive shelter near his home in Colorado Springs in 1963), Pulling Through by Dean Ing, A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller and Earth by David Brin.",
"title": "Fallout shelters in popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The 1961 Twilight Zone episode \"The Shelter\", from a Rod Serling script, deals with the consequences of actually using a shelter. Another episode of the series called \"One More Pallbearer\" featured a fallout shelter owned by a millionaire. The 1985 adaption of the series had the episode \"Shelter Skelter\" that featured a fallout shelter.",
"title": "Fallout shelters in popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In the Only Fools and Horses episode \"The Russians are Coming\", aired in 1981, Derek Trotter buys a lead fallout shelter, then decides to construct it in fear of an impending nuclear war caused by the Soviet Union.",
"title": "Fallout shelters in popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In 1999, the film Blast from the Past was released. It is a romantic comedy film about a nuclear physicist, his wife, and son that enter a well-equipped, spacious fallout shelter during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. They do not emerge until 35 years later, in 1997. The film shows their reaction to contemporary society.",
"title": "Fallout shelters in popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The Fallout series of computer games depicts the remains of human civilization after an immensely destructive global nuclear war; the United States of America had built underground fallout shelters known as vaults, that were advertised to protect the population against a nuclear attack, but almost all of them were in fact meant to lure subjects for long-term human experimentation.",
"title": "Fallout shelters in popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Paranoia, a role-playing game, takes place in a city-sized fallout shelter, which has become ruled by an insane computer.",
"title": "Fallout shelters in popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "An episode of the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle features a subplot revolving around Reese and Dewey discovering a previously unknown fallout shelter in their backyard and trapping their father Hal in it, who soon becomes smitten with the shelter's 1960s decor.",
"title": "Fallout shelters in popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The Metro 2033 book series by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky depicts survivors' life in the subway systems below Moscow and Saint-Petersburg after a nuclear exchange between the Russian Federation and the United States of America.",
"title": "Fallout shelters in popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Fallout shelters are often featured on the reality television show Doomsday Preppers.",
"title": "Fallout shelters in popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The Silo series of novellas by Hugh Howey feature extensive fallout-style shelters that protect the inhabitants from an initially unknown disaster.",
"title": "Fallout shelters in popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The 2019 US film The Tomorrow Man centers around a reclusive man whose main preoccupation is tending to his in-home fallout shelter and the conspiracy theories that could put it to use.",
"title": "Fallout shelters in popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Nation specific:",
"title": "See also"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "General:",
"title": "See also"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Publications:",
"title": "See also"
}
] |
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War. During a nuclear explosion, matter vaporized in the resulting fireball is exposed to neutrons from the explosion, absorbs them, and becomes radioactive. When this material condenses in the rain, it forms dust and light sandy materials that resemble ground pumice. The fallout emits alpha and beta particles, as well as gamma rays. Much of this highly radioactive material falls to Earth, subjecting anything within the line of sight to radiation, becoming a significant hazard. A fallout shelter is designed to allow its occupants to minimize exposure to harmful fallout until radioactivity has decayed to a safer level, over a few weeks or months.
|
2001-11-14T03:08:36Z
|
2023-12-31T14:54:05Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_shelter
|
11,494 |
History of the Federated States of Micronesia
|
The Federated States of Micronesia are located on the Caroline Islands in the western Pacific Ocean. The history of the modern Federated States of Micronesia is one of settlement by Micronesians; colonization by Spain, Germany, and Japan; United Nations trusteeship under United States-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands; and gradual independence beginning with the ratification of a sovereign constitution in 1979.
The Austronesian ancestors of the Micronesians settled there over 4,000 years ago. A decentralized chieftain-based system eventually evolved into a more centralized economic and religious culture centered on Pohnpei. People from the Caroline Islands had regular contact with the Chamorro people of the Marianas Islands, as well as rarer voyages into the eastern islands of the Philippines.
From circa 1500 BC, before the beginning of foreign colonial administration by Western powers, the island of Yap created and maintained a unique set of socio-economic and political relationships with neighbouring islands to its east and southwest in what is known as the Yapese Empire. Although small-scale and informal, the Empire per se was formed when what is now known as Gagil Municipality through the chief village of Gatchaper, developed and maintained a maritime trade and political network with smaller atolls and island groups between Yap and Chuuk, covering over approximately 1,500 kilometres (932.01 miles) of the western Pacific.
Through a relationship known as sawey, the Empire demanded tribute known as Pitigil Tamol to be given to the paramount chief of Gagil in Gatchaper. These tributes would include bagiiy (lavalava), coconut rope, coconut oil, mats and shells. In return, Gagil would reciprocate with mutual support from the main island in case of natural emergencies as well as goods. These goods from Gagil would include Yapese canoes, turmeric, flint stone and other Yapese resources. The relationship also asked those with navigational experience and expertise for service along with Yapese navigators. This relationship may have helped the Yapese sail to Palau for quarrying the Rai stones, the stone currency disks carved from crystalline calcite still used today in cultural transactions.
Although this unique relationship with Gagil and the outer islands may appear exploitative, researchers such as Lessa (1950, pp.43, 52; 1986, p.35) and Lingenfelter (p.147) maintain that the relationship was mostly mutual and, in most cases, was more beneficial to the Carolinians than to the Yapese. Lessa (1950, p.70-71) had also suggested that the so-called empire was formed out of conquest and "blackmail" through sorcery and economics.
Other places mentioned in Pacific anthropological-historical literature that were quite similar to the Yapese Empire was the Tongan Empire, also known as Tu'i Tonga, which is now present-day Kingdom of Tonga.
Yapese traditional society before foreign colonial administrations was divided into multiple villages and municipalities and is highly feudal in nature. Power was not allocated to one single authority that controlled Yap but was decentralised and allocated to at least ten municipalities. A defining feature of Yapese society was its unique and complex social caste system, which is still in use today. Each of the current one-hundred twenty-nine (129) villages of Yap are organised into single units based on the class system depicted below.
Although each village has its own class ranking within the municipality based on the number of military victories, each village also has its own internal set of social classes exclusive to that group. All low classes and low-class villages were under the authority of villages that were ranked higher since the latter had considerable power and voice (lungun). An example of a high-ranking village is the aforementioned Gatchaper, which is ranked Bulche' or 'UIun. Because villages and municipalities were continuously at war amongst one another, village and personal social ranks fluctuated based on military outcomes.
However, in the 20th century, during the German occupation of Yap, the German administration pacified the island and enforced strict prohibition against violent conflicts. This policy resulted in a permanent freeze of all social caste rankings. Today, there are three villages with the high-ranking chief villages: Teb Village in Tamil Municipality, Ngolog Village in Rull Municipality and Gatchaper in Gagil Municipality.
These chief villages and their municipalities are referred to in Yapese as "fare dalip e nguchol", which means "the three cooking stones". This similarity was created to describe the relationship between these three villages and municipalities with the other remaining seven. The stones, or nguchol, represent Tamil, Gagil and Rull while the pot represents the island of Yap. The saying goes that when one stone, or one municipality or village, fell, all of Yap and its value would fall as well.
On Pohnpei, pre-colonial history is divided into three eras: Mwehin Kawa or Mwehin Aramas (Period of Building, or Period of Peopling, before c. 1100); Mwehin Sau Deleur (Period of the Lord of Deleur, c. 1100 to c. 1628); and Mwehin Nahnmwarki (Period of the Nahnmwarki, c. 1628 to c. 1885). Pohnpeian legend recounts that the Saudeleur rulers, the first to bring government to Pohnpei, were of foreign origin. The Saudeleur centralized form of absolute rule is characterized in Pohnpeian legend as becoming increasingly oppressive over several generations. Arbitrary and onerous demands, as well as a reputation for offending Pohnpeian deities, sowed resentment among Pohnpeians. The Saudeleur Dynasty ended with the invasion of Isokelekel, another semi-mythical foreigner, who replaced the Saudeleur rule with the more decentralized nahnmwarki system in existence today. Isokelekel is regarded as the creator of the modern Pohnpeian nahnmwarki social system and the father of the Pohnpeian people.
Nan Madol offshore of Temwen Island near Pohnpei, consists of a series of small artificial islands linked by a network of canals, and is often called the Venice of the Pacific. It is located near the island of Pohnpei and was the ceremonial and political seat of the Saudeleur Dynasty that united Pohnpei's estimated 25,000 people until its centralized system collapsed amid the invasion of Isokelekel. Isokelekel and his descendants initially occupied the stone city, but later abandoned it.
European explorers - first the Portuguese in search of the Spice Islands (Indonesia) and then the Spanish - reached the Carolines in the 16th century, with the Spanish establishing sovereignty.
Spain sold the islands to Germany in 1899 under the terms of the German–Spanish Treaty of that year.Germany placed them under the jurisdiction of German New Guinea. German efforts to reorganize the traditional social hierarchy and recruit forced labor for construction resulted in a rebellion by inhabitants of Sokehs Municipality in 1910.
Yap was a major German naval communications center before the First World War and an important international hub for cable telegraphy. It was occupied by Japanese troops in September, 1914, and passed to the Japanese Empire under the Versailles Treaty in 1919 as a mandated territory under League of Nations supervision. US commercial rights on the island were secured by a special US-Japanese treaty to that effect, concluded on February 11, 1922.
During World War I, many of the German possessions in the Pacific were conquered by Japan, who fought on the side of the Allies of World War I and was active in the Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I.
The Empire of Japan administered the islands from 1920 under the South Seas Mandate granted by the League of Nations. During this period, the Japanese population grew to over 100,000 throughout Micronesia, while the indigenous population was about 40,000. Sugar cane, mining, fishing and tropical agriculture became the major industries.
In World War II, Japanese-held Yap was one of the islands bypassed in the U.S. "leapfrogging" strategy, although it was regularly bombed by U.S. ships and aircraft, and Yap-based Japanese bombers did some damage in return. The Japanese garrison comprised 4,423 Imperial Japanese Army men under the command of Colonel Daihachi Itoh and 1,494 Imperial Japanese Navy men. A significant portion of the Japanese fleet was based in Truk Lagoon. In February 1944, Operation Hailstone, one of the most important naval battles of the war, took place at Truk, in which many Japanese support vessels and aircraft were destroyed.
World War II brought an abrupt end to the relative prosperity experienced during Japanese civil administration.
The United Nations created the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) in 1947. Pohnpei (then including Kusaie), Truk, Yap, Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands, together constituted the TTPI. The United States accepted the role of Trustee of this, the only United Nations Trusteeship to be designated as a "Security Trusteeship", whose ultimate disposition was to be determined by the UN Security Council. As Trustee the US was to "promote the economic advancement and self-sufficiency of the inhabitants."
On May 10, 1979, four of the Trust Territory districts ratified the Constitution of the Federated States of Micronesia. The neighboring trust districts of Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands chose not to participate. The Honorable Tosiwo Nakayama, the former President of the Congress of Micronesia, became the first President of the FSM and formed his Cabinet. The FSM signed a Compact of Free Association with the U.S., which entered into force on November 3, 1986, marking Micronesia's emergence from trusteeship to independence. Under the Compact, the U.S. has full authority and responsibility for the defense of the FSM. This security relationship can be changed or terminated by mutual agreement. The Compact provides U.S. grant funds and federal program assistance to the FSM. Amended financial assistance provisions came on-line in FY 2004. The basic relationship of free association continues indefinitely.
Trusteeship of the islands ended under United Nations Security Council Resolution 683, passed on December 22, 1990. The Compact was renewed in 2004.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Federated States of Micronesia are located on the Caroline Islands in the western Pacific Ocean. The history of the modern Federated States of Micronesia is one of settlement by Micronesians; colonization by Spain, Germany, and Japan; United Nations trusteeship under United States-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands; and gradual independence beginning with the ratification of a sovereign constitution in 1979.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Austronesian ancestors of the Micronesians settled there over 4,000 years ago. A decentralized chieftain-based system eventually evolved into a more centralized economic and religious culture centered on Pohnpei. People from the Caroline Islands had regular contact with the Chamorro people of the Marianas Islands, as well as rarer voyages into the eastern islands of the Philippines.",
"title": "Pre-colonial history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "From circa 1500 BC, before the beginning of foreign colonial administration by Western powers, the island of Yap created and maintained a unique set of socio-economic and political relationships with neighbouring islands to its east and southwest in what is known as the Yapese Empire. Although small-scale and informal, the Empire per se was formed when what is now known as Gagil Municipality through the chief village of Gatchaper, developed and maintained a maritime trade and political network with smaller atolls and island groups between Yap and Chuuk, covering over approximately 1,500 kilometres (932.01 miles) of the western Pacific.",
"title": "Pre-colonial history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Through a relationship known as sawey, the Empire demanded tribute known as Pitigil Tamol to be given to the paramount chief of Gagil in Gatchaper. These tributes would include bagiiy (lavalava), coconut rope, coconut oil, mats and shells. In return, Gagil would reciprocate with mutual support from the main island in case of natural emergencies as well as goods. These goods from Gagil would include Yapese canoes, turmeric, flint stone and other Yapese resources. The relationship also asked those with navigational experience and expertise for service along with Yapese navigators. This relationship may have helped the Yapese sail to Palau for quarrying the Rai stones, the stone currency disks carved from crystalline calcite still used today in cultural transactions.",
"title": "Pre-colonial history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Although this unique relationship with Gagil and the outer islands may appear exploitative, researchers such as Lessa (1950, pp.43, 52; 1986, p.35) and Lingenfelter (p.147) maintain that the relationship was mostly mutual and, in most cases, was more beneficial to the Carolinians than to the Yapese. Lessa (1950, p.70-71) had also suggested that the so-called empire was formed out of conquest and \"blackmail\" through sorcery and economics.",
"title": "Pre-colonial history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Other places mentioned in Pacific anthropological-historical literature that were quite similar to the Yapese Empire was the Tongan Empire, also known as Tu'i Tonga, which is now present-day Kingdom of Tonga.",
"title": "Pre-colonial history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Yapese traditional society before foreign colonial administrations was divided into multiple villages and municipalities and is highly feudal in nature. Power was not allocated to one single authority that controlled Yap but was decentralised and allocated to at least ten municipalities. A defining feature of Yapese society was its unique and complex social caste system, which is still in use today. Each of the current one-hundred twenty-nine (129) villages of Yap are organised into single units based on the class system depicted below.",
"title": "Pre-colonial history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Although each village has its own class ranking within the municipality based on the number of military victories, each village also has its own internal set of social classes exclusive to that group. All low classes and low-class villages were under the authority of villages that were ranked higher since the latter had considerable power and voice (lungun). An example of a high-ranking village is the aforementioned Gatchaper, which is ranked Bulche' or 'UIun. Because villages and municipalities were continuously at war amongst one another, village and personal social ranks fluctuated based on military outcomes.",
"title": "Pre-colonial history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "However, in the 20th century, during the German occupation of Yap, the German administration pacified the island and enforced strict prohibition against violent conflicts. This policy resulted in a permanent freeze of all social caste rankings. Today, there are three villages with the high-ranking chief villages: Teb Village in Tamil Municipality, Ngolog Village in Rull Municipality and Gatchaper in Gagil Municipality.",
"title": "Pre-colonial history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "These chief villages and their municipalities are referred to in Yapese as \"fare dalip e nguchol\", which means \"the three cooking stones\". This similarity was created to describe the relationship between these three villages and municipalities with the other remaining seven. The stones, or nguchol, represent Tamil, Gagil and Rull while the pot represents the island of Yap. The saying goes that when one stone, or one municipality or village, fell, all of Yap and its value would fall as well.",
"title": "Pre-colonial history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "On Pohnpei, pre-colonial history is divided into three eras: Mwehin Kawa or Mwehin Aramas (Period of Building, or Period of Peopling, before c. 1100); Mwehin Sau Deleur (Period of the Lord of Deleur, c. 1100 to c. 1628); and Mwehin Nahnmwarki (Period of the Nahnmwarki, c. 1628 to c. 1885). Pohnpeian legend recounts that the Saudeleur rulers, the first to bring government to Pohnpei, were of foreign origin. The Saudeleur centralized form of absolute rule is characterized in Pohnpeian legend as becoming increasingly oppressive over several generations. Arbitrary and onerous demands, as well as a reputation for offending Pohnpeian deities, sowed resentment among Pohnpeians. The Saudeleur Dynasty ended with the invasion of Isokelekel, another semi-mythical foreigner, who replaced the Saudeleur rule with the more decentralized nahnmwarki system in existence today. Isokelekel is regarded as the creator of the modern Pohnpeian nahnmwarki social system and the father of the Pohnpeian people.",
"title": "Pre-colonial history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Nan Madol offshore of Temwen Island near Pohnpei, consists of a series of small artificial islands linked by a network of canals, and is often called the Venice of the Pacific. It is located near the island of Pohnpei and was the ceremonial and political seat of the Saudeleur Dynasty that united Pohnpei's estimated 25,000 people until its centralized system collapsed amid the invasion of Isokelekel. Isokelekel and his descendants initially occupied the stone city, but later abandoned it.",
"title": "Pre-colonial history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "European explorers - first the Portuguese in search of the Spice Islands (Indonesia) and then the Spanish - reached the Carolines in the 16th century, with the Spanish establishing sovereignty.",
"title": "European colonisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Spain sold the islands to Germany in 1899 under the terms of the German–Spanish Treaty of that year.Germany placed them under the jurisdiction of German New Guinea. German efforts to reorganize the traditional social hierarchy and recruit forced labor for construction resulted in a rebellion by inhabitants of Sokehs Municipality in 1910.",
"title": "European colonisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Yap was a major German naval communications center before the First World War and an important international hub for cable telegraphy. It was occupied by Japanese troops in September, 1914, and passed to the Japanese Empire under the Versailles Treaty in 1919 as a mandated territory under League of Nations supervision. US commercial rights on the island were secured by a special US-Japanese treaty to that effect, concluded on February 11, 1922.",
"title": "European colonisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "During World War I, many of the German possessions in the Pacific were conquered by Japan, who fought on the side of the Allies of World War I and was active in the Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I.",
"title": "Empire of Japan"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The Empire of Japan administered the islands from 1920 under the South Seas Mandate granted by the League of Nations. During this period, the Japanese population grew to over 100,000 throughout Micronesia, while the indigenous population was about 40,000. Sugar cane, mining, fishing and tropical agriculture became the major industries.",
"title": "Empire of Japan"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In World War II, Japanese-held Yap was one of the islands bypassed in the U.S. \"leapfrogging\" strategy, although it was regularly bombed by U.S. ships and aircraft, and Yap-based Japanese bombers did some damage in return. The Japanese garrison comprised 4,423 Imperial Japanese Army men under the command of Colonel Daihachi Itoh and 1,494 Imperial Japanese Navy men. A significant portion of the Japanese fleet was based in Truk Lagoon. In February 1944, Operation Hailstone, one of the most important naval battles of the war, took place at Truk, in which many Japanese support vessels and aircraft were destroyed.",
"title": "Empire of Japan"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "World War II brought an abrupt end to the relative prosperity experienced during Japanese civil administration.",
"title": "Empire of Japan"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The United Nations created the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) in 1947. Pohnpei (then including Kusaie), Truk, Yap, Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands, together constituted the TTPI. The United States accepted the role of Trustee of this, the only United Nations Trusteeship to be designated as a \"Security Trusteeship\", whose ultimate disposition was to be determined by the UN Security Council. As Trustee the US was to \"promote the economic advancement and self-sufficiency of the inhabitants.\"",
"title": "Trusteeship"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "On May 10, 1979, four of the Trust Territory districts ratified the Constitution of the Federated States of Micronesia. The neighboring trust districts of Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands chose not to participate. The Honorable Tosiwo Nakayama, the former President of the Congress of Micronesia, became the first President of the FSM and formed his Cabinet. The FSM signed a Compact of Free Association with the U.S., which entered into force on November 3, 1986, marking Micronesia's emergence from trusteeship to independence. Under the Compact, the U.S. has full authority and responsibility for the defense of the FSM. This security relationship can be changed or terminated by mutual agreement. The Compact provides U.S. grant funds and federal program assistance to the FSM. Amended financial assistance provisions came on-line in FY 2004. The basic relationship of free association continues indefinitely.",
"title": "Independence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Trusteeship of the islands ended under United Nations Security Council Resolution 683, passed on December 22, 1990. The Compact was renewed in 2004.",
"title": "Independence"
}
] |
The Federated States of Micronesia are located on the Caroline Islands in the western Pacific Ocean. The history of the modern Federated States of Micronesia is one of settlement by Micronesians; colonization by Spain, Germany, and Japan; United Nations trusteeship under United States-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands; and gradual independence beginning with the ratification of a sovereign constitution in 1979.
|
2002-02-25T15:51:15Z
|
2023-11-08T02:14:51Z
|
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"Template:History of Oceania",
"Template:Multiple image",
"Template:FIAV",
"Template:Reflist",
"Template:Cite web"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Federated_States_of_Micronesia
|
11,495 |
Politics of the Federated States of Micronesia
|
The politics of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) takes place in a framework of a federal assembly-independent representative democratic republic. The President of the Federated States of Micronesia is both head of state and head of government. Executive power is exercised by the president and his cabinet, while legislative power is vested in both the president and the Congress. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
The internal workings of the FSM are governed by the 1979 constitution, which guarantees fundamental human rights and establishes a separation of governmental powers. The Federation is in free association with the United States; the Compact of Free Association entered into force 3 November 1986.
The president and the vice president are elected by Congress from among the four senators-at-large for four-year terms. The president is both the chief of state and head of government. Their congressional seats are then filled by special elections. The president and vice president are supported by an appointed cabinet.
The President and Vice President are supported in the administration by a Cabinet made up of 9 appointed officials. They are: the Secretaries of the Department of Environment, Climate Change & Emergency Management (DECEM), the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Foreign Affairs (Foreign Affairs), the Department of Resource & Development (R&D), the Department of Health & Social Affairs (DHSA), the Department of Transportation, Communications, & Infrastructure (TC&I), and the Department of Education (DOE); the heads of the Office of the Public Defender, Office of National Archives, Culture, & Historic Preservations, and FSM Postal Services. Other Cabinet-level officials include the director of the National Oceanic Resource & Maritime Authority, Coconut Development Authority, FSM Banking Board, and National Fisheries Corporation.
The Congress has fourteen non-partisan members, ten members elected for a two-year term in single-seat constituencies and four members elected for a four-year term, one from each state at large.
The judiciary is headed by the Supreme Court of the Federated States of Micronesia, which is divided into trial and appellate divisions. The president appoints judges with the advice and consent of the Congress. Andon Amaraich was Chief Justice of the Federated States of Micronesia until his death in January 2010. He was succeeded by Martin G. Yinug, who served until his death on August 31, 2014. He was succeeded by Dennis K. Yamase, who continues to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court since his investiture on October 2, 2015.
A head of state (the President) and a legislature are elected on a national level. At the 2011 election, only non-partisans have been elected. The president is elected for a four-year term by Congress. There are no political parties in Micronesia, though they are not banned. Political allegiances depend mainly on family and island-related factors.
The government of Micronesia includes national agencies to serve the Micronesian people. The FSM Social Security Administration, FSM Telecommunications Corporation, Office of the Public Auditor, and FSM PetroCorp are independent agencies.
The FSM is divided in four states: Chuuk (Truk), Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap. Each has its own constitution, elected legislature, governor, and lieutenant governor. The state governments maintain considerable power, particularly regarding the implementation of budgetary policies.
Micronesia is a member of the following international organizations:
Government
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The politics of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) takes place in a framework of a federal assembly-independent representative democratic republic. The President of the Federated States of Micronesia is both head of state and head of government. Executive power is exercised by the president and his cabinet, while legislative power is vested in both the president and the Congress. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The internal workings of the FSM are governed by the 1979 constitution, which guarantees fundamental human rights and establishes a separation of governmental powers. The Federation is in free association with the United States; the Compact of Free Association entered into force 3 November 1986.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The president and the vice president are elected by Congress from among the four senators-at-large for four-year terms. The president is both the chief of state and head of government. Their congressional seats are then filled by special elections. The president and vice president are supported by an appointed cabinet.",
"title": "Executive branch"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The President and Vice President are supported in the administration by a Cabinet made up of 9 appointed officials. They are: the Secretaries of the Department of Environment, Climate Change & Emergency Management (DECEM), the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Foreign Affairs (Foreign Affairs), the Department of Resource & Development (R&D), the Department of Health & Social Affairs (DHSA), the Department of Transportation, Communications, & Infrastructure (TC&I), and the Department of Education (DOE); the heads of the Office of the Public Defender, Office of National Archives, Culture, & Historic Preservations, and FSM Postal Services. Other Cabinet-level officials include the director of the National Oceanic Resource & Maritime Authority, Coconut Development Authority, FSM Banking Board, and National Fisheries Corporation.",
"title": "Executive branch"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Congress has fourteen non-partisan members, ten members elected for a two-year term in single-seat constituencies and four members elected for a four-year term, one from each state at large.",
"title": "Legislative branch"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The judiciary is headed by the Supreme Court of the Federated States of Micronesia, which is divided into trial and appellate divisions. The president appoints judges with the advice and consent of the Congress. Andon Amaraich was Chief Justice of the Federated States of Micronesia until his death in January 2010. He was succeeded by Martin G. Yinug, who served until his death on August 31, 2014. He was succeeded by Dennis K. Yamase, who continues to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court since his investiture on October 2, 2015.",
"title": "Judicial branch"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "A head of state (the President) and a legislature are elected on a national level. At the 2011 election, only non-partisans have been elected. The president is elected for a four-year term by Congress. There are no political parties in Micronesia, though they are not banned. Political allegiances depend mainly on family and island-related factors.",
"title": "Political parties and elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The government of Micronesia includes national agencies to serve the Micronesian people. The FSM Social Security Administration, FSM Telecommunications Corporation, Office of the Public Auditor, and FSM PetroCorp are independent agencies.",
"title": "Government Agencies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The FSM is divided in four states: Chuuk (Truk), Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap. Each has its own constitution, elected legislature, governor, and lieutenant governor. The state governments maintain considerable power, particularly regarding the implementation of budgetary policies.",
"title": "Administrative divisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Micronesia is a member of the following international organizations:",
"title": "International organization participation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Government",
"title": "External links"
}
] |
The politics of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) takes place in a framework of a federal assembly-independent representative democratic republic. The President of the Federated States of Micronesia is both head of state and head of government. Executive power is exercised by the president and his cabinet, while legislative power is vested in both the president and the Congress. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The internal workings of the FSM are governed by the 1979 constitution, which guarantees fundamental human rights and establishes a separation of governmental powers. The Federation is in free association with the United States; the Compact of Free Association entered into force 3 November 1986.
|
2001-05-23T16:48:49Z
|
2023-10-30T14:02:34Z
|
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"Template:Cite web",
"Template:Micronesian elections",
"Template:Oceania in topic",
"Template:Short description",
"Template:Politics of the Federated States of Micronesia",
"Template:Update"
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Federated_States_of_Micronesia
|
11,496 |
Geography of the Federated States of Micronesia
|
Geography of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), a country located in the western Pacific Ocean, and in the Micronesia cultural and ecological sub-region of Oceania. While its total land area is very small at 702 km (271 sq mi), it has the 14th largest exclusive economic zone at 2,996,419 km (1,156,924 sq mi).
The country consists of 607 islands extending 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) across the Caroline Islands Archipelago. They are east of the Philippine Islands, and north of the island of New Guinea. The federal capital is Palikir, on Pohnpei island.
The 607 islands are grouped into four states, and from west to east are:
Separated from the main islands in southern Pohnpei State are the two islands of Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi. They are geographically part of the Micronesia region, but are linguistically and culturally part of the Polynesia region. The indigenous languages spoken on these two islands are in the Samoic family of Polynesian languages.
The Federated States of Micronesia are an island group in the Caroline Islands Archipelago of the western Pacific Ocean, in the Micronesia sub-region of Oceania.
Located about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to Indonesia at Geographic coordinates: 6°55′N 158°15′E / 6.917°N 158.250°E / 6.917; 158.250 Map references are Oceania and Micronesia.
Area:
The country's total area is four times the size of Washington, D.C. in the U.S.
Coastline: The combined coastlines of the country's 607 islands equal 6,112 km (3,798 mi).
Maritime claims:
The country's 607 islands vary from high mountainous ones to low coral atolls. Geologically, there are volcanic rock outcroppings on the islands of Pohnpei, Kosrae, and Chuuk.
The extreme points of the Federated States of Micronesia, the landforms that are farther north, south, east or west — than any other location in the country.
Environment—current issues: Overfishing, land and water pollution.
Environment—international agreements:
Products: Tropical woods and lumber, marine products, deep-seabed minerals, surface mined phosphate.
The Federated States of Micronesia enjoys a tropical climate, with quite even, warm temperatures throughout the year.
Precipitation is generally plentiful, with heavy year-round rainfall. Pohnpei reputedly is one of the wettest places on earth, with up to 330 inches (8.4 m) of rain per year. Nevertheless, drought conditions do occur periodically throughout FSM, especially when the El Niño condition moves into the Western Pacific, when groundwater supplies can dwindle to emergency proportions.
Tropical typhoons are an annual threat, from June to December. The country is located on southern edge of the typhoon belt, with occasionally severe damage, particularly to the low-lying atolls.
Tsunamis and rising sea levels are other natural threats.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Geography of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), a country located in the western Pacific Ocean, and in the Micronesia cultural and ecological sub-region of Oceania. While its total land area is very small at 702 km (271 sq mi), it has the 14th largest exclusive economic zone at 2,996,419 km (1,156,924 sq mi).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The country consists of 607 islands extending 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) across the Caroline Islands Archipelago. They are east of the Philippine Islands, and north of the island of New Guinea. The federal capital is Palikir, on Pohnpei island.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The 607 islands are grouped into four states, and from west to east are:",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Separated from the main islands in southern Pohnpei State are the two islands of Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi. They are geographically part of the Micronesia region, but are linguistically and culturally part of the Polynesia region. The indigenous languages spoken on these two islands are in the Samoic family of Polynesian languages.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Federated States of Micronesia are an island group in the Caroline Islands Archipelago of the western Pacific Ocean, in the Micronesia sub-region of Oceania.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Located about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to Indonesia at Geographic coordinates: 6°55′N 158°15′E / 6.917°N 158.250°E / 6.917; 158.250 Map references are Oceania and Micronesia.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Area:",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The country's total area is four times the size of Washington, D.C. in the U.S.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Coastline: The combined coastlines of the country's 607 islands equal 6,112 km (3,798 mi).",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Maritime claims:",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The country's 607 islands vary from high mountainous ones to low coral atolls. Geologically, there are volcanic rock outcroppings on the islands of Pohnpei, Kosrae, and Chuuk.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The extreme points of the Federated States of Micronesia, the landforms that are farther north, south, east or west — than any other location in the country.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Environment—current issues: Overfishing, land and water pollution.",
"title": "Environment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Environment—international agreements:",
"title": "Environment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Products: Tropical woods and lumber, marine products, deep-seabed minerals, surface mined phosphate.",
"title": "Environment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The Federated States of Micronesia enjoys a tropical climate, with quite even, warm temperatures throughout the year.",
"title": "Environment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Precipitation is generally plentiful, with heavy year-round rainfall. Pohnpei reputedly is one of the wettest places on earth, with up to 330 inches (8.4 m) of rain per year. Nevertheless, drought conditions do occur periodically throughout FSM, especially when the El Niño condition moves into the Western Pacific, when groundwater supplies can dwindle to emergency proportions.",
"title": "Environment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Tropical typhoons are an annual threat, from June to December. The country is located on southern edge of the typhoon belt, with occasionally severe damage, particularly to the low-lying atolls.",
"title": "Environment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Tsunamis and rising sea levels are other natural threats.",
"title": "Environment"
}
] |
Geography of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), a country located in the western Pacific Ocean, and in the Micronesia cultural and ecological sub-region of Oceania. While its total land area is very small at 702 km2 (271 sq mi), it has the 14th largest exclusive economic zone at 2,996,419 km2 (1,156,924 sq mi).
|
2022-09-08T00:57:21Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_the_Federated_States_of_Micronesia
|
|
11,497 |
Demographics of the Federated States of Micronesia
|
Demographic features of the population of the Federated States of Micronesia include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects. The indigenous population of the Federated States of Micronesia, which is predominantly Micronesian, consists of various ethnolinguistic groups. English has become the common language. Population growth remains high at more than 3%, but is ameliorated somewhat by net emigration.
The island of Pingelap is genetically notable for the prevalence of the extreme form of color blindness known as maskun.
Population Estimates by Sex and Age Group (01.VII.2021) (Based on the 2010 Population and Housing Census and 2013/2014 Household Income and Expenditure Survey.):
The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated.
Population: 102,436 (July 2020 est.)
Age structure: 0-14 years: NA 15-64 years: NA 65 years and over: NA
Population growth rate: -0.6% (2020 est.)
Birth rate: 18.9 births/1,000 population (2020 est.)
Death rate: 4.3 deaths/1,000 population (2020 est.)
Net migration rate: -20.9 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2020 est.)
Infant mortality rate: 17.8 deaths/1,000 live births (2020 est.)
Life expectancy at birth: total population: 73.9 years male: 71.8 years female: 76.1 years (2020 est.)
Total fertility rate: 2.29 children born/woman (2020 est.)
Nationality: noun: Micronesian(s) adjective: Micronesian; Kosraean(s), Pohnpeian(s), Chuukese, Yapese
Ethnic groups: Chuukese 49.3%, Pohnpeian 29.8%, Kosraean 6.3%, Yapese 5.7%, other 8.9%
Religions: Roman Catholic 54.7%, Protestant 41.1%, other and none 4.2% (see Religion in the Federated States of Micronesia)
Languages: English (official and common language), Chuukese, Pohnpeian, Yapese, Kosraean (recognized at state level in Chuuk, Pohnpei, Yap and Kosrae respectively) In addition other language such as Pingelapese, Ngatikese, Satawalese, Puluwatese, Mortlockese, Mokilese, Ulithian, Woleaian, Nukuoro, and Kapingamarangi are recognized.
Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 89% male: 91% female: 88% (1980 est.)
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Demographic features of the population of the Federated States of Micronesia include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects. The indigenous population of the Federated States of Micronesia, which is predominantly Micronesian, consists of various ethnolinguistic groups. English has become the common language. Population growth remains high at more than 3%, but is ameliorated somewhat by net emigration.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The island of Pingelap is genetically notable for the prevalence of the extreme form of color blindness known as maskun.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Population Estimates by Sex and Age Group (01.VII.2021) (Based on the 2010 Population and Housing Census and 2013/2014 Household Income and Expenditure Survey.):",
"title": "Structure of the population"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated.",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Population: 102,436 (July 2020 est.)",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Age structure: 0-14 years: NA 15-64 years: NA 65 years and over: NA",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Population growth rate: -0.6% (2020 est.)",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Birth rate: 18.9 births/1,000 population (2020 est.)",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Death rate: 4.3 deaths/1,000 population (2020 est.)",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Net migration rate: -20.9 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2020 est.)",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Infant mortality rate: 17.8 deaths/1,000 live births (2020 est.)",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Life expectancy at birth: total population: 73.9 years male: 71.8 years female: 76.1 years (2020 est.)",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Total fertility rate: 2.29 children born/woman (2020 est.)",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Nationality: noun: Micronesian(s) adjective: Micronesian; Kosraean(s), Pohnpeian(s), Chuukese, Yapese",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Ethnic groups: Chuukese 49.3%, Pohnpeian 29.8%, Kosraean 6.3%, Yapese 5.7%, other 8.9%",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Religions: Roman Catholic 54.7%, Protestant 41.1%, other and none 4.2% (see Religion in the Federated States of Micronesia)",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Languages: English (official and common language), Chuukese, Pohnpeian, Yapese, Kosraean (recognized at state level in Chuuk, Pohnpei, Yap and Kosrae respectively) In addition other language such as Pingelapese, Ngatikese, Satawalese, Puluwatese, Mortlockese, Mokilese, Ulithian, Woleaian, Nukuoro, and Kapingamarangi are recognized.",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 89% male: 91% female: 88% (1980 est.)",
"title": "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics"
}
] |
Demographic features of the population of the Federated States of Micronesia include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects. The indigenous population of the Federated States of Micronesia, which is predominantly Micronesian, consists of various ethnolinguistic groups. English has become the common language. Population growth remains high at more than 3%, but is ameliorated somewhat by net emigration. The island of Pingelap is genetically notable for the prevalence of the extreme form of color blindness known as maskun.
|
2023-06-29T19:16:59Z
|
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"Template:Reflist",
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Federated_States_of_Micronesia
|
|
11,498 |
Economy of the Federated States of Micronesia
|
The economic activity of the Federated States of Micronesia consists primarily of subsistence agriculture and fishing. The islands have few mineral deposits worth exploiting, except for high-grade phosphate. The potential for a tourist industry exists, but the remoteness of the location and a lack of adequate facilities hinder development. Financial assistance from the US is the primary source of revenue, with the US pledged to spend $1.3 billion in the islands in 1986–2001. Geographical isolation and a poorly developed infrastructure are major impediments to long-term growth.
Under the terms of the Compact of Free Association, the United States provided FSM with around $2 billion in grants and services from 1986 to 2001. The Compact's financial terms are being renegotiated for an extension period. In 2001 the U.S. provided more than $84 million in Compact grants—an amount equivalent to over one-third of FSM's GDP—plus more than $20 million through other federal programs. Total official development assistance from all sources was more than $100 million in 2001, with nearly 90% of that total coming from the U.S.
The FSM public sector plays a central role in the economy as the administrator of the Compact money. The national and state-level governments employ over one-half of the country's workers and provide services accounting for more than 40% of GDP. Faced with the potential decrease or cessation of some of the assistance programs upon the Compact's financial provisions' expiry in 2001, the Government of the FSM in 1996 began to implement a program of economic reforms designed to reduce the role of the public sector in the economy. In addition, the advent of music startups using .fm domain names has provided a new, albeit fairly small, stream of revenue to the government.
The fishing industry is highly important. Foreign commercial fishing fleets pay over $20 million annually for the right to operate in FSM territorial waters. These licensing fees account for nearly 30% of domestic budgetary revenue. Additionally, exports of marine products, mainly reexports of fish to Japan, account for nearly 85% of export revenue.
The tourist industry is present but has been hampered by a lack of infrastructure. Visitor attractions include scuba diving in each state, World War II battle sites, and the ancient ruined city of Nan Madol on Pohnpei. Some 15,000 tourists visit the islands each year. The Asian Development Bank has identified tourism as one of FSM's highest potential growth industries.
Farming is mainly subsistence, and its importance is declining. The principal crops are coconuts, bananas, betel nuts, cassava, and sweet potatoes. Less than 10% of the formal labor force and less than 7% of export revenue come from the agriculture sector. Manufacturing activity is modest, consisting mainly of the export of betel nut in Yap and production of buttons from trochus shells.
The large inflow of official assistance to FSM allows it to run a substantial trade deficit and to have a much lighter tax burden than other states in the region (11% of GDP in FSM compared to 18–25% elsewhere). The government also borrowed against future Compact disbursements in the early 1990s, yielding an external debt of $111 million in 1997 (over 50% of GDP).
There are no patent laws in Micronesia.
GDP: purchasing power parity - $277 million (2002 est.) note: GDP is supplemented by grant aid, averaging perhaps $100 million annually
GDP - real growth rate: 1% (2002 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $3 900 (2002 est.)
GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 47% industry: 10% services: 43% (2010 est.)
Population below poverty line: 22.3%
Household income or consumption by percentage share: lowest 10%: NA% highest 10%: NA%
Inflation rate (consumer prices): 2% (2012 est.)
Labor force: 37,410 (2000)
Labor force - by occupation: two-thirds are government employees
Unemployment rate: 15% (2010 estimate)
Budget: revenues: $157.5 million ($74 million less grants expenditures: $134 million; including capital expenditures of $17.9 million (FY05 est.)
Industries: tourism, construction, fish processing, craft items from shell, wood, and pearls
Industrial production growth rate: NA%
Electricity - production: 261 million kWh (2010)
Electricity - consumption: 222 million kWh (2010)
Electricity - exports: 0 kWh (2010)
Electricity - imports: 0 kWh (2010)
Agriculture - products: black pepper, tropical fruits and vegetables, coconuts, cassava (tapioca), sweet potatoes; pigs, chickens
Exports: $123 million (f.o.b., 2000 est.)
Exports - commodities: fish, garments, bananas, black pepper
Exports - partners: Japan, United States, Guam, China (2010)
Imports: $82.5 million f.o.b. (2010 est.)
Imports - commodities: food, manufactured goods, machinery and equipment, beverages
Imports - partners: US, Australia, Japan (2010)
Debt - external: $44 million (2010 est.)
Economic aid - recipient: $64 million (2010); note - under terms of the Compact of Free Association, the US will provide $1.3 billion in grant aid during the period 1986-2001
Currency: 1 United States dollar (US$) = 100 cents
Exchange rates: US currency is used
Fiscal year: 1 October - 30 September
This article incorporates public domain material from The World Factbook. CIA.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The economic activity of the Federated States of Micronesia consists primarily of subsistence agriculture and fishing. The islands have few mineral deposits worth exploiting, except for high-grade phosphate. The potential for a tourist industry exists, but the remoteness of the location and a lack of adequate facilities hinder development. Financial assistance from the US is the primary source of revenue, with the US pledged to spend $1.3 billion in the islands in 1986–2001. Geographical isolation and a poorly developed infrastructure are major impediments to long-term growth.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Under the terms of the Compact of Free Association, the United States provided FSM with around $2 billion in grants and services from 1986 to 2001. The Compact's financial terms are being renegotiated for an extension period. In 2001 the U.S. provided more than $84 million in Compact grants—an amount equivalent to over one-third of FSM's GDP—plus more than $20 million through other federal programs. Total official development assistance from all sources was more than $100 million in 2001, with nearly 90% of that total coming from the U.S.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The FSM public sector plays a central role in the economy as the administrator of the Compact money. The national and state-level governments employ over one-half of the country's workers and provide services accounting for more than 40% of GDP. Faced with the potential decrease or cessation of some of the assistance programs upon the Compact's financial provisions' expiry in 2001, the Government of the FSM in 1996 began to implement a program of economic reforms designed to reduce the role of the public sector in the economy. In addition, the advent of music startups using .fm domain names has provided a new, albeit fairly small, stream of revenue to the government.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The fishing industry is highly important. Foreign commercial fishing fleets pay over $20 million annually for the right to operate in FSM territorial waters. These licensing fees account for nearly 30% of domestic budgetary revenue. Additionally, exports of marine products, mainly reexports of fish to Japan, account for nearly 85% of export revenue.",
"title": "Industries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The tourist industry is present but has been hampered by a lack of infrastructure. Visitor attractions include scuba diving in each state, World War II battle sites, and the ancient ruined city of Nan Madol on Pohnpei. Some 15,000 tourists visit the islands each year. The Asian Development Bank has identified tourism as one of FSM's highest potential growth industries.",
"title": "Industries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Farming is mainly subsistence, and its importance is declining. The principal crops are coconuts, bananas, betel nuts, cassava, and sweet potatoes. Less than 10% of the formal labor force and less than 7% of export revenue come from the agriculture sector. Manufacturing activity is modest, consisting mainly of the export of betel nut in Yap and production of buttons from trochus shells.",
"title": "Industries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The large inflow of official assistance to FSM allows it to run a substantial trade deficit and to have a much lighter tax burden than other states in the region (11% of GDP in FSM compared to 18–25% elsewhere). The government also borrowed against future Compact disbursements in the early 1990s, yielding an external debt of $111 million in 1997 (over 50% of GDP).",
"title": "Taxation and trade"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "There are no patent laws in Micronesia.",
"title": "Taxation and trade"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "GDP: purchasing power parity - $277 million (2002 est.) note: GDP is supplemented by grant aid, averaging perhaps $100 million annually",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "GDP - real growth rate: 1% (2002 est.)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $3 900 (2002 est.)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 47% industry: 10% services: 43% (2010 est.)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Population below poverty line: 22.3%",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Household income or consumption by percentage share: lowest 10%: NA% highest 10%: NA%",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Inflation rate (consumer prices): 2% (2012 est.)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Labor force: 37,410 (2000)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Labor force - by occupation: two-thirds are government employees",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Unemployment rate: 15% (2010 estimate)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Budget: revenues: $157.5 million ($74 million less grants expenditures: $134 million; including capital expenditures of $17.9 million (FY05 est.)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Industries: tourism, construction, fish processing, craft items from shell, wood, and pearls",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Industrial production growth rate: NA%",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Electricity - production: 261 million kWh (2010)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Electricity - consumption: 222 million kWh (2010)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Electricity - exports: 0 kWh (2010)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Electricity - imports: 0 kWh (2010)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Agriculture - products: black pepper, tropical fruits and vegetables, coconuts, cassava (tapioca), sweet potatoes; pigs, chickens",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Exports: $123 million (f.o.b., 2000 est.)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Exports - commodities: fish, garments, bananas, black pepper",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Exports - partners: Japan, United States, Guam, China (2010)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Imports: $82.5 million f.o.b. (2010 est.)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Imports - commodities: food, manufactured goods, machinery and equipment, beverages",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Imports - partners: US, Australia, Japan (2010)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Debt - external: $44 million (2010 est.)",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Economic aid - recipient: $64 million (2010); note - under terms of the Compact of Free Association, the US will provide $1.3 billion in grant aid during the period 1986-2001",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Currency: 1 United States dollar (US$) = 100 cents",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Exchange rates: US currency is used",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Fiscal year: 1 October - 30 September",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "This article incorporates public domain material from The World Factbook. CIA.",
"title": "References"
}
] |
The economic activity of the Federated States of Micronesia consists primarily of subsistence agriculture and fishing. The islands have few mineral deposits worth exploiting, except for high-grade phosphate. The potential for a tourist industry exists, but the remoteness of the location and a lack of adequate facilities hinder development. Financial assistance from the US is the primary source of revenue, with the US pledged to spend $1.3 billion in the islands in 1986–2001. Geographical isolation and a poorly developed infrastructure are major impediments to long-term growth. Under the terms of the Compact of Free Association, the United States provided FSM with around $2 billion in grants and services from 1986 to 2001. The Compact's financial terms are being renegotiated for an extension period. In 2001 the U.S. provided more than $84 million in Compact grants—an amount equivalent to over one-third of FSM's GDP—plus more than $20 million through other federal programs. Total official development assistance from all sources was more than $100 million in 2001, with nearly 90% of that total coming from the U.S. The FSM public sector plays a central role in the economy as the administrator of the Compact money. The national and state-level governments employ over one-half of the country's workers and provide services accounting for more than 40% of GDP. Faced with the potential decrease or cessation of some of the assistance programs upon the Compact's financial provisions' expiry in 2001, the Government of the FSM in 1996 began to implement a program of economic reforms designed to reduce the role of the public sector in the economy. In addition, the advent of music startups using .fm domain names has provided a new, albeit fairly small, stream of revenue to the government.
|
2002-06-15T12:34:25Z
|
2023-12-22T05:14:32Z
|
[
"Template:Cite journal",
"Template:Cite web",
"Template:Infobox economy",
"Template:CIA World Factbook"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Federated_States_of_Micronesia
|
11,499 |
Telecommunications in the Federated States of Micronesia
|
This article is about communications systems in the Federated States of Micronesia.
In 2010, Pohnpei State was connected to the Internet using the HANTRU-1 undersea communications cable to provide high-speed bandwidth. Kosrae State, Chuuk State, and Yap State, were planned to be connected in a second phase.
Main lines in use: 8,000 (1995)
Mobile cellular: NA
Telephone system: domestic: islands interconnected by shortwave radiotelephone (used mostly for government purposes) international: satellite earth stations - 4 Intelsat (Pacific Ocean)
Broadcast stations: AM 5, FM 1, shortwave 1 (2011)
Stations below are included in the total: AM Radio stations:
FM Radio stations:
There is also a shortwave relay of 88.5 FM, V6MP.
Radios: NA
Broadcast stations:
Several Honolulu local stations are available on cable (converted from ATSC to DVB-T): KHET (PBS), KHON-TV (Fox), KITV-TV (ABC), KHNL-TV (NBC) and KGMB-TV (CBS).
Televisions: NA
Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 1
Country code: .fm
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "This article is about communications systems in the Federated States of Micronesia.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In 2010, Pohnpei State was connected to the Internet using the HANTRU-1 undersea communications cable to provide high-speed bandwidth. Kosrae State, Chuuk State, and Yap State, were planned to be connected in a second phase.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Main lines in use: 8,000 (1995)",
"title": "Telephone"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Mobile cellular: NA",
"title": "Telephone"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Telephone system: domestic: islands interconnected by shortwave radiotelephone (used mostly for government purposes) international: satellite earth stations - 4 Intelsat (Pacific Ocean)",
"title": "Telephone"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Broadcast stations: AM 5, FM 1, shortwave 1 (2011)",
"title": "Radio"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Stations below are included in the total: AM Radio stations:",
"title": "Radio"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "FM Radio stations:",
"title": "Radio"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "There is also a shortwave relay of 88.5 FM, V6MP.",
"title": "Radio"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Radios: NA",
"title": "Radio"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Broadcast stations:",
"title": "Television"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Several Honolulu local stations are available on cable (converted from ATSC to DVB-T): KHET (PBS), KHON-TV (Fox), KITV-TV (ABC), KHNL-TV (NBC) and KGMB-TV (CBS).",
"title": "Television"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Televisions: NA",
"title": "Television"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 1",
"title": "Internet"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Country code: .fm",
"title": "Internet"
}
] |
This article is about communications systems in the Federated States of Micronesia. In 2010, Pohnpei State was connected to the Internet using the HANTRU-1 undersea communications cable to provide high-speed bandwidth. Kosrae State, Chuuk State, and Yap State, were planned to be connected in a second phase.
|
2022-10-05T23:39:10Z
|
[
"Template:Cite web",
"Template:Oceania topic",
"Template:Telecommunications",
"Template:See",
"Template:Reflist",
"Template:Webarchive"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_the_Federated_States_of_Micronesia
|
|
11,501 |
Transportation in the Federated States of Micronesia
|
Railways: 0 km
Highways: total: 240 kilometers (150 mi) paved: 42 kilometers (26 mi) unpaved: 198 kilometers (123 mi) (1996 est.)
Ports and harbors: Colonia (Yap), Kolonia (Pohnpei), Lele, Moen
Merchant marine: total: three ships (1,000 GT or over) 3,560 GT/2,060 tonnes deadweight (DWT) by type: cargo one, passenger/cargo two (2007)
Airports: Six (2007)
Airports - with paved runways: total: Six 1,524 to 2,437 m: Four (Chuuk International Airport, Kosrae International Airport, Pohnpei International Airport and Yap International Airport) 914 to 1,523 m: Two (2007)
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Railways: 0 km",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Highways: total: 240 kilometers (150 mi) paved: 42 kilometers (26 mi) unpaved: 198 kilometers (123 mi) (1996 est.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Ports and harbors: Colonia (Yap), Kolonia (Pohnpei), Lele, Moen",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Merchant marine: total: three ships (1,000 GT or over) 3,560 GT/2,060 tonnes deadweight (DWT) by type: cargo one, passenger/cargo two (2007)",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Airports: Six (2007)",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Airports - with paved runways: total: Six 1,524 to 2,437 m: Four (Chuuk International Airport, Kosrae International Airport, Pohnpei International Airport and Yap International Airport) 914 to 1,523 m: Two (2007)",
"title": ""
}
] |
Railways:
0 km Highways:
total:
240 kilometers (150 mi)
paved:
42 kilometers (26 mi)
unpaved:
198 kilometers (123 mi) Ports and harbors:
Colonia (Yap), Kolonia (Pohnpei), Lele, Moen Merchant marine:
total: three ships 3,560 GT/2,060 tonnes deadweight (DWT) by type: cargo one, passenger/cargo two (2007) Airports:
Six (2007) Airports - with paved runways:
total:
Six
1,524 to 2,437 m:
Four
914 to 1,523 m:
Two (2007)
|
2022-09-07T23:35:04Z
|
[
"Template:Convert",
"Template:DWT",
"Template:Commons category",
"Template:Oceania topic",
"Template:Micronesia-stub",
"Template:Unreferenced",
"Template:CIA World Factbook only"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_the_Federated_States_of_Micronesia
|
|
11,503 |
Foreign relations of the Federated States of Micronesia
|
The government of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) conducts its own foreign relations. Since independence in 1986, the FSM has established diplomatic relations with 92 countries, including all of its Pacific neighbors.
Regional cooperation through various multilateral organizations is a key element in FSM's foreign policy. FSM is a full member of the Pacific Islands Forum, the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission, the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. The country also is one of the eight signatories of the Nauru Agreement Concerning Cooperation In The Management Of Fisheries Of Common Interest which collectively controls 25-30% of the world's tuna supply and approximately 60% of the western and central Pacific tuna supply.
List of countries with which the Federated States of Micronesia maintains diplomatic relations with:
The FSM maintains permanent embassies in four nations: China, Fiji, Japan and the United States. The FSM also maintains a resident consulate in Hawaii, Portland, Oregon and Guam. The FSM maintains non-resident embassies for four nations: Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore (all in Japan) and Israel in Fiji. Four nations maintain permanent embassies in the FSM: Australia, China, Japan and the United States. Additionally, 15 nations maintain non-resident embassies with the FSM. France and the United Kingdom have non-resident embassies for the FSM in Fiji. Canada, Italy and South Africa have non-resident embassies for the FSM in Australia. Indonesia has a non-resident embassy for the FSM in Japan. Chile has its non-resident embassies for the FSM in the United States. Croatia has its non-resident embassy for the FSM in Indonesia. Czech Republic, Finland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland have non-resident embassies in the Philippines. New Zealand has its non-resident embassy for the FSM in Kiribati.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The government of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) conducts its own foreign relations. Since independence in 1986, the FSM has established diplomatic relations with 92 countries, including all of its Pacific neighbors.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Regional cooperation through various multilateral organizations is a key element in FSM's foreign policy. FSM is a full member of the Pacific Islands Forum, the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission, the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. The country also is one of the eight signatories of the Nauru Agreement Concerning Cooperation In The Management Of Fisheries Of Common Interest which collectively controls 25-30% of the world's tuna supply and approximately 60% of the western and central Pacific tuna supply.",
"title": "Regional relations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "List of countries with which the Federated States of Micronesia maintains diplomatic relations with:",
"title": "Diplomatic relations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The FSM maintains permanent embassies in four nations: China, Fiji, Japan and the United States. The FSM also maintains a resident consulate in Hawaii, Portland, Oregon and Guam. The FSM maintains non-resident embassies for four nations: Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore (all in Japan) and Israel in Fiji. Four nations maintain permanent embassies in the FSM: Australia, China, Japan and the United States. Additionally, 15 nations maintain non-resident embassies with the FSM. France and the United Kingdom have non-resident embassies for the FSM in Fiji. Canada, Italy and South Africa have non-resident embassies for the FSM in Australia. Indonesia has a non-resident embassy for the FSM in Japan. Chile has its non-resident embassies for the FSM in the United States. Croatia has its non-resident embassy for the FSM in Indonesia. Czech Republic, Finland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland have non-resident embassies in the Philippines. New Zealand has its non-resident embassy for the FSM in Kiribati.",
"title": "Bilateral relations"
}
] |
The government of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) conducts its own foreign relations. Since independence in 1986, the FSM has established diplomatic relations with 92 countries, including all of its Pacific neighbors.
|
2001-05-23T16:49:56Z
|
2023-11-09T06:36:33Z
|
[
"Template:Cite web",
"Template:Foreign relations of the Federated States of Micronesia",
"Template:Date table sorting",
"Template:Main",
"Template:Citation needed",
"Template:Foreign relations of Oceania",
"Template:Politics of the Federated States of Micronesia",
"Template:Flag",
"Template:Reflist"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_the_Federated_States_of_Micronesia
|
11,504 |
Fandom
|
A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significant portion of their time and energy involved with their interest, often as a part of a social network with particular practices, differentiating fandom-affiliated people from those with only a casual interest.
A fandom can grow around any area of human interest or activity. The subject of fan interest can be narrowly defined, focused on something like an individual celebrity, or encompassing entire hobbies, genres or fashions. While it is now used to apply to groups of people fascinated with any subject, the term has its roots in those with an enthusiastic appreciation for sports. Merriam-Webster's dictionary traces the usage of the term back as far as 1903.
Many fandoms overlap. There are a number of large conventions that cater to fandom such as film, comics, anime, television shows, cosplay, and the opportunity to buy and sell related merchandise. Annual conventions such as Comic Con International, Wondercon, Dragon Con, and New York Comic Con are some of the more well-known and highly attended events that cater to overlapping fandoms.
Fans of the literary detective Sherlock Holmes are widely considered to have comprised the first modern fandom, holding public demonstrations of mourning after Holmes was "killed off" in 1893, and creating some of the first fan fiction as early as about 1897 to 1902. Outside the scope of media, railway enthusiasts are another early fandom with its roots in the late 19th century that began to gain in popularity and increasingly organize in the first decades of the early 20th century.
A wide variety of modern organized Western fan subcultures originated with science fiction fandom, the community of fans of the science fiction and fantasy genres. Science fiction fandom dates back to the 1930s and maintains organized clubs and associations in many cities around the world. Fans have held the annual World Science Fiction Convention since 1939, along with many other events each year, and has created its own jargon, sometimes called "fanspeak". In addition, the Society for Creative Anachronism, a medievalist re-creation group, has its roots in science fiction fandom and was founded by members thereof. Many science fiction and fantasy authors such as Marion Zimmer Bradley, Poul Anderson, Randall Garrett, David D. Friedman, and Robert Asprin have been members of the organization.
Media fandom split from science fiction fandom in the early 1970s with a focus on relationships between characters within TV and movie media franchises, such as Star Trek and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Fans of these franchises generated creative products like fan art and fan fiction at a time when typical science fiction fandom was focused on critical discussions. The MediaWest convention provided a video room and was instrumental in the emergence of fan vids, or analytic music videos based on a source, in the late 1970s. By the mid-1970s, it was possible to meet fans at science fiction conventions who did not read science fiction, but only viewed it on film or TV.
Anime and manga fandom began in the 1970s in Japan. In America, the fandom also began as an offshoot of science fiction fandom, with fans bringing imported copies of Japanese manga to conventions. Before anime began to be licensed in the U.S., fans who wanted to get a hold of anime would leak copies of anime movies and subtitle them to exchange with friends in the community, thus marking the start of fansubs. While the science fiction and anime fandoms grew in media, the Grateful Dead subculture that emerged in the late 1960s to the early 1970s created a global fandom around hippie culture that would have lasting impacts on society and technology.
The furry fandom refers to the fandom for fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. The concept of the furry originated at a science fiction convention in 1980, when a drawing of a character from Steve Gallacci's Albedo Anthropomorphics initiated a discussion of anthropomorphic characters in science fiction novels, which in turn initiated a discussion group that met at science fiction and comics conventions.
Additional subjects with significant fandoms include comics, animated cartoons, video games, sports, music, films, television shows, pulp magazines, soap operas, celebrities, and game shows.
Members of a fandom associate with one another, often attending fan conventions and publishing and exchanging fanzines and newsletters. Amateur press associations are another form of fan publication and networking. Originally using print-based media, these subcultures have migrated much of their communications and interaction onto the Internet, which is also used for the purpose of archiving detailed information pertinent to their given fanbase. Often, fans congregate on forums and discussion boards to share their love for and criticism of a specific work. This congregation can lead to a high level of organization and community within the fandom, as well as infighting. Although there is some level of hierarchy among most of the discussion boards, and certain contributors may be valued more highly than others, newcomers are most often welcomed into the fold. Most importantly, these sorts of discussion boards can have an effect on the media itself, as was the case in the television show Glee. Trends on discussion boards have been known to influence the writers and producers of shows. The media fandom for the TV series Firefly was able to generate enough corporate interest to create a movie after the series was canceled.
Some fans write fan fiction ("fanfic"), stories based on the universe and characters of their chosen fandom. This fiction can take the form of video-making as well as writing. Fan fiction may or may not tie in with the story's canon; sometimes fans use the story's characters in different situations that do not relate to the plot line at all.
Especially at events, fans may also partake in cosplay, the creation and wearing of costumes designed in the likeness of characters from a source work, which can also be combined with role-playing, reenacting scenes, or inventing likely behavior inspired by their chosen sources.
Others create fan vids, or analytical music videos focusing on the source fandom, and yet others create fan art. Such activities are sometimes known as "fan labor" or "fanac" (an abbreviation for "fan activity"). The advent of the Internet has significantly facilitated fan association and activities. Activities that have been aided by the Internet include the creation of fan "shrines" dedicated to favorite characters, computer screen wallpapers, and avatars. The rise of the Internet has furthermore resulted in the creation of online fan networks who help facilitate the exchange of fanworks.
Some fans create pictures known as edits, which consist of pictures or photos with their chosen fandom characters in different scenarios. These edits are often shared on social media networks such as Instagram, Tumblr, or Pinterest. In edits, one may see content relating to several different fandoms. Fans in communities online often make gifs or gif sets about their fandoms. Gifs or gif sets can be used to create non-canon scenarios mixing actual content or adding in related content. Gif sets can also capture minute expressions or moments. Fans use gifs to show how they feel about characters or events in their fandom; these are called reaction gifs.
The Temple of the Jedi Order, or Jediism, a self-proclaimed "real living, breathing religion," views itself as separate from the Jedi as portrayed in the Star Wars franchise. Despite this, sociologists view the conflation of religion and fandom in Jediism as legitimate in some sense, classifying both as participatory phenomena.
There are also active fan organizations that participate in philanthropy and create a positive social impact. For example, the Harry Potter Alliance is a civic organization with a strong online component which runs campaigns around human rights issues, often in partnership with other advocacy and nonprofit groups; its membership skews college age and above. Nerdfighters, another fandom formed around Vlogbrothers, a YouTube vlog channel, are mainly high school students united by a common goal of "decreasing world suck". K-pop fans have been involved in various online fan activism campaigns related to Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Notable feature-length documentaries about fandom include Trekkies and A Brony Tale. Slash is a movie released in 2016 about a young boy who writes slash fanfiction. The SiriusXM-produced audio documentary Comic-Con Begins was launched as a six-part series starting June 22, 2021. It presents the history of both the San Diego Comic-Con and the modern fandom scene it helped to spawn, as told by nearly 50 surviving foundational SDCC members, fandom experts, and special guests such as: Kevin Smith, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Felicia Day, Trina Robbins, Maggie Thompson, the Russo brothers, and Bruce Campbell. Cosplay pioneer, scream queen, and foundational SDCC member Brinke Stevens hosts the series. Comic-Con Begins was expanded into the book See You at San Diego: An Oral History of Comic-Con, Fandom, and the Triumph of Geek Culture by creator Mathew Klickstein and published by Fantagraphics on September 6, 2022. The book includes forewords by cartoonists Stan Sakai and Jeff Smith, and an afterword by Wu-Tang Clan's RZA.
Fangirl is a novel written by Rainbow Rowell about a college student who is a fan of a book series called Simon Snow, which is written by a fictional author named Gemma T. Leslie. On October 6, 2015 Rainbow Rowell published a follow-up novel to Fangirl. Carry On is stand-alone novel set in the fictional world that Cath, the main character of Fangirl writes fanfiction in.
The film and television entertainment industry refers to the totality of fans devoted to a particular area of interest, organized or not, as the "fanbase".
Media fans, have, on occasion, organized on behalf of canceled television series, with notable success in cases such as Star Trek in 1968, Cagney & Lacey in 1983, Xena: Warrior Princess, in 1995, Roswell in 2000 and 2001 (was canceled with finality at the end of the 2002 season), Farscape in 2002, Firefly in 2002, and Jericho in 2007. (In the case of Firefly the result was the movie Serenity, not another season.) It was likewise the fans who facilitated the push to create a Veronica Mars film through a Kickstarter campaign. Fans of the show Chuck launched a campaign to save the show from being canceled using a Twitter hashtag and buying products from sponsors of the show. Fans of Arrested Development fought for the character Steve Holt to be included in the fourth season. The Save Steve Holt! campaign included a Twitter and Facebook account, a hashtag, and a website.
Such outcries, even when unsuccessful, suggest a growing self-awareness on the part of entertainment consumers, who appear increasingly likely to attempt to assert their power as a bloc. Fan activism in support of the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike through Fans4Writers appears to be an extension of this trend.
In science fiction, a large number of practitioners and other professionals in the field, not only writers but editors and publishers as well, traditionally have themselves come from and participate in science fiction fandom, from Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison to Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Toni Weisskopf. Ed Brubaker was a fan of the Captain America comics as a kid and was so upset that Bucky Barnes was killed off that he worked on ways to bring him back. The Winter Soldier arc began in 2004, and in the sixth issue in 2005 it was revealed that the Winter Soldier was Bucky Barnes. Many authors write fan fiction under pseudonyms. Lev Grossman has written stories in the Harry Potter, Adventure Time, and How to Train Your Dragon universes. S.E. Hinton has written about both Supernatural and her own books, The Outsiders. Movie actors often cosplay as other characters to enjoy being a regular fan at cons; for example, Daniel Radcliffe cosplayed as Spider-Man at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con. Before the release of The Amazing Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield dressed up as Spider-Man and gave an emotional speech about what Spider-Man meant to him and thanking fans for their support.
The relationship between fans and professionals has changed because of access to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. These give fans greater access to public figures such as creators, authors, and actors. Online platforms also give fans more ways to connect and participate in fandoms.
Some fans have made their work in fandom into careers. The book Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James was originally a fan fiction of the Twilight series published on FanFiction.Net. The story was taken down for mature content that violated the site's terms of service. James rewrote the story to take out any references to Twilight and self-published on The Writer's Coffee Shop in May 2011. The book was published by Random House in 2012 and was very popular, selling over 100 million copies. However, many fans were not happy about James using fan fiction to make money and felt it was not in the spirit of the community.
There is contention over fans not being paid for their time or work. Gaming companies use fans to alpha and beta test their games in exchange for early access or promotional merchandise. The TV show Glee used fans to create promotional materials, though they did not compensate them.
The entertainment industry has promoted its work directly to members of the fandom community by sponsoring and presenting at events and conventions dedicated to fandom. Studios frequently create elaborate exhibits, organize panels that feature celebrities and writers of film and television (to promote both existing work and works yet to be released), and engage fans directly with providing Q&A sessions, screening sneak previews, and supplying branded giveaway merchandise. The interest, reception, and reaction of the fandom community to the works being promoted have a marked influence on how film studios and others proceed with the projects and products they exhibit and promote.
Fandoms, for example at Comic Con, can lead to toxic behavior, including harassing other fans or media creators.
The rise of the Internet created new and powerful outlets for fandom. This began with early engineers trading Grateful Dead set lists and discussing the setup of the band's concert speaker system, called the "Wall of Sound," on ARPANET, a precursor to the Internet. This led to tape trading over FTP, and the Internet Archive began to add Grateful Dead shows in 1995. Online tape trading communities such as etree evolved into P2P networks trading shows through torrents. After the birth of the World Wide Web, many communities adopted the practices of Deadhead fandom online.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significant portion of their time and energy involved with their interest, often as a part of a social network with particular practices, differentiating fandom-affiliated people from those with only a casual interest.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "A fandom can grow around any area of human interest or activity. The subject of fan interest can be narrowly defined, focused on something like an individual celebrity, or encompassing entire hobbies, genres or fashions. While it is now used to apply to groups of people fascinated with any subject, the term has its roots in those with an enthusiastic appreciation for sports. Merriam-Webster's dictionary traces the usage of the term back as far as 1903.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Many fandoms overlap. There are a number of large conventions that cater to fandom such as film, comics, anime, television shows, cosplay, and the opportunity to buy and sell related merchandise. Annual conventions such as Comic Con International, Wondercon, Dragon Con, and New York Comic Con are some of the more well-known and highly attended events that cater to overlapping fandoms.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Fans of the literary detective Sherlock Holmes are widely considered to have comprised the first modern fandom, holding public demonstrations of mourning after Holmes was \"killed off\" in 1893, and creating some of the first fan fiction as early as about 1897 to 1902. Outside the scope of media, railway enthusiasts are another early fandom with its roots in the late 19th century that began to gain in popularity and increasingly organize in the first decades of the early 20th century.",
"title": "Organized subculture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "A wide variety of modern organized Western fan subcultures originated with science fiction fandom, the community of fans of the science fiction and fantasy genres. Science fiction fandom dates back to the 1930s and maintains organized clubs and associations in many cities around the world. Fans have held the annual World Science Fiction Convention since 1939, along with many other events each year, and has created its own jargon, sometimes called \"fanspeak\". In addition, the Society for Creative Anachronism, a medievalist re-creation group, has its roots in science fiction fandom and was founded by members thereof. Many science fiction and fantasy authors such as Marion Zimmer Bradley, Poul Anderson, Randall Garrett, David D. Friedman, and Robert Asprin have been members of the organization.",
"title": "Organized subculture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Media fandom split from science fiction fandom in the early 1970s with a focus on relationships between characters within TV and movie media franchises, such as Star Trek and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Fans of these franchises generated creative products like fan art and fan fiction at a time when typical science fiction fandom was focused on critical discussions. The MediaWest convention provided a video room and was instrumental in the emergence of fan vids, or analytic music videos based on a source, in the late 1970s. By the mid-1970s, it was possible to meet fans at science fiction conventions who did not read science fiction, but only viewed it on film or TV.",
"title": "Organized subculture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Anime and manga fandom began in the 1970s in Japan. In America, the fandom also began as an offshoot of science fiction fandom, with fans bringing imported copies of Japanese manga to conventions. Before anime began to be licensed in the U.S., fans who wanted to get a hold of anime would leak copies of anime movies and subtitle them to exchange with friends in the community, thus marking the start of fansubs. While the science fiction and anime fandoms grew in media, the Grateful Dead subculture that emerged in the late 1960s to the early 1970s created a global fandom around hippie culture that would have lasting impacts on society and technology.",
"title": "Organized subculture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The furry fandom refers to the fandom for fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. The concept of the furry originated at a science fiction convention in 1980, when a drawing of a character from Steve Gallacci's Albedo Anthropomorphics initiated a discussion of anthropomorphic characters in science fiction novels, which in turn initiated a discussion group that met at science fiction and comics conventions.",
"title": "Organized subculture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Additional subjects with significant fandoms include comics, animated cartoons, video games, sports, music, films, television shows, pulp magazines, soap operas, celebrities, and game shows.",
"title": "Organized subculture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Members of a fandom associate with one another, often attending fan conventions and publishing and exchanging fanzines and newsletters. Amateur press associations are another form of fan publication and networking. Originally using print-based media, these subcultures have migrated much of their communications and interaction onto the Internet, which is also used for the purpose of archiving detailed information pertinent to their given fanbase. Often, fans congregate on forums and discussion boards to share their love for and criticism of a specific work. This congregation can lead to a high level of organization and community within the fandom, as well as infighting. Although there is some level of hierarchy among most of the discussion boards, and certain contributors may be valued more highly than others, newcomers are most often welcomed into the fold. Most importantly, these sorts of discussion boards can have an effect on the media itself, as was the case in the television show Glee. Trends on discussion boards have been known to influence the writers and producers of shows. The media fandom for the TV series Firefly was able to generate enough corporate interest to create a movie after the series was canceled.",
"title": "Fan activities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Some fans write fan fiction (\"fanfic\"), stories based on the universe and characters of their chosen fandom. This fiction can take the form of video-making as well as writing. Fan fiction may or may not tie in with the story's canon; sometimes fans use the story's characters in different situations that do not relate to the plot line at all.",
"title": "Fan activities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Especially at events, fans may also partake in cosplay, the creation and wearing of costumes designed in the likeness of characters from a source work, which can also be combined with role-playing, reenacting scenes, or inventing likely behavior inspired by their chosen sources.",
"title": "Fan activities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Others create fan vids, or analytical music videos focusing on the source fandom, and yet others create fan art. Such activities are sometimes known as \"fan labor\" or \"fanac\" (an abbreviation for \"fan activity\"). The advent of the Internet has significantly facilitated fan association and activities. Activities that have been aided by the Internet include the creation of fan \"shrines\" dedicated to favorite characters, computer screen wallpapers, and avatars. The rise of the Internet has furthermore resulted in the creation of online fan networks who help facilitate the exchange of fanworks.",
"title": "Fan activities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Some fans create pictures known as edits, which consist of pictures or photos with their chosen fandom characters in different scenarios. These edits are often shared on social media networks such as Instagram, Tumblr, or Pinterest. In edits, one may see content relating to several different fandoms. Fans in communities online often make gifs or gif sets about their fandoms. Gifs or gif sets can be used to create non-canon scenarios mixing actual content or adding in related content. Gif sets can also capture minute expressions or moments. Fans use gifs to show how they feel about characters or events in their fandom; these are called reaction gifs.",
"title": "Fan activities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The Temple of the Jedi Order, or Jediism, a self-proclaimed \"real living, breathing religion,\" views itself as separate from the Jedi as portrayed in the Star Wars franchise. Despite this, sociologists view the conflation of religion and fandom in Jediism as legitimate in some sense, classifying both as participatory phenomena.",
"title": "Fan activities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "There are also active fan organizations that participate in philanthropy and create a positive social impact. For example, the Harry Potter Alliance is a civic organization with a strong online component which runs campaigns around human rights issues, often in partnership with other advocacy and nonprofit groups; its membership skews college age and above. Nerdfighters, another fandom formed around Vlogbrothers, a YouTube vlog channel, are mainly high school students united by a common goal of \"decreasing world suck\". K-pop fans have been involved in various online fan activism campaigns related to Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the Black Lives Matter movement.",
"title": "Fan activities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Notable feature-length documentaries about fandom include Trekkies and A Brony Tale. Slash is a movie released in 2016 about a young boy who writes slash fanfiction. The SiriusXM-produced audio documentary Comic-Con Begins was launched as a six-part series starting June 22, 2021. It presents the history of both the San Diego Comic-Con and the modern fandom scene it helped to spawn, as told by nearly 50 surviving foundational SDCC members, fandom experts, and special guests such as: Kevin Smith, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Felicia Day, Trina Robbins, Maggie Thompson, the Russo brothers, and Bruce Campbell. Cosplay pioneer, scream queen, and foundational SDCC member Brinke Stevens hosts the series. Comic-Con Begins was expanded into the book See You at San Diego: An Oral History of Comic-Con, Fandom, and the Triumph of Geek Culture by creator Mathew Klickstein and published by Fantagraphics on September 6, 2022. The book includes forewords by cartoonists Stan Sakai and Jeff Smith, and an afterword by Wu-Tang Clan's RZA.",
"title": "In film"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Fangirl is a novel written by Rainbow Rowell about a college student who is a fan of a book series called Simon Snow, which is written by a fictional author named Gemma T. Leslie. On October 6, 2015 Rainbow Rowell published a follow-up novel to Fangirl. Carry On is stand-alone novel set in the fictional world that Cath, the main character of Fangirl writes fanfiction in.",
"title": "In books"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The film and television entertainment industry refers to the totality of fans devoted to a particular area of interest, organized or not, as the \"fanbase\".",
"title": "Relationship with the media industry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Media fans, have, on occasion, organized on behalf of canceled television series, with notable success in cases such as Star Trek in 1968, Cagney & Lacey in 1983, Xena: Warrior Princess, in 1995, Roswell in 2000 and 2001 (was canceled with finality at the end of the 2002 season), Farscape in 2002, Firefly in 2002, and Jericho in 2007. (In the case of Firefly the result was the movie Serenity, not another season.) It was likewise the fans who facilitated the push to create a Veronica Mars film through a Kickstarter campaign. Fans of the show Chuck launched a campaign to save the show from being canceled using a Twitter hashtag and buying products from sponsors of the show. Fans of Arrested Development fought for the character Steve Holt to be included in the fourth season. The Save Steve Holt! campaign included a Twitter and Facebook account, a hashtag, and a website.",
"title": "Relationship with the media industry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Such outcries, even when unsuccessful, suggest a growing self-awareness on the part of entertainment consumers, who appear increasingly likely to attempt to assert their power as a bloc. Fan activism in support of the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike through Fans4Writers appears to be an extension of this trend.",
"title": "Relationship with the media industry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In science fiction, a large number of practitioners and other professionals in the field, not only writers but editors and publishers as well, traditionally have themselves come from and participate in science fiction fandom, from Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison to Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Toni Weisskopf. Ed Brubaker was a fan of the Captain America comics as a kid and was so upset that Bucky Barnes was killed off that he worked on ways to bring him back. The Winter Soldier arc began in 2004, and in the sixth issue in 2005 it was revealed that the Winter Soldier was Bucky Barnes. Many authors write fan fiction under pseudonyms. Lev Grossman has written stories in the Harry Potter, Adventure Time, and How to Train Your Dragon universes. S.E. Hinton has written about both Supernatural and her own books, The Outsiders. Movie actors often cosplay as other characters to enjoy being a regular fan at cons; for example, Daniel Radcliffe cosplayed as Spider-Man at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con. Before the release of The Amazing Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield dressed up as Spider-Man and gave an emotional speech about what Spider-Man meant to him and thanking fans for their support.",
"title": "Relationship with the media industry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The relationship between fans and professionals has changed because of access to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. These give fans greater access to public figures such as creators, authors, and actors. Online platforms also give fans more ways to connect and participate in fandoms.",
"title": "Relationship with the media industry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Some fans have made their work in fandom into careers. The book Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James was originally a fan fiction of the Twilight series published on FanFiction.Net. The story was taken down for mature content that violated the site's terms of service. James rewrote the story to take out any references to Twilight and self-published on The Writer's Coffee Shop in May 2011. The book was published by Random House in 2012 and was very popular, selling over 100 million copies. However, many fans were not happy about James using fan fiction to make money and felt it was not in the spirit of the community.",
"title": "Relationship with the media industry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "There is contention over fans not being paid for their time or work. Gaming companies use fans to alpha and beta test their games in exchange for early access or promotional merchandise. The TV show Glee used fans to create promotional materials, though they did not compensate them.",
"title": "Relationship with the media industry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The entertainment industry has promoted its work directly to members of the fandom community by sponsoring and presenting at events and conventions dedicated to fandom. Studios frequently create elaborate exhibits, organize panels that feature celebrities and writers of film and television (to promote both existing work and works yet to be released), and engage fans directly with providing Q&A sessions, screening sneak previews, and supplying branded giveaway merchandise. The interest, reception, and reaction of the fandom community to the works being promoted have a marked influence on how film studios and others proceed with the projects and products they exhibit and promote.",
"title": "Relationship with the media industry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Fandoms, for example at Comic Con, can lead to toxic behavior, including harassing other fans or media creators.",
"title": "Relationship with the media industry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The rise of the Internet created new and powerful outlets for fandom. This began with early engineers trading Grateful Dead set lists and discussing the setup of the band's concert speaker system, called the \"Wall of Sound,\" on ARPANET, a precursor to the Internet. This led to tape trading over FTP, and the Internet Archive began to add Grateful Dead shows in 1995. Online tape trading communities such as etree evolved into P2P networks trading shows through torrents. After the birth of the World Wide Web, many communities adopted the practices of Deadhead fandom online.",
"title": "Fandom and technology"
}
] |
A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significant portion of their time and energy involved with their interest, often as a part of a social network with particular practices, differentiating fandom-affiliated people from those with only a casual interest. A fandom can grow around any area of human interest or activity. The subject of fan interest can be narrowly defined, focused on something like an individual celebrity, or encompassing entire hobbies, genres or fashions. While it is now used to apply to groups of people fascinated with any subject, the term has its roots in those with an enthusiastic appreciation for sports. Merriam-Webster's dictionary traces the usage of the term back as far as 1903. Many fandoms overlap. There are a number of large conventions that cater to fandom such as film, comics, anime, television shows, cosplay, and the opportunity to buy and sell related merchandise. Annual conventions such as Comic Con International, Wondercon, Dragon Con, and New York Comic Con are some of the more well-known and highly attended events that cater to overlapping fandoms.
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2001-11-14T22:16:30Z
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2023-11-24T14:53:04Z
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] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandom
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Fort Collins, Colorado
|
Fort Collins is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Larimer County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 169,810 at the 2020 census, an increase of 17.94% since 2010. Fort Collins is the principal city of the Fort Collins, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and is a major city of the Front Range Urban Corridor. The city is the fourth most populous city in Colorado. Situated on the Cache La Poudre River along the Colorado Front Range, Fort Collins is located 56 mi (90 km) north of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. Fort Collins is a midsize college town, home to Colorado State University and Front Range Community College's Larimer college.
The Northern Arapaho were centered in the Cache la Poudre River Valley near present-day Fort Collins. Friday, who attended school in St. Louis, Missouri in his youth, was a leader of the band of Arapahos as well as an interpreter, negotiator, and peacemaker. He made friends of white settlers who moved into the area, but was pushed out of Colorado in the 1860s.
Fort Collins was founded as a military outpost of the United States Army in 1864. It succeeded a previous encampment, known as Camp Collins, on the Cache la Poudre River, near what is known today as Laporte. Camp Collins was erected during the Indian wars of the mid-1860s to protect the Overland mail route that had been recently relocated through the region. Travelers crossing the county on the Overland Trail would camp there, but a flood destroyed the camp in June 1864. Afterward, the commander of the fort wrote to the commandant of Fort Laramie in southeast Wyoming, Colonel William O. Collins, suggesting that a site several miles farther down the river would make a good location for the fort. The post was manned originally by two companies of the 11th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry and never had walls.
Settlers began arriving in the vicinity of the fort nearly immediately. The fort was decommissioned in 1867. The original fort site is now adjacent to the present historic "Old Town" portion of the city. The first school and church opened in 1866, and the town was platted in 1867. The civilian population of Fort Collins, led by local businessman Joseph Mason, led an effort to relocate the county seat to Fort Collins from LaPorte, and they were successful in 1868.
The city's first population boom came in 1872, with the establishment of an agricultural colony. Hundreds of settlers arrived, developing lots just south of the original Old Town. Tension between new settlers and earlier inhabitants led to political divisions in the new town, which was incorporated in 1873. Although the Colorado Agricultural College was founded in 1870, the first classes were held in 1879.
The 1880s saw the construction of a number of elegant homes and commercial buildings and the growth of a distinctive identity for Fort Collins. Stone quarrying, sugar-beet farming, and the slaughter of sheep were among the area's earliest industries. Beet tops, an industry supported by the college and its associated agricultural experiment station, proved to be an excellent and abundant food for local sheep, and by the early 1900s the area was being referred to as the "Lamb feeding capital of the world". In 1901 the Great Western sugar processing plant was built in the neighboring city of Loveland.
Although the city was affected by the Great Depression and simultaneous drought, it nevertheless experienced slow and steady growth throughout the early part of the twentieth century. During the decade following World War II, the population doubled and an era of economic prosperity occurred. Old buildings were razed to make way for new, modern structures. Along with revitalization came many changes, including the closing of the Great Western sugar factory in 1955, and a new city charter, adopting a council-manager form of government in 1954. Similarly, Colorado State University's enrollment doubled during the 1960s, making it the city's primary economic force by the end of the century.
Fort Collins gained a reputation as a very conservative city in the twentieth century, with a prohibition of alcoholic beverages, a contentious political issue in the town's early decades, being retained from the late 1890s until student activism helped bring it to an end in 1969. During that same period, civil rights activism and anti-war disturbances heightened tensions in the city, including the burning of several buildings on the CSU campus.
During the late 20th century, Fort Collins expanded rapidly to the south, adding new development, including several regional malls. Management of city growth patterns became a political priority during the 1980s, as well as the revitalization of Fort Collins' Old Town with the creation of a Downtown Development Authority. In late July 1997, the city experienced a flash flood after and during a 31-hour period when 10–14 in (250–360 mm) of rain fell. The rainfall was the heaviest on record for an urban area of Colorado. Five people were killed and $5 million in damages were dealt to the city. The waters flooded Colorado State University's library and brought about $140 million in damages to the institution.
Fort Collins is situated at the base of the Rocky Mountain foothills of the northern Front Range, approximately 60 miles (97 km) north of Denver, Colorado, and 45 miles (72 km) south of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Elevation is 4,982 ft (1,519 m) above sea level. Geographic landmarks include Horsetooth Reservoir and Horsetooth Mountain—so named because of a tooth-shaped granite rock that dominates the city's western skyline. Longs Peak can also clearly be seen on a clear day to the southwest of the city.
The Cache La Poudre River and Spring Creek run through Fort Collins.
At the 2020 United States Census, the town had a total area of 37,423 acres (151.444 km) including 807 acres (3.265 km) of water.
Fort Collins has a cold semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSk). Its climate is characterized by warm to hot summers and long and moderately cold winters (with frequent warm spells due to downslope winds, and somewhat less common intervals of severe cold). The average temperature in December, the coldest month, is 31.1 °F (−0.5 °C). Annual snowfall averages 51.4 inches (1.31 m), and can occur from early September through the end of May. Average precipitation overall is 15.88 inches (403 mm).
Fort Collins is the fourth most populous city in Colorado and the 156th most populous city in the United States. The Census Bureau estimates that the city's population was 161,175 in 2015, the population of the Fort Collins-Loveland Metropolitan Statistical Area was 310,487 (151st most populous MSA), and the population of the Front Range Urban Corridor was 4,495,181.
As of the census of 2000, there were 118,652 people, 45,882 households, and 25,785 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,549.3 inhabitants per square mile (984.3/km). There were 47,755 housing units at an average density of 1,026.0 per square mile (396.1/km). The racial makeup of the city was 82.4% White, 3.01% Black or African American, 0.60% Native American, 2.48% Asian, 0.12% Pacific Islander, 3.61% from other races, and 2.53% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race were 10.79% of the population.
There were 45,882 households, out of which 29.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.9% were married couples living together, 7.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 43.8% were non-families. 26.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 5.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45 and the average family size was 3.01.
In the city, the population was spread out, with 21.5% under the age of 18, 22.1% from 18 to 24, 31.5% from 25 to 44, 17.0% from 45 to 64, and 7.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 28 years. For every 100 females, there were 100.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 99.7 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $64,459, and the median income for a family was $110,332. Males had a median income of $60,856 versus $48,385 for females. The per capita income for the city was $32,133. About 5.5% of families and 14.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.3% of those under age 18 and 5.8% of those age 65 or over.
Fort Collins' economy has a mix of manufacturing and service-related businesses. Fort Collins manufacturing includes Woodward Governor, Anheuser-Busch, Walker Mowers, and Otterbox. Many high-tech companies have relocated to Fort Collins because of the resources of Colorado State University and its research facilities. Hewlett-Packard, Intel, AMD, Broadcom, Beckman Coulter, Microsoft, Rubicon Water and Pelco all have offices in Fort Collins. Other industries include clean energy, bioscience, and agri-tech businesses.
According to the city's 2020 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers are:
Regional economic development partners include the City of Fort Collins Economic Health Office, Northern Colorado Economic Development Corporation, Small Business Development Center, and Rocky Mountain Innovation Initiative (RMI2).
The city's major shopping mall is The Shops at Foothills.
FortZED was a zero energy district encompassing the Downtown area of Fort Collins and the main campus of Colorado State University. The district's public-private partnerships employed smart grid and renewable energy technologies to manage the local use and supply of energy. FortZED relied upon energy demand management techniques to encourage use of energy at the most efficient times.
Federal, state, and local funding made the project a reality. The U.S. Department of Energy contributed $6.3 million and the Colorado Department of Local Affairs provided $778,000. Locally, private companies and foundations committed nearly $8 million.
The program ended in 2017 after a majority of its projects had been completed.
Fort Collins has over 20 breweries. Notable breweries in the city include Anheuser-Busch, New Belgium Brewing Company, and Odell Brewing Company. The local chamber of commerce estimates that in 2010, the industry generated $309.9 million in output, 2,488 jobs and $141.9 million of local payrolls in Larimer County.
Much of Fort Collins's culture is centered around the students of Colorado State University. The city provides school year residences for its large college-age population; there is a local music circuit which is influenced by the college town atmosphere and is home to a number of well known microbreweries. The Downtown Business Association hosts a number of small and large festivals each year in the historic Downtown district, including Bohemian Nights at NewWestFest in late summer (permanently discontinued in 2021) which featured local cuisine, music, and businesses. The Fort Collins Lincoln Center is home to the Fort Collins Symphony Orchestra and regularly attracts national touring companies of Broadway plays.
Brewing and cycling figure in local culture. The Colorado Brewer's Festival is held in late June annually in Fort Collins. The festival features beers from as many as 45 brewers from the state of Colorado and averages around 30,000 attendees. New Belgium Brewing Company hosts the Tour de Fat which draws over 20,000 people riding bikes and dressing in costume.
The Colorado Marathon is a yearly event running down the Poudre Canyon and finishing in downtown Fort Collins. The FORTitude 10K run, a partner running event of the Bolder Boulder, is held on Labor Day each year. The Horsetooth Half Marathon has been a fixture of the local running scene since 1973.
The Fort Collins Museum, established in 1941, is a regional center focusing on the culture and history of Fort Collins and the surrounding area. The Fort Collins Museum houses over 30,000 artifacts and features temporary and permanent exhibits, on-going educational programs and events, and is home to four historic structures located in the outdoor Heritage Courtyard.
The arts are represented by The Center for Fine Art Photography, University Center for the Arts, Fort Collins Museum of Art (FCMOA), and the Bas Bleu Theatre Company. The Arts Incubator of the Rockies (AIR), founded in Fort Collins in 2012, was acquired in 2016 by Berea College in Kentucky, where it became part of the College Crafts Program.
The Gardens on Spring Creek is an 18-acre (7.3 ha) botanical garden. The site includes several themed gardens ranging from a children's garden to a rock garden, to several themed demonstration gardens.
There are also many parks in Fort Collins including community parks and neighborhood parks, totaling 875 acres (354 ha) of developed park areas. Some of these parks have facilities such as public tennis courts, frisbee golf courses, golf courses, dog parks, baseball diamonds, basketball courts and picnic shelters. In total, there are 6 community parks. These include City Park, Edora Park, Fossil Creek Park, Lee Martinez Park, Rolland Moore Park, and Spring Canyon Park. There are also many smaller neighborhood parks. These parks often host events such as marathons, community activities and holiday celebrations. Additionally, Fort Collins is home to a whitewater park alongside the Poudre River.
The city purchased the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, a park and conservation area north of the city. Within the park is the Lindenmeier site, a stratified multi-component archaeological site most famous for its Folsom component.
Fort Collins has a council-manager form of government. The mayor, who serves a two-year term and stands for election in municipal elections held in April of odd-numbered years, presides over a seven-member City Council. The current mayor of Fort Collins is Jeni Arndt, who was elected to a first term in April 2021. The six remaining council members are elected from districts for staggered four-year terms; even-numbered districts in April 2023, and odd-numbered districts are up for election in April 2025.
Fort Collins is the largest city in Colorado's 2nd Congressional district, and is represented in Congress by Representative Joe Neguse (Democrat). On the state level, the city lies in the 14th district of the Colorado Senate, represented by Joann Ginal and is split between the 52nd and 53rd districts of the Colorado House of Representatives, represented by Cathy Kipp and Andrew Boesenecker, respectively. All three of Fort Collins' state legislators are Democrats. Fort Collins is additionally the county seat of Larimer County, and houses county offices and courts.
K–12 public education is provided through Poudre School District (PSD). The district operates and manages the public schools in the city of Fort Collins, as well as in the surrounding towns of Wellington, Timnath, Windsor, Laporte and Livermore. The district is one of the fastest growing in Northern Colorado, adding 400-500 students — about the size of an elementary school — each year. To accommodate growth, the district plans to build three new schools in the next few years.
Poudre School District includes four comprehensive high schools that serve neighborhoods around Fort Collins, including Fort Collins High School, Rocky Mountain High School, Poudre High School, Fossil Ridge High School. The district also operates four alternative high schools: Centennial High School, Polaris School for Expeditionary Learning, Poudre Community Academy and Poudre School District Global Academy, a dual in-person/online school. Additionally, four public charter schools are chartered through PSD, including Ridgeview Classical Schools, and Liberty Common High School, Mountain Sage Community School and Fort Collins Montessori School.
The Poudre School District is also home to ten middle schools (Lesher Middle IB World School, Blevins Middle School, Boltz Middle School, Cache La Poudre Middle School, Kinard Core Knowledge Middle School, Lincoln IB World Middle School, Polaris Expeditionary Learning School, Preston Middle School, Webber Middle School, and Wellington Middle School) and 32 elementary schools.
In addition to PSD schools, several state charter schools serve Fort Collins, including Academy of Arts and Knowledge, Colorado Early Colleges, and Global Village Academy. Private schools include Heritage Christian Academy, Rivendell School, and St. Joseph's Catholic School.
The Poudre River Public Library District operates three branch locations in the city of Fort Collins—Old Town, Harmony, and Council Tree. The Library District was established in 2006 by voter approval, and aims to serve the more than 207,000 people in northern Larimer County, Colorado. The District is governed by a Board of volunteer Trustees, jointly appointed by the city of Fort Collins and Larimer County.
The Library participates in cooperative projects with the local Poudre School District and Colorado State University.
The Old Town Library (formerly, the Main Library) is a 43,000 square foot facility that has served the Fort Collins Community since 1976. It is located in the Fort Collins Old Town Historic District at 201 Peterson Street.
The Harmony Library is a 30,000 square foot joint-use facility located on the Front Range Community College campus, at 4616 South Shield Street in Fort Collins. Since its opening in 1998, the facility has served both the Community College (students, faculty, and staff) and the general public.
The Council Tree Library is a nearly 18,000 square foot facility that opened in 2009 in the Front Range Village (a retail commons) and is located at 2733 Council Tree Avenue in Fort Collins. The facility has a unique neighborhood atmosphere with an emphasis on families with young children.
The Webster House Administration Center opened in 2011 and houses the administration, collections, systems administration, maintenance, communications, and outreach staff. The center's opening freed up 3,000 square feet in the Old Town Library, space that is now used for library materials and services.
The library as an institution in Fort Collins dates back to the late 19th century, where reading rooms were established in churches or other rented locations. In 1882, for example, a reading room was established in the back of a Presbyterian Church on Whitton Block. The Fort Collins Public Library was officially established in 1900, the sixth public library in the state. The city received $12,500 from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to build the library, with the condition that it would be maintained as a free public library. It was completed in 1904 at a total cost of approximately $15,000. When the Library opened, there were 2,770 books on hand. In 1937, the Library was awarded a grant from the Work Projects Administration for an annex to the building that would double its space, allowing for the construction of an auditorium/community room that opened in 1939.
As the Fort Collins community grew, so too did the need for more library space. In 1973, the City Council adopted a seven-year master plan which included a new library building. Voters approved a one percent tax increase to fund the plan. The new library building, named the Fort Collins Public Library (now, the Old Town Library), opened in 1976 and remains to this day in Library Park at 201 Peterson Street in Fort Collins.
In 2006, with ongoing city budget cuts impacting library services, residents voted to create and fund a library district with a 62% majority. This initiated a transition period in 2007 of separating the library from the city, for example, transferring finances, staff, and property to the Library District. The library was also given a temporary name, the Fort Collins Regional Library District. An intergovernmental agreement was finally signed in December 2007, that detailed each party's responsibilities during the transfer. In 2009, after asking for ideas from the public, the Poudre River Public Library District was approved as the library's permanent name.
Colorado State University heads up the choices in higher education. Front Range Community College also maintains a campus in the city, and grants associate's degrees in arts, science, general studies, and applied science. The college offers 17 high school vocational programs and more than 90 continuing education classes.
The Institute of Business & Medical Careers provides professional training in the business and medical professions. The institute's first campus was established in the city in 1987.
Fort Collins has a range of research institutes. Facilities are maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, the Center for Advanced Technology and the Colorado Water Resource Research Institute. Other facilities include the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, the Institute for Scientific Computing, the U.S. Forest Service Experimental Station, the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP), and the U.S.D.A. Crops Research Laboratory.
From nearby Northern Colorado Regional Airport, Avelo Airlines served both Burbank (BUR) and Las Vegas (LAS) from October 2021 until June 24, 2022, and June 16, 2022, respectively. Elite Airways resumed commercial air service at the airport on August 27, 2015, providing non-stop flights to the Chicago Rockford International Airport in Illinois. The airline ended service to the airport in 2017. Denver International Airport, which is 70 miles (110 km) to the south, is served by twenty-three airlines.
The city's former general aviation airport, known as Fort Collins Downtown Airport (3V5), opened in 1966 and closed in 2006.
Fort Collins' downtown streets form a grid with Interstate 25 running north and south on the east side of the city. Many of the streets are named after the town's founders. U.S. Highway 287 becomes College Avenue inside the city and is the busiest street; It runs north and south, effectively bisecting the city, and serving as the east–west meridian, while Mountain Avenue is the north–south. SH 14 runs concurrent with US 287 at the northern city limit to Jefferson Street, running southeast along Jefferson (later turning into Riverside Avenue), then turning east onto Mulberry Street where it goes east out of the city after an interchange with Interstate 25.
Fort Collins also once had a municipally owned trolley service with three branches from the intersection of Mountain and College avenues. The trolley was begun in 1907 by the Denver and Interurban Railroad, which had the intention of connecting the Front Range of Colorado. It was closed in 1951 after ceasing to be profitable. In 1983–84, a portion of the Mountain Avenue line and one of the original trolley cars, Car 21, were restored as a heritage trolley service, under the same name used by the original system, the Fort Collins Municipal Railway. This has been in operation since the end of 1984 on weekends and holidays in the spring and summer, as a tourist and cultural/educational attraction. A second car, number 25, was returned to service on July 4, 2020. A small fee applies to ride.
The city bus system, known as Transfort, operates more than a dozen routes throughout Fort Collins Monday through Saturday, except major holidays.
The MAX Bus Rapid Transit is a bus rapid transit that provides service on the Mason Corridor Transitway parallel to College Avenue from Downtown Fort Collins to a transit center just south of Harmony Road. The trip takes approximately 15 minutes from end to end with various stops between. The service began in May 2014. The Mason Corridor and the Mason Express are intended to be the center of future transit-oriented development.
Fort Collins is connected to Loveland, Berthoud, Longmont, and Boulder via the FLEX regional bus route. Greeley-Evans Transit operates a service called the Poudre Express connecting Fort Collins with Windsor and Greeley.
Bustang provides additional intercity transportation for the city. Fort Collins is the northernmost stop on the North Line, which connects southward to Denver. Planning for restoration of regional passenger rail recommenced in earnest in 2017. Fort Collins would be an intermediate stop for the proposed north–south Front Range Passenger Rail corridor between Pueblo and Cheyenne, Wyoming, though it would be the northern terminus of most trips.
Taxi service is provided by Northern Colorado Yellow Cab. Pedicabs are also available from HopON LLC and Dream team Pedicabs.
Freight service is provided by Union Pacific and BNSF.
Currently there is no intercity passenger service; the last remaining services connecting the Front Range cities ceased with the formation of Amtrak in 1971. Front Range Passenger Rail is a current proposal to link the cities from Pueblo in the south, north to Fort Collins and possibly to Cheyenne, Wyoming.
The Fort Collins Municipal Railway was a streetcar system from 1919 to 1951, and from 1984 has been partially reinstated as a seasonal Heritage Streetcar service, under the same name.
Bicycling is a popular and viable means of transportation in Fort Collins. There are more than 280 miles (450 km) of designated bikeways in Fort Collins, including on-street designated bike lanes, and the Spring Creek and Poudre River Trails, both paved. There is also a dirt trail, the 5.8-mile (9.3 km) Foothills Trail, parallel to Horsetooth Reservoir from Dixon Reservoir north to Campeau Open Space and Michaud Lane.
The Fort Collins Bicycle Library lends bicycles to visitors, students, and residents looking to explore the city of Fort Collins. There are self-guided tours from the "Bike the Sites" collection, including a Brewery Tour, Environmental Learning Tour, and the Historic Tour. The Bike Library is centrally located in the heart of downtown Fort Collins in Old Town Square. The City of Fort Collins also encourages use of alternative transportation, like cycling and using public transit, through FC Moves.
In 2009, the Fort Collins-Loveland metropolitan statistical area (MSA) ranked as the third highest in the United States for percentage of commuters who biked to work (5.6 percent).
In 2013, the League of American Bicyclists designated Fort Collins a Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community – one of four in the United States. In 2018, the PeopleForBikes foundation named Fort Collins the no. 1 city in the United States for cycling.
In early 2019, the City of Fort Collins and Colorado State University (CSU) were preparing regulations for the eventual arrival of electric scooters, in order to avoid the problems other cities have had with these. After a City Council session on Feb. 19, the City Government approved scooter regulations, such as specific areas in which scooters must be parked and the observation of dismount zones. in October 2019, The City of Fort Collins and CSU announced a 12-month e-scooter share pilot program partnering with Bird company.
Parcel service for Fort Collins is provided by FedEx, Airport Express, DHL, Burlington Air Express, UPS, and Purolator. Fort Collins has two-day rail freight access to the West Coast or the East Coast and has eight motor freight carriers. Many local industrial sites have rail freight spur service. The city is served by Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads.
The Fort Collins Police Services is headed by Chief Jeffrey Swoboda. As of 2018 it had 214 sworn individuals and 115 civilian personnel.
Fort Collins is known along with Marceline, Missouri as one of the towns that inspired the design of Main Street, U.S.A. inside the main entrance of many theme parks run by The Walt Disney Company around the world.
Fort Collins was the setting of the infamous balloon boy hoax of October 15, 2009.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fort Collins is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Larimer County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 169,810 at the 2020 census, an increase of 17.94% since 2010. Fort Collins is the principal city of the Fort Collins, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and is a major city of the Front Range Urban Corridor. The city is the fourth most populous city in Colorado. Situated on the Cache La Poudre River along the Colorado Front Range, Fort Collins is located 56 mi (90 km) north of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. Fort Collins is a midsize college town, home to Colorado State University and Front Range Community College's Larimer college.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Northern Arapaho were centered in the Cache la Poudre River Valley near present-day Fort Collins. Friday, who attended school in St. Louis, Missouri in his youth, was a leader of the band of Arapahos as well as an interpreter, negotiator, and peacemaker. He made friends of white settlers who moved into the area, but was pushed out of Colorado in the 1860s.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Fort Collins was founded as a military outpost of the United States Army in 1864. It succeeded a previous encampment, known as Camp Collins, on the Cache la Poudre River, near what is known today as Laporte. Camp Collins was erected during the Indian wars of the mid-1860s to protect the Overland mail route that had been recently relocated through the region. Travelers crossing the county on the Overland Trail would camp there, but a flood destroyed the camp in June 1864. Afterward, the commander of the fort wrote to the commandant of Fort Laramie in southeast Wyoming, Colonel William O. Collins, suggesting that a site several miles farther down the river would make a good location for the fort. The post was manned originally by two companies of the 11th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry and never had walls.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Settlers began arriving in the vicinity of the fort nearly immediately. The fort was decommissioned in 1867. The original fort site is now adjacent to the present historic \"Old Town\" portion of the city. The first school and church opened in 1866, and the town was platted in 1867. The civilian population of Fort Collins, led by local businessman Joseph Mason, led an effort to relocate the county seat to Fort Collins from LaPorte, and they were successful in 1868.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The city's first population boom came in 1872, with the establishment of an agricultural colony. Hundreds of settlers arrived, developing lots just south of the original Old Town. Tension between new settlers and earlier inhabitants led to political divisions in the new town, which was incorporated in 1873. Although the Colorado Agricultural College was founded in 1870, the first classes were held in 1879.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The 1880s saw the construction of a number of elegant homes and commercial buildings and the growth of a distinctive identity for Fort Collins. Stone quarrying, sugar-beet farming, and the slaughter of sheep were among the area's earliest industries. Beet tops, an industry supported by the college and its associated agricultural experiment station, proved to be an excellent and abundant food for local sheep, and by the early 1900s the area was being referred to as the \"Lamb feeding capital of the world\". In 1901 the Great Western sugar processing plant was built in the neighboring city of Loveland.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Although the city was affected by the Great Depression and simultaneous drought, it nevertheless experienced slow and steady growth throughout the early part of the twentieth century. During the decade following World War II, the population doubled and an era of economic prosperity occurred. Old buildings were razed to make way for new, modern structures. Along with revitalization came many changes, including the closing of the Great Western sugar factory in 1955, and a new city charter, adopting a council-manager form of government in 1954. Similarly, Colorado State University's enrollment doubled during the 1960s, making it the city's primary economic force by the end of the century.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Fort Collins gained a reputation as a very conservative city in the twentieth century, with a prohibition of alcoholic beverages, a contentious political issue in the town's early decades, being retained from the late 1890s until student activism helped bring it to an end in 1969. During that same period, civil rights activism and anti-war disturbances heightened tensions in the city, including the burning of several buildings on the CSU campus.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "During the late 20th century, Fort Collins expanded rapidly to the south, adding new development, including several regional malls. Management of city growth patterns became a political priority during the 1980s, as well as the revitalization of Fort Collins' Old Town with the creation of a Downtown Development Authority. In late July 1997, the city experienced a flash flood after and during a 31-hour period when 10–14 in (250–360 mm) of rain fell. The rainfall was the heaviest on record for an urban area of Colorado. Five people were killed and $5 million in damages were dealt to the city. The waters flooded Colorado State University's library and brought about $140 million in damages to the institution.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Fort Collins is situated at the base of the Rocky Mountain foothills of the northern Front Range, approximately 60 miles (97 km) north of Denver, Colorado, and 45 miles (72 km) south of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Elevation is 4,982 ft (1,519 m) above sea level. Geographic landmarks include Horsetooth Reservoir and Horsetooth Mountain—so named because of a tooth-shaped granite rock that dominates the city's western skyline. Longs Peak can also clearly be seen on a clear day to the southwest of the city.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Cache La Poudre River and Spring Creek run through Fort Collins.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "At the 2020 United States Census, the town had a total area of 37,423 acres (151.444 km) including 807 acres (3.265 km) of water.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Fort Collins has a cold semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSk). Its climate is characterized by warm to hot summers and long and moderately cold winters (with frequent warm spells due to downslope winds, and somewhat less common intervals of severe cold). The average temperature in December, the coldest month, is 31.1 °F (−0.5 °C). Annual snowfall averages 51.4 inches (1.31 m), and can occur from early September through the end of May. Average precipitation overall is 15.88 inches (403 mm).",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Fort Collins is the fourth most populous city in Colorado and the 156th most populous city in the United States. The Census Bureau estimates that the city's population was 161,175 in 2015, the population of the Fort Collins-Loveland Metropolitan Statistical Area was 310,487 (151st most populous MSA), and the population of the Front Range Urban Corridor was 4,495,181.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "As of the census of 2000, there were 118,652 people, 45,882 households, and 25,785 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,549.3 inhabitants per square mile (984.3/km). There were 47,755 housing units at an average density of 1,026.0 per square mile (396.1/km). The racial makeup of the city was 82.4% White, 3.01% Black or African American, 0.60% Native American, 2.48% Asian, 0.12% Pacific Islander, 3.61% from other races, and 2.53% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race were 10.79% of the population.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "There were 45,882 households, out of which 29.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.9% were married couples living together, 7.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 43.8% were non-families. 26.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 5.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45 and the average family size was 3.01.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In the city, the population was spread out, with 21.5% under the age of 18, 22.1% from 18 to 24, 31.5% from 25 to 44, 17.0% from 45 to 64, and 7.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 28 years. For every 100 females, there were 100.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 99.7 males.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The median income for a household in the city was $64,459, and the median income for a family was $110,332. Males had a median income of $60,856 versus $48,385 for females. The per capita income for the city was $32,133. About 5.5% of families and 14.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.3% of those under age 18 and 5.8% of those age 65 or over.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Fort Collins' economy has a mix of manufacturing and service-related businesses. Fort Collins manufacturing includes Woodward Governor, Anheuser-Busch, Walker Mowers, and Otterbox. Many high-tech companies have relocated to Fort Collins because of the resources of Colorado State University and its research facilities. Hewlett-Packard, Intel, AMD, Broadcom, Beckman Coulter, Microsoft, Rubicon Water and Pelco all have offices in Fort Collins. Other industries include clean energy, bioscience, and agri-tech businesses.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "According to the city's 2020 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers are:",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Regional economic development partners include the City of Fort Collins Economic Health Office, Northern Colorado Economic Development Corporation, Small Business Development Center, and Rocky Mountain Innovation Initiative (RMI2).",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The city's major shopping mall is The Shops at Foothills.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "FortZED was a zero energy district encompassing the Downtown area of Fort Collins and the main campus of Colorado State University. The district's public-private partnerships employed smart grid and renewable energy technologies to manage the local use and supply of energy. FortZED relied upon energy demand management techniques to encourage use of energy at the most efficient times.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Federal, state, and local funding made the project a reality. The U.S. Department of Energy contributed $6.3 million and the Colorado Department of Local Affairs provided $778,000. Locally, private companies and foundations committed nearly $8 million.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The program ended in 2017 after a majority of its projects had been completed.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Fort Collins has over 20 breweries. Notable breweries in the city include Anheuser-Busch, New Belgium Brewing Company, and Odell Brewing Company. The local chamber of commerce estimates that in 2010, the industry generated $309.9 million in output, 2,488 jobs and $141.9 million of local payrolls in Larimer County.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Much of Fort Collins's culture is centered around the students of Colorado State University. The city provides school year residences for its large college-age population; there is a local music circuit which is influenced by the college town atmosphere and is home to a number of well known microbreweries. The Downtown Business Association hosts a number of small and large festivals each year in the historic Downtown district, including Bohemian Nights at NewWestFest in late summer (permanently discontinued in 2021) which featured local cuisine, music, and businesses. The Fort Collins Lincoln Center is home to the Fort Collins Symphony Orchestra and regularly attracts national touring companies of Broadway plays.",
"title": "Arts and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Brewing and cycling figure in local culture. The Colorado Brewer's Festival is held in late June annually in Fort Collins. The festival features beers from as many as 45 brewers from the state of Colorado and averages around 30,000 attendees. New Belgium Brewing Company hosts the Tour de Fat which draws over 20,000 people riding bikes and dressing in costume.",
"title": "Arts and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The Colorado Marathon is a yearly event running down the Poudre Canyon and finishing in downtown Fort Collins. The FORTitude 10K run, a partner running event of the Bolder Boulder, is held on Labor Day each year. The Horsetooth Half Marathon has been a fixture of the local running scene since 1973.",
"title": "Arts and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The Fort Collins Museum, established in 1941, is a regional center focusing on the culture and history of Fort Collins and the surrounding area. The Fort Collins Museum houses over 30,000 artifacts and features temporary and permanent exhibits, on-going educational programs and events, and is home to four historic structures located in the outdoor Heritage Courtyard.",
"title": "Arts and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The arts are represented by The Center for Fine Art Photography, University Center for the Arts, Fort Collins Museum of Art (FCMOA), and the Bas Bleu Theatre Company. The Arts Incubator of the Rockies (AIR), founded in Fort Collins in 2012, was acquired in 2016 by Berea College in Kentucky, where it became part of the College Crafts Program.",
"title": "Arts and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The Gardens on Spring Creek is an 18-acre (7.3 ha) botanical garden. The site includes several themed gardens ranging from a children's garden to a rock garden, to several themed demonstration gardens.",
"title": "Parks and recreation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "There are also many parks in Fort Collins including community parks and neighborhood parks, totaling 875 acres (354 ha) of developed park areas. Some of these parks have facilities such as public tennis courts, frisbee golf courses, golf courses, dog parks, baseball diamonds, basketball courts and picnic shelters. In total, there are 6 community parks. These include City Park, Edora Park, Fossil Creek Park, Lee Martinez Park, Rolland Moore Park, and Spring Canyon Park. There are also many smaller neighborhood parks. These parks often host events such as marathons, community activities and holiday celebrations. Additionally, Fort Collins is home to a whitewater park alongside the Poudre River.",
"title": "Parks and recreation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The city purchased the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, a park and conservation area north of the city. Within the park is the Lindenmeier site, a stratified multi-component archaeological site most famous for its Folsom component.",
"title": "Parks and recreation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Fort Collins has a council-manager form of government. The mayor, who serves a two-year term and stands for election in municipal elections held in April of odd-numbered years, presides over a seven-member City Council. The current mayor of Fort Collins is Jeni Arndt, who was elected to a first term in April 2021. The six remaining council members are elected from districts for staggered four-year terms; even-numbered districts in April 2023, and odd-numbered districts are up for election in April 2025.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Fort Collins is the largest city in Colorado's 2nd Congressional district, and is represented in Congress by Representative Joe Neguse (Democrat). On the state level, the city lies in the 14th district of the Colorado Senate, represented by Joann Ginal and is split between the 52nd and 53rd districts of the Colorado House of Representatives, represented by Cathy Kipp and Andrew Boesenecker, respectively. All three of Fort Collins' state legislators are Democrats. Fort Collins is additionally the county seat of Larimer County, and houses county offices and courts.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "K–12 public education is provided through Poudre School District (PSD). The district operates and manages the public schools in the city of Fort Collins, as well as in the surrounding towns of Wellington, Timnath, Windsor, Laporte and Livermore. The district is one of the fastest growing in Northern Colorado, adding 400-500 students — about the size of an elementary school — each year. To accommodate growth, the district plans to build three new schools in the next few years.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Poudre School District includes four comprehensive high schools that serve neighborhoods around Fort Collins, including Fort Collins High School, Rocky Mountain High School, Poudre High School, Fossil Ridge High School. The district also operates four alternative high schools: Centennial High School, Polaris School for Expeditionary Learning, Poudre Community Academy and Poudre School District Global Academy, a dual in-person/online school. Additionally, four public charter schools are chartered through PSD, including Ridgeview Classical Schools, and Liberty Common High School, Mountain Sage Community School and Fort Collins Montessori School.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The Poudre School District is also home to ten middle schools (Lesher Middle IB World School, Blevins Middle School, Boltz Middle School, Cache La Poudre Middle School, Kinard Core Knowledge Middle School, Lincoln IB World Middle School, Polaris Expeditionary Learning School, Preston Middle School, Webber Middle School, and Wellington Middle School) and 32 elementary schools.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In addition to PSD schools, several state charter schools serve Fort Collins, including Academy of Arts and Knowledge, Colorado Early Colleges, and Global Village Academy. Private schools include Heritage Christian Academy, Rivendell School, and St. Joseph's Catholic School.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The Poudre River Public Library District operates three branch locations in the city of Fort Collins—Old Town, Harmony, and Council Tree. The Library District was established in 2006 by voter approval, and aims to serve the more than 207,000 people in northern Larimer County, Colorado. The District is governed by a Board of volunteer Trustees, jointly appointed by the city of Fort Collins and Larimer County.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The Library participates in cooperative projects with the local Poudre School District and Colorado State University.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The Old Town Library (formerly, the Main Library) is a 43,000 square foot facility that has served the Fort Collins Community since 1976. It is located in the Fort Collins Old Town Historic District at 201 Peterson Street.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The Harmony Library is a 30,000 square foot joint-use facility located on the Front Range Community College campus, at 4616 South Shield Street in Fort Collins. Since its opening in 1998, the facility has served both the Community College (students, faculty, and staff) and the general public.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The Council Tree Library is a nearly 18,000 square foot facility that opened in 2009 in the Front Range Village (a retail commons) and is located at 2733 Council Tree Avenue in Fort Collins. The facility has a unique neighborhood atmosphere with an emphasis on families with young children.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The Webster House Administration Center opened in 2011 and houses the administration, collections, systems administration, maintenance, communications, and outreach staff. The center's opening freed up 3,000 square feet in the Old Town Library, space that is now used for library materials and services.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The library as an institution in Fort Collins dates back to the late 19th century, where reading rooms were established in churches or other rented locations. In 1882, for example, a reading room was established in the back of a Presbyterian Church on Whitton Block. The Fort Collins Public Library was officially established in 1900, the sixth public library in the state. The city received $12,500 from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to build the library, with the condition that it would be maintained as a free public library. It was completed in 1904 at a total cost of approximately $15,000. When the Library opened, there were 2,770 books on hand. In 1937, the Library was awarded a grant from the Work Projects Administration for an annex to the building that would double its space, allowing for the construction of an auditorium/community room that opened in 1939.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "As the Fort Collins community grew, so too did the need for more library space. In 1973, the City Council adopted a seven-year master plan which included a new library building. Voters approved a one percent tax increase to fund the plan. The new library building, named the Fort Collins Public Library (now, the Old Town Library), opened in 1976 and remains to this day in Library Park at 201 Peterson Street in Fort Collins.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In 2006, with ongoing city budget cuts impacting library services, residents voted to create and fund a library district with a 62% majority. This initiated a transition period in 2007 of separating the library from the city, for example, transferring finances, staff, and property to the Library District. The library was also given a temporary name, the Fort Collins Regional Library District. An intergovernmental agreement was finally signed in December 2007, that detailed each party's responsibilities during the transfer. In 2009, after asking for ideas from the public, the Poudre River Public Library District was approved as the library's permanent name.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Colorado State University heads up the choices in higher education. Front Range Community College also maintains a campus in the city, and grants associate's degrees in arts, science, general studies, and applied science. The college offers 17 high school vocational programs and more than 90 continuing education classes.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The Institute of Business & Medical Careers provides professional training in the business and medical professions. The institute's first campus was established in the city in 1987.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Fort Collins has a range of research institutes. Facilities are maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, the Center for Advanced Technology and the Colorado Water Resource Research Institute. Other facilities include the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, the Institute for Scientific Computing, the U.S. Forest Service Experimental Station, the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP), and the U.S.D.A. Crops Research Laboratory.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "From nearby Northern Colorado Regional Airport, Avelo Airlines served both Burbank (BUR) and Las Vegas (LAS) from October 2021 until June 24, 2022, and June 16, 2022, respectively. Elite Airways resumed commercial air service at the airport on August 27, 2015, providing non-stop flights to the Chicago Rockford International Airport in Illinois. The airline ended service to the airport in 2017. Denver International Airport, which is 70 miles (110 km) to the south, is served by twenty-three airlines.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The city's former general aviation airport, known as Fort Collins Downtown Airport (3V5), opened in 1966 and closed in 2006.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Fort Collins' downtown streets form a grid with Interstate 25 running north and south on the east side of the city. Many of the streets are named after the town's founders. U.S. Highway 287 becomes College Avenue inside the city and is the busiest street; It runs north and south, effectively bisecting the city, and serving as the east–west meridian, while Mountain Avenue is the north–south. SH 14 runs concurrent with US 287 at the northern city limit to Jefferson Street, running southeast along Jefferson (later turning into Riverside Avenue), then turning east onto Mulberry Street where it goes east out of the city after an interchange with Interstate 25.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Fort Collins also once had a municipally owned trolley service with three branches from the intersection of Mountain and College avenues. The trolley was begun in 1907 by the Denver and Interurban Railroad, which had the intention of connecting the Front Range of Colorado. It was closed in 1951 after ceasing to be profitable. In 1983–84, a portion of the Mountain Avenue line and one of the original trolley cars, Car 21, were restored as a heritage trolley service, under the same name used by the original system, the Fort Collins Municipal Railway. This has been in operation since the end of 1984 on weekends and holidays in the spring and summer, as a tourist and cultural/educational attraction. A second car, number 25, was returned to service on July 4, 2020. A small fee applies to ride.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The city bus system, known as Transfort, operates more than a dozen routes throughout Fort Collins Monday through Saturday, except major holidays.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The MAX Bus Rapid Transit is a bus rapid transit that provides service on the Mason Corridor Transitway parallel to College Avenue from Downtown Fort Collins to a transit center just south of Harmony Road. The trip takes approximately 15 minutes from end to end with various stops between. The service began in May 2014. The Mason Corridor and the Mason Express are intended to be the center of future transit-oriented development.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Fort Collins is connected to Loveland, Berthoud, Longmont, and Boulder via the FLEX regional bus route. Greeley-Evans Transit operates a service called the Poudre Express connecting Fort Collins with Windsor and Greeley.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Bustang provides additional intercity transportation for the city. Fort Collins is the northernmost stop on the North Line, which connects southward to Denver. Planning for restoration of regional passenger rail recommenced in earnest in 2017. Fort Collins would be an intermediate stop for the proposed north–south Front Range Passenger Rail corridor between Pueblo and Cheyenne, Wyoming, though it would be the northern terminus of most trips.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Taxi service is provided by Northern Colorado Yellow Cab. Pedicabs are also available from HopON LLC and Dream team Pedicabs.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Freight service is provided by Union Pacific and BNSF.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Currently there is no intercity passenger service; the last remaining services connecting the Front Range cities ceased with the formation of Amtrak in 1971. Front Range Passenger Rail is a current proposal to link the cities from Pueblo in the south, north to Fort Collins and possibly to Cheyenne, Wyoming.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The Fort Collins Municipal Railway was a streetcar system from 1919 to 1951, and from 1984 has been partially reinstated as a seasonal Heritage Streetcar service, under the same name.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Bicycling is a popular and viable means of transportation in Fort Collins. There are more than 280 miles (450 km) of designated bikeways in Fort Collins, including on-street designated bike lanes, and the Spring Creek and Poudre River Trails, both paved. There is also a dirt trail, the 5.8-mile (9.3 km) Foothills Trail, parallel to Horsetooth Reservoir from Dixon Reservoir north to Campeau Open Space and Michaud Lane.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "The Fort Collins Bicycle Library lends bicycles to visitors, students, and residents looking to explore the city of Fort Collins. There are self-guided tours from the \"Bike the Sites\" collection, including a Brewery Tour, Environmental Learning Tour, and the Historic Tour. The Bike Library is centrally located in the heart of downtown Fort Collins in Old Town Square. The City of Fort Collins also encourages use of alternative transportation, like cycling and using public transit, through FC Moves.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "In 2009, the Fort Collins-Loveland metropolitan statistical area (MSA) ranked as the third highest in the United States for percentage of commuters who biked to work (5.6 percent).",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In 2013, the League of American Bicyclists designated Fort Collins a Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community – one of four in the United States. In 2018, the PeopleForBikes foundation named Fort Collins the no. 1 city in the United States for cycling.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "In early 2019, the City of Fort Collins and Colorado State University (CSU) were preparing regulations for the eventual arrival of electric scooters, in order to avoid the problems other cities have had with these. After a City Council session on Feb. 19, the City Government approved scooter regulations, such as specific areas in which scooters must be parked and the observation of dismount zones. in October 2019, The City of Fort Collins and CSU announced a 12-month e-scooter share pilot program partnering with Bird company.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Parcel service for Fort Collins is provided by FedEx, Airport Express, DHL, Burlington Air Express, UPS, and Purolator. Fort Collins has two-day rail freight access to the West Coast or the East Coast and has eight motor freight carriers. Many local industrial sites have rail freight spur service. The city is served by Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "The Fort Collins Police Services is headed by Chief Jeffrey Swoboda. As of 2018 it had 214 sworn individuals and 115 civilian personnel.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Fort Collins is known along with Marceline, Missouri as one of the towns that inspired the design of Main Street, U.S.A. inside the main entrance of many theme parks run by The Walt Disney Company around the world.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Fort Collins was the setting of the infamous balloon boy hoax of October 15, 2009.",
"title": "In popular culture"
}
] |
Fort Collins is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Larimer County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 169,810 at the 2020 census, an increase of 17.94% since 2010. Fort Collins is the principal city of the Fort Collins, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and is a major city of the Front Range Urban Corridor. The city is the fourth most populous city in Colorado. Situated on the Cache La Poudre River along the Colorado Front Range, Fort Collins is located 56 mi (90 km) north of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. Fort Collins is a midsize college town, home to Colorado State University and Front Range Community College's Larimer college.
|
2001-11-14T19:14:42Z
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2023-12-05T08:04:36Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Collins,_Colorado
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Francis Drake
|
Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540 – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer and privateer best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition between 1577 and 1580. This was the first English circumnavigation, and third circumnavigation overall. Having started as a simple seaman, in 1588 he was part of the fight against the Spanish Armada as a vice-admiral.
At an early age, Drake was placed into the household of a relative, William Hawkins, a prominent sea captain in Plymouth. In 1572, he set sail on his first independent mission, privateering along the Spanish Main. Drake's circumnavigation began on 15 December 1577. He crossed the Pacific Ocean, until then an area of exclusive Spanish interest, and laid claim to New Albion, plundering coastal towns and ships for treasure and supplies as he went. He arrived back in England on 26 September 1580. Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581 which he received aboard his galleon the Golden Hind.
Drake's circumnavigation inaugurated an era of conflict with the Spanish and in 1585, the Anglo-Spanish War began. Drake was in command of an expedition to the Americas that attacked Spanish shipping and ports. When Philip II sent the Spanish Armada to England in 1588 as a precursor to its invasion, Drake was second-in-command of the English fleet that fought against and repulsed the Spanish fleet. A year later he led the English Armada in a failed attempt to destroy the remaining Spanish fleet.
Drake was the Member of Parliament (MP) for three constituencies: Camelford in 1581, Bossiney in 1584, and Plymouth in 1593. Drake's exploits made him a hero to the English, but his privateering led the Spanish to brand him a pirate, known to them as El Draque ("The Dragon" in old Spanish). He died of dysentery after his failed assault on Panama in January 1596.
Francis Drake was born at Crowndale Farm in Tavistock, Devon, England. His birth date is not formally recorded – such writers as E. F. Benson have claimed that he was born while the Six Articles of 1539 were in force, but British naval historian Julian Corbett, writing of William Camden's account, on which this information is based, writes that "As a slip of memory, too, we must put down his difficult assertion that Edmund Drake was driven from Devonshire during a persecution under the Six Articles Act of 1539." His birth date is estimated from the wording of texts in contemporary sources such as: "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, which would place his birth c. 1539, while the other, painted in 1594 when he was said to be 52, would give a birth year of c. 1541.
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 said to have been named after his godfather, Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford.
Due to religious persecution during the Prayer Book Rebellion in 1549, the Drake family fled from Devon to Kent. There Drake's father obtained an appointment to minister to the men in the King's Navy. He was ordained deacon and was made vicar of Upchurch Church on the Medway.
At an early age, Drake was placed into the household of a relative, sea-captain William Hawkins of Plymouth, and began his seagoing training as an apprentice on Hawkins' boats. By 18, he was a purser, according to the English chronicler Edmund Howes, and in the 1550s, Drake's father found the young man a position with the owner and master of a small barque, one of the small traders plying between the Medway River and the Dutch coast. Drake likely engaged in commerce along the coast of England, the Low Countries and France. The ship's master was so satisfied with the young Drake's conduct that, being unmarried and childless at his death, he bequeathed the barque to Drake.
In 1562, The West African slave trade was a duopoly dominated by the Portuguese and the Spanish. Sir John Hawkins devised a plan to break into that trade, and enlisted the aid of colleagues and family to finance his first slave voyage. Drake was not part of that group of financiers, though his presence as one of hundreds of seamen on Hawkins's first two slaving voyages has been assumed. There is some anecdotal evidence to support Drake serving as a common seaman on the first two voyages, and good evidence of his presence for the last two of four slaving voyages made by Hawkins' ships between 1562 and 1569.
In 1562, Hawkins sailed to the coast of the Sierra Leone, seized Portuguese slave ships, and sold the Africans in the Spanish Indies. It was highly profitable, so for his second slave voyage in 1564, Hawkins gained Queen Elizabeth I's support. She lent him one of her ships, Jesus of Lübeck, which served as his flagship. Hawkins attacked an African native town and sold many of its inhabitants in Spanish ports on the Caribbean mainland making another large profit for himself, the Queen and the consortium of investors from her court. Sources vary on the dates and the age of Drake at the time; Harry Kelsey says he was twenty years old, "[a]ccording to Howes" (in reference to the English chronicler Edmund Howes writing in 1615). Drake was not a member of that consortium, but the crew would have received a small share of the profits. Based on this association, scholar Kris Lane lists Drake as one of the first English slave traders.
The Spanish and Portuguese were aggrieved that the English had entered into the slave trade and were selling slaves to their colonies despite being forbidden from doing so. Queen Elizabeth I, under pressure to avoid an armed conflict, forbade Hawkins from going to sea for a third slave voyage. In response, he set up a slave voyage with a relative, John Lovell, in command in 1566. Drake accompanied Lovell on this voyage. The voyage was unsuccessful, as more than 90 enslaved Africans were released without payment.
In 1567, Drake accompanied Hawkins on their next and last joint voyage. The crew attempted to capture slaves around Cape Verde, but failed. Hawkins allied himself with two local kings in Sierra Leone who asked for help against their enemies in exchange for half of any captives they took. Attacking from both sides, several hundred prisoners were taken, though Kelsey says the kings kept "the larger share of slaves and dared Hawkins to do anything about it".
Events worsened for the fleet as it faced storms, Spanish hostility, armed conflict, and finally a hurricane that separated one ship from the rest, and it had to find its own way home. The remaining ships were forced into the port of San Juan de Ulúa near Vera Cruz so they could make repairs. Soon afterward the newly appointed viceroy of New Spain, Martín Enríquez de Almanza, arrived with a fleet of ships. While still negotiating to resupply and repair, Hawkins' ships were attacked by the Spanish ships in what became known as the Battle of San Juan de Ulúa. The battle ended in an English defeat with all but two of the English ships lost. The Spanish launched a fireship against Hawkins' flagship Jesus of Lübeck, and the crew of Minion in panic and fear cut the lines securing them to Jesus. Hawkins was among those who jumped from the flagship's bulwarks to Minion's decks. Drake, by this time the captain of Judith, fled leaving Hawkins behind. Hawkins escaped on Minion and limped back to England with dozens of his men dying along the way, and arriving with a crew of just 15. Hundreds of English seamen were abandoned.
After arriving back in England, Hawkins accused Drake of desertion and of stealing the treasure they had accumulated. Drake denied both accusations asserting he had distributed all profits among the crew and that he had believed Hawkins was lost when he left. The bitter end of the fourth voyage turned Drake's life in a different direction: thereafter he would not pursue trading and slaving but would, instead, dedicate himself to attacking Spanish possessions wherever he found them. Drake's hostility towards the Spanish is said to have started with the battle and its aftermath.
The voyage of 1567–1569 was Drake's last association with slaving. In total, approximately 1,200 Africans were enslaved on these four voyages, and an estimated three times as many Africans were killed (based on the contemporaneous accounts of slavers). On the issue of slaving, scholar John Sugden writes that "Drake was in his twenties and did not question what his elders accepted", but must share some culpability for his participation.
In 1572, Drake embarked on his first major independent enterprise. He planned an attack on the Isthmus of Panama, known to the Spanish as part of Tierra Firme and to the English as part of the Spanish Main. This was the point at which the silver and gold treasure of Peru had to be brought ashore and transported overland to the Caribbean Sea, where galleons from Spain would take it aboard at the town of Nombre de Dios. Drake left Plymouth on 24 May 1572, with a crew of 73 men in two small vessels, Pascha (70 tons) and Swan (25 tons), to capture Nombre de Dios.
Drake's first raid was late in July 1572. Drake captured Nombre de Dios, but he was badly wounded when the Spanish arrived from Panama, and his forces had to retreat without the gold, silver, pearls and jewels stored in the royal treasury. Rather than sacking Nombre de Dios again, Drake raided Spanish galleons along the coast and with his Cimarrón (enslaved Africans who had escaped from their Spanish slave-owners) allies looted the mule trains that transported gold, silver and trade goods from Panama City. One of these men was Diego, who later became a free man after years of service under Drake.
Among Drake's adventures along the Spanish Main, his capture of the Spanish silver train at Nombre de Dios on 1 April 1573 made him rich and famous. Near Cabo de Cativas he encountered a French privateer, Guillaume Le Testu, who was in command of the 80-ton warship Havre, and joined forces with him in a combined fleet. Drake had determined to intercept the mule train at the Campos River, two leagues from Nombre de Dios, and instructed the captains of his pinnaces to meet them at the Francisca River on 3 April to carry them off after the raid. The combined English and French raiding parties marched through the forest towards the trail, to within a mile of the city while the Cimarróns performed reconnaissance. The next morning, 1 April, they surprised the mule convoy and seized more than 200,000 pesos' worth of treasure.
After their attack on the 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, and made off with a fortune in gold. (An account of this may have given rise to subsequent stories of pirates and buried treasure). Badly wounded, Le Testu was captured and beheaded. The small band of adventurers dragged as much gold and silver as they could carry back across some 18 miles (29 km) 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 in a heavy swell with four men twelve miles along the coast to where they had left two pinnaces. When Drake finally reached them, 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 quoit of Spanish gold from his clothes and said, "Our voyage is made." By the second week of August 1573, he had returned to Plymouth.
It was during this expedition that on 11 February Drake and his lieutenant John Oxenham climbed a high tree in the central mountains of the Isthmus of Panama and thus became the first Englishmen to see the Pacific Ocean, mirroring the achievement of the Spaniard Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513. The Cimarróns had cut steps into its trunk, on which Drake and the Cimarrón leader Pedro ascended to a platform at the top of the giant tree, where they were joined by Oxenham. The Englishmen vowed when they saw the Pacific Ocean that one day they would sail its waters – which Drake 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.
Drake was present at the 1575 Rathlin Island massacre in Ireland. Sir John Norris (or Norreys) and Drake, acting on the instructions of Sir Henry Sidney and the Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, laid siege to Rathlin Castle. Despite its surrender, Norris' troops killed all the 200 defenders and several hundred more civilian men, women and children of Clan MacDonnell. Meanwhile, Drake was given the task of preventing any Gaelic Irish or Scottish reinforcements reaching the island. Therefore, the remaining leader of the Gaelic defence against English power, Sorley Boy MacDonnell, was forced to stay on the mainland. Essex wrote in his letter to Queen Elizabeth's secretary that following the attack Sorley Boy "was likely to have run mad for sorrow, tearing and tormenting himself and saying that he there lost all that he ever had."
Following the success of the Panama isthmus raid, Drake's so-called "Famous Voyage" – an expedition against the Spanish along the Pacific coast of the Americas – was organized and financed by a private syndicate that included Francis Walsingham, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, John Hawkins, Christopher Hatton, and Drake himself. Drake acted on the plan authored by Sir Richard Grenville, who in 1574 had received a royal patent for that purpose; just a year later this patent had been rescinded after Elizabeth I learned of Grenville's intentions against the Spanish. Elizabeth likely invested in Drake's voyage to South America in 1577, but never issued him a formal commission. This would be the first circumnavigation in 58 years.
Diego was once again employed under Drake; his fluency in Spanish and English would make him a useful interpreter when Spaniards or Spanish-speaking Portuguese were captured. He was employed as Drake's servant and was paid wages like the rest of the crew. Drake and the fleet 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, Drake set sail again on 13 December aboard Pelican with four other ships and 164 men. He soon added a sixth ship, Mary (formerly Santa María), a Portuguese merchant ship that had been captured off the coast of Africa near the Cape Verde Islands. He also kidnapped 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 Puerto San Julián, 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 Spanish gibbets. Following Magellan's example, Drake tried and executed his own "mutineer" Thomas Doughty. The crew discovered that Mary had rotting timbers, so they put the vessel ashore, stripped it, and abandoned it. Drake decided to remain the winter in San Julián before attempting the Strait of Magellan.
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 account:
And after this holy repast, they dined also at the same table together, as cheerfully, in sobriety, as ever in their lives they had done aforetime, each cheering up the other, and taking their leave, by drinking each to other, as if some journey only had been in hand.
Drake had Thomas Doughty beheaded on 2 July 1578. In January 1580, when Drake became stranded upon a reef off the Celebes Sea, the ship's chaplain, Francis Fletcher, in a sermon suggested that the woes of the voyage were connected to the unjust demise of Doughty, Drake chained the clergyman to a hatch cover and pronounced him excommunicated.
The three remaining ships of his convoy departed for the Magellan Strait at the southern tip of South America. A few weeks later in September 1578 Drake made it to the Pacific, but violent storms destroyed one of the three ships, Marigold (captained by John Thomas) in the strait and caused another, Elizabeth, captained by John Wynter, to return to England, leaving only Pelican. After this passage, Pelican was pushed south and discovered an island that Drake called Elizabeth Island. Drake, like navigators before him, probably reached a latitude of 55°S (according to astronomical data quoted in Richard Hakluyt's The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation of 1589) along the Chilean coast. In the Magellan Strait Francis and his men engaged in skirmishes with local indigenous people, becoming the first Europeans to kill indigenous peoples in southern Patagonia. During their stay in the strait, crew members discovered that an infusion made of the bark of Drimys winteri could be used as remedy against scurvy. Captain Wynter ordered the collection of great amounts of bark – hence the scientific name.
Historian Mateo Martinic, who examined records of Drake's travels, credits him with the discovery of the "southern end of the Americas and the oceanic space south of it". 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.
Drake pushed onwards in his lone flagship, now renamed Golden Hind in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton (after his coat of arms). 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 to inform his navigation. Before reaching the coast of Peru, Drake visited Mocha Island off the coast of what is now Chile, where he and his manservant Diego were seriously injured by hostile Mapuche who shot them with arrows. Later he sacked the port of Valparaíso further north in Chile, where he also captured a ship full of Chilean wine.
Near Lima, Drake captured a Spanish ship 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 Cacafuego. Drake gave chase and eventually captured the treasure ship, which proved his most profitable capture.
Aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, Drake found 36 kilograms (80 lb) of gold, a golden crucifix, jewels, 13 chests of silver reals and 26,000 kilograms (26 long 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.
Drake continued north, raiding more Spanish settlements and ships as he went. His last stop in this phase of the voyage was in the town of Guatulco, where he and his crew stayed from 13–16 April, looting provisions and other materials. From here, Drake began to consider how best to return to England. One possibility was to sail back south, along the Spanish coast, and return to the Atlantic Ocean via the Strait of Magellan (or possibly Cape Horn); this route was ruled out, however, to avoid the dangerous weather near the strait and presumed Spanish resistance all along the coast. This left two possible routes – continue north up the American coast, and return to the Atlantic by the rumored Strait of Anián; or, sail across the Pacific, making for the East Indies, and from there return to England by completing a circumnavigation of the world.
In May, Drake's two ships passed the Baja Peninsula and continued north. Prior to Drake's voyage, the western coast of North America had only been partially explored in 1542 by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo who sailed for Spain. So, intending to avoid further conflict with Spain, Drake navigated north-west of Spanish presence and sought a discreet site at which the crew could prepare for the journey back to England. The northernmost extent of this leg of the expedition has been the subject of much scholarly debate, but most sources agree that Drake reached a latitude of at least 48° north before turning back and heading south.
On 5 June 1579, the ship briefly made first landfall at what is now South Cove, Cape Arago, just south of Coos Bay, Oregon, and then sailed southward. On 17 June, Drake and his crew found a protected cove when they landed on the Pacific coast of what is now Northern California. While ashore, he claimed the area for Queen Elizabeth I as Nova Albion or New Albion. To document and assert his claim, Drake posted an engraved plate of brass to claim sovereignty for Elizabeth and every successive English monarch. After erecting a fort and tents ashore, the crew laboured for several weeks as they prepared for the circumnavigating voyage ahead by careening their ship, Golden Hind, to effectively clean and repair the hull. Drake had friendly interactions with the Coast Miwok and explored the surrounding land by foot. When his ship was ready for the return voyage, Drake and the crew left New Albion on 23 July and paused the journey the next day when anchoring the ship at the Farallon Islands where they hunted sea lions or seals.
Drake left the Pacific coast, heading south-west 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. Harry Kelsey maintains, against scholarly consensus, that because of the contrary prevailing winds and currents, it is much more probable that Drake careened his ship on the shore of Magdalena Bay in Lower California, and sailed to the Moluccas and Spice Islands from there. At this time Diego died from wounds he had sustained earlier in the voyage; Golden Hind later became caught on a reef and was almost lost. Afterwards, the sailors waited three days for convenient tides and had dumped cargo. Befriending Sultan Babullah of Ternate in 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.
On 26 September 1580, 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 his was the second such voyage arriving with at least one ship intact, after Elcano's in 1520.
Queen Elizabeth 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 hidden 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.
To show her gratitude the queen gave him the Drake Jewel, a valuable pendant surrounded by diamonds, rubies and pearls. It was an unusual gift to bestow upon a commoner, and one that Drake wore in a 1591 portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts. On one side of the pendant 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 is a rare documented survivor among sixteenth-century jewels; it is conserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
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.
After receiving his knighthood Drake unilaterally adopted the coat of arms of the ancient Devon family of Drake of Ash, to whom he claimed a distant but unspecified kinship. The right to use the arms was disputed in court so Queen Elizabeth awarded Drake his own coat of arms.
Drake's heraldic achievement and coat of arms contains the motto, Sic Parvis Magna, which means: "Great achievements from small beginnings". A hand coming out of the clouds is labelled Auxilio Divino, which means "By divine aid".
Drake first became a member of parliament for the last session of the 4th Parliament of Elizabeth I, on 16 January 1581, for the constituency of Camelford. He did not actively participate at this point, and on 17 February 1581 he was granted leave of absence "for certain his necessary business in the service of Her Majesty".
Drake became the Mayor of Plymouth in September 1581. During his tenure, he installed a compass in the town's Hoe, and passed a law regulating the local pilchard trade. During his term as lord mayor, Drake contracted to construct a leat, or canal, to bring water from the River Meavy, and to build six new gristmills on it from which he derived a substantial profit.
Drake became a member of parliament again in 1584 for Bossiney, on the forming of the 5th Parliament of Elizabeth I. He served the duration of the parliament and was active in issues regarding the navy, fishing, early American colonisation, and issues related chiefly to Devon. He spent the time covered by the next two parliamentary terms engaged in other duties and an expedition to Portugal.
He became a member of parliament for Plymouth in 1593. He was active in issues of interest to Plymouth as a whole, but also to emphasise defence against the Spanish.
War broke out between England and Spain in 1585, after the signing of the Treaty of Nonsuch. Queen Elizabeth I, through her principal secretary Francis Walsingham, ordered Sir Francis Drake to lead an expedition to attack the Spanish colonies in a kind of pre-emptive 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. At Cartagena, Drake released one hundred Turks who were enslaved. On 6 June 1586, during the return leg of the voyage, he attacked the wooden Spanish fort at San Agustín in Spanish Florida and burnt the town to the ground.
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 Grenville arrived with supplies and more colonists. He finally reached England on 22 July, when he sailed into Portsmouth, England to a hero's welcome.
In part to prevent future such attacks by English and Dutch privateers against Spanish interests in the Americas, Philip II ordered a planned invasion of England.
On 15 March 1587, Drake accepted a new commission with several purposes: to disrupt the shipping routes in order to slow supplies from Italy and Andalucia to Lisbon, to trouble enemy fleets that were in their home ports, and to capture Spanish ships laden with treasure. Drake was also to confront and attack the Spanish Armada had it already sailed for England. When arriving at Cádiz on 19 April, Drake found the harbour packed with ships and supplies as the Armada was readying and waiting for a fair wind to launch the fleet to attack. In the early hours of the next day, Drake pressed his attack into the inner harbour and inflicted heavy damage. Claims of the exact Spanish ship losses vary: Drake claimed he had sunk 39 ships, while the Spanish admitted the loss of only 24. The attack became known as the "singeing of the King's beard" and 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 had captured around 1,600 to 1,700 tons of barrel staves, enough to make 25,000 to 30,000 barrels (4,000 to 4,800 m) for containing provisions. The expedition resulted in a total profit for England of around £140,000, £18,235 of which went to Drake.
The Spanish Armada set sail for England in May 1588, and arrived on the English coast on 29 July, near Cornwall. An English fleet consisting of 55 ships set out from Plymouth to confront the Armada, under the command of Lord Howard of Effingham, with Sir Francis Drake serving as vice admiral, commanding from the galleon Revenge. As the English fleet pursued the Armada up the English Channel in closing darkness, Drake broke off and captured the disabled Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora del Rosario, along with Admiral Pedro de Valdés and most of his crew. The Spanish ship was known to be carrying substantial funds to pay the Spanish Armada. 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 English fleet into disarray overnight. The Duke of Medina Sidonia, whom Philip had appointed to command the Armada despite his complete lack of military experience on land or at sea, made his way up the Channel towards the French shore in his flagship San Martín with the English in pursuit, thinking that if he anchored in the roadstead of Calais they would not dare molest the Spanish ships in French waters.
A council of war was held aboard Howard's flagship Ark, where Howard, Drake, Seymour, Hawkins, Martin Frobisher, and two or three others, decided to launch fire ships. That night the English launched eight fire ships into the midst of the Armada at its moorings, forcing its captains to cut their anchors and sail out of Calais into the open sea. The decisive action was fought the next day on the shoals off Gravelines, where Frobisher, Drake, and Hawkins pounded the Spanish ships with their guns. Drake's squadron gave Medina Sidonia's flagship San Martin a single broadside and moved on; Frobisher, directly behind him in the English line, stayed with the San Martin at close range and poured cannon shot into her oaken flanks, but failed to take her. Five Spanish ships were lost.
Drake 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 OS):
The 21st we had them in chase, and so coming up unto them, there hath passed some cannon 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 Armada, having failed in their aim, were unable to sail back via the English channel. The English ships, including Revenge, pursued them to prevent any landing on English soil, although by this time most of Howard's ships were almost out of shot. Nevertheless, the battered Spanish fleet were forced to sail instead around the British isles and encountered heavy storms off the coast of Ireland. The fleet eventually limped back to Spanish ports having lost overall some 63 ships and vessels.
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, perhaps because he was waiting for high tide. 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.
The people of quality dislike him for having risen so high from such a lowly family; the rest say he is the main cause of wars.
– Gonzalo González del Castillo, letter to King Philip II, 1592
In 1589, the year after the failure of the Spanish Armada, the English sent their own armada to attack Spain. Drake and Norris were given three tasks. First, to destroy the battered Spanish Atlantic fleet, which was being repaired in ports of northern Spain. Second, to make a landing at Lisbon, Portugal and raise a revolt there against King Philip II (Philip I of Portugal) installing the pretender Dom António, Prior of Crato to the Portuguese throne. And, third, to take the Azores if possible so as to establish a permanent base.
In the siege of Coruña, Drake and Norris destroyed a few ships in the harbour of A Coruña in Spain but were repelled. This defeat in all fronts delayed Drake for two weeks, and he was forced to forgo hunting the rest of the surviving ships and head on to Lisbon.
Norris led his army on a difficult march over the rocky coast to Lisbon, while Drake sailed around the peninsula to join Essex with his heavy artillery. Norris's troops were sick and exhausted by the time they reached the western limits of the city, consequently he demanded that Dom António raise provisions and men to fight for his cause from amongst the local populace, or the army would retreat. Drake, against their agreed plans, had anchored his fleet in the mouth of the Tagus estuary, rather than running the risk of sailing past the well-defended stretches of the Tagus to bring the desperately needed heavy cannon and ordnance. The anticipated rebellion never materialised and the ground campaign was a total failure, so Norris, with his army and António, re-embarked to make an attempt at capturing the treasure fleet. The weather was not in their favour so they eventually sailed for home.
However, Drake wanted to atone for such a bitter setback and, in order not to return empty-handed and with the morale of his troops sunk, he made a fleeting stop in the Galician rías, or coastal inlets, pillaging the defenceless town of Vigo for two days and razing it to the ground. This abusive demonstration did not leave the corsair unharmed, as he lost hundreds more men on land, in addition to as many as two hundred wounded. The growing defences of the inhabitants, and the arrivals of militias from Portugal, put the ships in retreat again. Two of the vessels sailing back to Plymouth were captured in the Bay of Biscay by a squadron of zabras led by Captain Diego de Aramburu.
The failure cost the lives of 11,000 English soldiers and sailors, according to Bucholz and Key; Robert Hutchinson says between 8,000 and 11,000 died; while Gorrochategui Santos calculates the number at over 20,000. Upon his return, Drake's behaviour in the expedition was increasingly called into question, culminating in his being charged by England's Privy Council of deliberate failings and a mishandling of his command. Despite never being publicly admonished on these charges, he nevertheless fell out of favour, and was not given command of another naval expedition until 1595.
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, and lost the Battle of San Juan. The Spanish gunners from El Morro Castle shot a cannonball through his stateroom on the expedition's flagship, but he survived.
He and his second-in-command, Thomas Baskerville, captured and burned Nombre de Dios, and started an overland crossing of the isthmus to attack the city of Panama, but were repulsed by the well-entrenched Spaniards who had barricaded the road; suffering heavy casualties, they gave up the attempt. A few weeks later, on 28 January 1596, Drake died (aged about 56) of dysentery, a common disease in the tropics at the time, while anchored off the coast of Portobelo where some Spanish treasure ships had sought shelter. Following his death, the English fleet withdrew defeated.
Before dying, he asked to be dressed in his full armour. He was buried at sea in a sealed lead-lined coffin, near Portobelo, a few miles off the coastline. It is supposed that his final resting place is near the wrecks of two British ships, Elizabeth and Delight, scuttled in Portobelo Bay. Efforts by researchers and treasure hunters to discover the location of his remains are ongoing, while divers continue to search the seabed for the coffin.
Francis Drake married Mary Newman at St Budeaux church near Plymouth, on 4 July 1569. She died about 24 January 1583. In 1585, Drake married Elizabeth Sydenham, born around 1562, the only child of Sir George Sydenham, of Combe Sydenham, who was the High Sheriff of Somerset.
In 1580, Drake purchased Buckland Abbey, a large manor house near Yelverton, Devon, via intermediaries from Sir Richard Grenville. He lived there for fifteen years, until his final voyage, and it remained in his family until 1946. Buckland Abbey is now in the care of the National Trust and a number of mementos of his life are displayed there. His coat of arms and full achievement is depicted in the form of a large, coloured plaster overmantel in the Lifetimes Gallery at Buckland Abbey.
Drake was one of twelve children. His brother Thomas accompanied him on voyages, and named his son after him. That nephew eventually became Sir Francis Drake, 1st Baronet.
Historical sources on Drake's early life are scarce, and tend to be obscure. Two common scholarly traditions concerning his life and contributions have resulted. The older tradition can be found in Julian Corbett's biography, Drake and the Tudor Navy (1898) which identifies Drake as the single most important figure in the founding and triumph of the British navy. The alternative approach locates Drake squarely within privateering. The first has tended to laud only his successes, while Sugden writes that the second approach, which emphasises his flaws and failures, has sometimes been less than just. Drake left behind no words of his own, only his actions and their interpretation which, as Peter Whitfield says, "is open to deep disagreement". According to Whitfield, scholarship on Drake has moved "from the hero worship of the Victorians to the cold iconoclasm" of the twenty-first century.
There are various places in the United Kingdom named after him, especially in Plymouth, Devon. Places there carrying his name include Drake's Island, Drake Circus Shopping Centre, and the Royal Navy base HMNB Devonport (also known as "HMS Drake"). Plymouth Hoe is also home to a statue of Drake. The Sir Francis Drake Channel is located in the British Virgin Islands.
Various mountains in British Columbia were named in the 1930s for Drake, 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. Fringe theorists suggest he may also have landed to the north of the usual site considered to be Nova Albion – among them Canadian Samuel Bawlf, who claims that its true location was on Vancouver Island at latitude 50 degrees north.
Several landmarks in northern California were named after Drake, beginning in the late 19th century and continuing into the 20th century. American historian Richard White posits that the origins of these commemorations to nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxonism. Public scrutiny of these memorials intensified in 2020 after the protests drew critical attention to place names and monuments perceived to be connected to white supremacy, colonialism, or racial injustice. Several California landmarks that commemorated Drake were removed or renamed. Citing Drake's associations with the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism and piracy, Sir Francis Drake High School, in San Anselmo, California, changed its name to Archie Williams High School, after former teacher and Olympic athlete Archie Williams. A statue of Drake in Larkspur, California was also removed by the city authorities. Multiple jurisdictions in Marin County considered renaming Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, one of its major thoroughfares, but left the name intact when they failed to reach a consensus. In San Francisco, the Sir Francis Drake Hotel was renamed the Beacon Grand Hotel.
Drake's will was the focus of an extensive confidence scam which Oscar Hartzell perpetrated in the 1920s and 1930s.
Drake's Drum has become an icon of English folklore with its variation of the classic king asleep in mountain story motif.
Drake was a major focus in the video game series Uncharted, specifically its first and third instalments, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, respectively. The series follows Nathan Drake, a self-proclaimed descendant of Drake who retraces his ancestor's voyages.
Drake was the subject of a TV series, Sir Francis Drake (1961–1962). Terence Morgan played Drake in the 26-episode adventure drama.
In Valparaíso, Chile, folklore associates a cave known as Cueva del Pirata (lit. "Cave of the Pirate") with Francis Drake. A legend says that when Drake ransacked the port, he was disappointed with the scant plunder, and proceeded to enter the churches in fury to sack them and urinate on the chalices. Supposedly he still found the plunder to be not worth enough to take on board his galleon, and hid it in the cave.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540 – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer and privateer best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition between 1577 and 1580. This was the first English circumnavigation, and third circumnavigation overall. Having started as a simple seaman, in 1588 he was part of the fight against the Spanish Armada as a vice-admiral.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "At an early age, Drake was placed into the household of a relative, William Hawkins, a prominent sea captain in Plymouth. In 1572, he set sail on his first independent mission, privateering along the Spanish Main. Drake's circumnavigation began on 15 December 1577. He crossed the Pacific Ocean, until then an area of exclusive Spanish interest, and laid claim to New Albion, plundering coastal towns and ships for treasure and supplies as he went. He arrived back in England on 26 September 1580. Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581 which he received aboard his galleon the Golden Hind.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Drake's circumnavigation inaugurated an era of conflict with the Spanish and in 1585, the Anglo-Spanish War began. Drake was in command of an expedition to the Americas that attacked Spanish shipping and ports. When Philip II sent the Spanish Armada to England in 1588 as a precursor to its invasion, Drake was second-in-command of the English fleet that fought against and repulsed the Spanish fleet. A year later he led the English Armada in a failed attempt to destroy the remaining Spanish fleet.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Drake was the Member of Parliament (MP) for three constituencies: Camelford in 1581, Bossiney in 1584, and Plymouth in 1593. Drake's exploits made him a hero to the English, but his privateering led the Spanish to brand him a pirate, known to them as El Draque (\"The Dragon\" in old Spanish). He died of dysentery after his failed assault on Panama in January 1596.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Francis Drake was born at Crowndale Farm in Tavistock, Devon, England. His birth date is not formally recorded – such writers as E. F. Benson have claimed that he was born while the Six Articles of 1539 were in force, but British naval historian Julian Corbett, writing of William Camden's account, on which this information is based, writes that \"As a slip of memory, too, we must put down his difficult assertion that Edmund Drake was driven from Devonshire during a persecution under the Six Articles Act of 1539.\" His birth date is estimated from the wording of texts in contemporary sources such as: \"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, which would place his birth c. 1539, while the other, painted in 1594 when he was said to be 52, would give a birth year of c. 1541.",
"title": "Birth and early years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "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 said to have been named after his godfather, Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford.",
"title": "Birth and early years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Due to religious persecution during the Prayer Book Rebellion in 1549, the Drake family fled from Devon to Kent. There Drake's father obtained an appointment to minister to the men in the King's Navy. He was ordained deacon and was made vicar of Upchurch Church on the Medway.",
"title": "Birth and early years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "At an early age, Drake was placed into the household of a relative, sea-captain William Hawkins of Plymouth, and began his seagoing training as an apprentice on Hawkins' boats. By 18, he was a purser, according to the English chronicler Edmund Howes, and in the 1550s, Drake's father found the young man a position with the owner and master of a small barque, one of the small traders plying between the Medway River and the Dutch coast. Drake likely engaged in commerce along the coast of England, the Low Countries and France. The ship's master was so satisfied with the young Drake's conduct that, being unmarried and childless at his death, he bequeathed the barque to Drake.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1562, The West African slave trade was a duopoly dominated by the Portuguese and the Spanish. Sir John Hawkins devised a plan to break into that trade, and enlisted the aid of colleagues and family to finance his first slave voyage. Drake was not part of that group of financiers, though his presence as one of hundreds of seamen on Hawkins's first two slaving voyages has been assumed. There is some anecdotal evidence to support Drake serving as a common seaman on the first two voyages, and good evidence of his presence for the last two of four slaving voyages made by Hawkins' ships between 1562 and 1569.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 1562, Hawkins sailed to the coast of the Sierra Leone, seized Portuguese slave ships, and sold the Africans in the Spanish Indies. It was highly profitable, so for his second slave voyage in 1564, Hawkins gained Queen Elizabeth I's support. She lent him one of her ships, Jesus of Lübeck, which served as his flagship. Hawkins attacked an African native town and sold many of its inhabitants in Spanish ports on the Caribbean mainland making another large profit for himself, the Queen and the consortium of investors from her court. Sources vary on the dates and the age of Drake at the time; Harry Kelsey says he was twenty years old, \"[a]ccording to Howes\" (in reference to the English chronicler Edmund Howes writing in 1615). Drake was not a member of that consortium, but the crew would have received a small share of the profits. Based on this association, scholar Kris Lane lists Drake as one of the first English slave traders.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Spanish and Portuguese were aggrieved that the English had entered into the slave trade and were selling slaves to their colonies despite being forbidden from doing so. Queen Elizabeth I, under pressure to avoid an armed conflict, forbade Hawkins from going to sea for a third slave voyage. In response, he set up a slave voyage with a relative, John Lovell, in command in 1566. Drake accompanied Lovell on this voyage. The voyage was unsuccessful, as more than 90 enslaved Africans were released without payment.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1567, Drake accompanied Hawkins on their next and last joint voyage. The crew attempted to capture slaves around Cape Verde, but failed. Hawkins allied himself with two local kings in Sierra Leone who asked for help against their enemies in exchange for half of any captives they took. Attacking from both sides, several hundred prisoners were taken, though Kelsey says the kings kept \"the larger share of slaves and dared Hawkins to do anything about it\".",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Events worsened for the fleet as it faced storms, Spanish hostility, armed conflict, and finally a hurricane that separated one ship from the rest, and it had to find its own way home. The remaining ships were forced into the port of San Juan de Ulúa near Vera Cruz so they could make repairs. Soon afterward the newly appointed viceroy of New Spain, Martín Enríquez de Almanza, arrived with a fleet of ships. While still negotiating to resupply and repair, Hawkins' ships were attacked by the Spanish ships in what became known as the Battle of San Juan de Ulúa. The battle ended in an English defeat with all but two of the English ships lost. The Spanish launched a fireship against Hawkins' flagship Jesus of Lübeck, and the crew of Minion in panic and fear cut the lines securing them to Jesus. Hawkins was among those who jumped from the flagship's bulwarks to Minion's decks. Drake, by this time the captain of Judith, fled leaving Hawkins behind. Hawkins escaped on Minion and limped back to England with dozens of his men dying along the way, and arriving with a crew of just 15. Hundreds of English seamen were abandoned.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "After arriving back in England, Hawkins accused Drake of desertion and of stealing the treasure they had accumulated. Drake denied both accusations asserting he had distributed all profits among the crew and that he had believed Hawkins was lost when he left. The bitter end of the fourth voyage turned Drake's life in a different direction: thereafter he would not pursue trading and slaving but would, instead, dedicate himself to attacking Spanish possessions wherever he found them. Drake's hostility towards the Spanish is said to have started with the battle and its aftermath.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The voyage of 1567–1569 was Drake's last association with slaving. In total, approximately 1,200 Africans were enslaved on these four voyages, and an estimated three times as many Africans were killed (based on the contemporaneous accounts of slavers). On the issue of slaving, scholar John Sugden writes that \"Drake was in his twenties and did not question what his elders accepted\", but must share some culpability for his participation.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1572, Drake embarked on his first major independent enterprise. He planned an attack on the Isthmus of Panama, known to the Spanish as part of Tierra Firme and to the English as part of the Spanish Main. This was the point at which the silver and gold treasure of Peru had to be brought ashore and transported overland to the Caribbean Sea, where galleons from Spain would take it aboard at the town of Nombre de Dios. Drake left Plymouth on 24 May 1572, with a crew of 73 men in two small vessels, Pascha (70 tons) and Swan (25 tons), to capture Nombre de Dios.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Drake's first raid was late in July 1572. Drake captured Nombre de Dios, but he was badly wounded when the Spanish arrived from Panama, and his forces had to retreat without the gold, silver, pearls and jewels stored in the royal treasury. Rather than sacking Nombre de Dios again, Drake raided Spanish galleons along the coast and with his Cimarrón (enslaved Africans who had escaped from their Spanish slave-owners) allies looted the mule trains that transported gold, silver and trade goods from Panama City. One of these men was Diego, who later became a free man after years of service under Drake.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Among Drake's adventures along the Spanish Main, his capture of the Spanish silver train at Nombre de Dios on 1 April 1573 made him rich and famous. Near Cabo de Cativas he encountered a French privateer, Guillaume Le Testu, who was in command of the 80-ton warship Havre, and joined forces with him in a combined fleet. Drake had determined to intercept the mule train at the Campos River, two leagues from Nombre de Dios, and instructed the captains of his pinnaces to meet them at the Francisca River on 3 April to carry them off after the raid. The combined English and French raiding parties marched through the forest towards the trail, to within a mile of the city while the Cimarróns performed reconnaissance. The next morning, 1 April, they surprised the mule convoy and seized more than 200,000 pesos' worth of treasure.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "After their attack on the 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, and made off with a fortune in gold. (An account of this may have given rise to subsequent stories of pirates and buried treasure). Badly wounded, Le Testu was captured and beheaded. The small band of adventurers dragged as much gold and silver as they could carry back across some 18 miles (29 km) 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.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "At this point, Drake rallied his men, buried the treasure on the beach, and built a raft to sail in a heavy swell with four men twelve miles along the coast to where they had left two pinnaces. When Drake finally reached them, 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 quoit of Spanish gold from his clothes and said, \"Our voyage is made.\" By the second week of August 1573, he had returned to Plymouth.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "It was during this expedition that on 11 February Drake and his lieutenant John Oxenham climbed a high tree in the central mountains of the Isthmus of Panama and thus became the first Englishmen to see the Pacific Ocean, mirroring the achievement of the Spaniard Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513. The Cimarróns had cut steps into its trunk, on which Drake and the Cimarrón leader Pedro ascended to a platform at the top of the giant tree, where they were joined by Oxenham. The Englishmen vowed when they saw the Pacific Ocean that one day they would sail its waters – which Drake would do years later as part of his circumnavigation of the world.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "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.",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Drake was present at the 1575 Rathlin Island massacre in Ireland. Sir John Norris (or Norreys) and Drake, acting on the instructions of Sir Henry Sidney and the Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, laid siege to Rathlin Castle. Despite its surrender, Norris' troops killed all the 200 defenders and several hundred more civilian men, women and children of Clan MacDonnell. Meanwhile, Drake was given the task of preventing any Gaelic Irish or Scottish reinforcements reaching the island. Therefore, the remaining leader of the Gaelic defence against English power, Sorley Boy MacDonnell, was forced to stay on the mainland. Essex wrote in his letter to Queen Elizabeth's secretary that following the attack Sorley Boy \"was likely to have run mad for sorrow, tearing and tormenting himself and saying that he there lost all that he ever had.\"",
"title": "Early career at sea"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Following the success of the Panama isthmus raid, Drake's so-called \"Famous Voyage\" – an expedition against the Spanish along the Pacific coast of the Americas – was organized and financed by a private syndicate that included Francis Walsingham, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, John Hawkins, Christopher Hatton, and Drake himself. Drake acted on the plan authored by Sir Richard Grenville, who in 1574 had received a royal patent for that purpose; just a year later this patent had been rescinded after Elizabeth I learned of Grenville's intentions against the Spanish. Elizabeth likely invested in Drake's voyage to South America in 1577, but never issued him a formal commission. This would be the first circumnavigation in 58 years.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Diego was once again employed under Drake; his fluency in Spanish and English would make him a useful interpreter when Spaniards or Spanish-speaking Portuguese were captured. He was employed as Drake's servant and was paid wages like the rest of the crew. Drake and the fleet 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.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "After this major setback, Drake set sail again on 13 December aboard Pelican with four other ships and 164 men. He soon added a sixth ship, Mary (formerly Santa María), a Portuguese merchant ship that had been captured off the coast of Africa near the Cape Verde Islands. He also kidnapped its captain, Nuno da Silva, a man with considerable experience navigating in South American waters.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "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 Puerto San Julián, 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 Spanish gibbets. Following Magellan's example, Drake tried and executed his own \"mutineer\" Thomas Doughty. The crew discovered that Mary had rotting timbers, so they put the vessel ashore, stripped it, and abandoned it. Drake decided to remain the winter in San Julián before attempting the Strait of Magellan.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "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 account:",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "And after this holy repast, they dined also at the same table together, as cheerfully, in sobriety, as ever in their lives they had done aforetime, each cheering up the other, and taking their leave, by drinking each to other, as if some journey only had been in hand.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Drake had Thomas Doughty beheaded on 2 July 1578. In January 1580, when Drake became stranded upon a reef off the Celebes Sea, the ship's chaplain, Francis Fletcher, in a sermon suggested that the woes of the voyage were connected to the unjust demise of Doughty, Drake chained the clergyman to a hatch cover and pronounced him excommunicated.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The three remaining ships of his convoy departed for the Magellan Strait at the southern tip of South America. A few weeks later in September 1578 Drake made it to the Pacific, but violent storms destroyed one of the three ships, Marigold (captained by John Thomas) in the strait and caused another, Elizabeth, captained by John Wynter, to return to England, leaving only Pelican. After this passage, Pelican was pushed south and discovered an island that Drake called Elizabeth Island. Drake, like navigators before him, probably reached a latitude of 55°S (according to astronomical data quoted in Richard Hakluyt's The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation of 1589) along the Chilean coast. In the Magellan Strait Francis and his men engaged in skirmishes with local indigenous people, becoming the first Europeans to kill indigenous peoples in southern Patagonia. During their stay in the strait, crew members discovered that an infusion made of the bark of Drimys winteri could be used as remedy against scurvy. Captain Wynter ordered the collection of great amounts of bark – hence the scientific name.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Historian Mateo Martinic, who examined records of Drake's travels, credits him with the discovery of the \"southern end of the Americas and the oceanic space south of it\". 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.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Drake pushed onwards in his lone flagship, now renamed Golden Hind in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton (after his coat of arms). 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 to inform his navigation. Before reaching the coast of Peru, Drake visited Mocha Island off the coast of what is now Chile, where he and his manservant Diego were seriously injured by hostile Mapuche who shot them with arrows. Later he sacked the port of Valparaíso further north in Chile, where he also captured a ship full of Chilean wine.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Near Lima, Drake captured a Spanish ship 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 Cacafuego. Drake gave chase and eventually captured the treasure ship, which proved his most profitable capture.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, Drake found 36 kilograms (80 lb) of gold, a golden crucifix, jewels, 13 chests of silver reals and 26,000 kilograms (26 long 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.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Drake continued north, raiding more Spanish settlements and ships as he went. His last stop in this phase of the voyage was in the town of Guatulco, where he and his crew stayed from 13–16 April, looting provisions and other materials. From here, Drake began to consider how best to return to England. One possibility was to sail back south, along the Spanish coast, and return to the Atlantic Ocean via the Strait of Magellan (or possibly Cape Horn); this route was ruled out, however, to avoid the dangerous weather near the strait and presumed Spanish resistance all along the coast. This left two possible routes – continue north up the American coast, and return to the Atlantic by the rumored Strait of Anián; or, sail across the Pacific, making for the East Indies, and from there return to England by completing a circumnavigation of the world.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In May, Drake's two ships passed the Baja Peninsula and continued north. Prior to Drake's voyage, the western coast of North America had only been partially explored in 1542 by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo who sailed for Spain. So, intending to avoid further conflict with Spain, Drake navigated north-west of Spanish presence and sought a discreet site at which the crew could prepare for the journey back to England. The northernmost extent of this leg of the expedition has been the subject of much scholarly debate, but most sources agree that Drake reached a latitude of at least 48° north before turning back and heading south.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "On 5 June 1579, the ship briefly made first landfall at what is now South Cove, Cape Arago, just south of Coos Bay, Oregon, and then sailed southward. On 17 June, Drake and his crew found a protected cove when they landed on the Pacific coast of what is now Northern California. While ashore, he claimed the area for Queen Elizabeth I as Nova Albion or New Albion. To document and assert his claim, Drake posted an engraved plate of brass to claim sovereignty for Elizabeth and every successive English monarch. After erecting a fort and tents ashore, the crew laboured for several weeks as they prepared for the circumnavigating voyage ahead by careening their ship, Golden Hind, to effectively clean and repair the hull. Drake had friendly interactions with the Coast Miwok and explored the surrounding land by foot. When his ship was ready for the return voyage, Drake and the crew left New Albion on 23 July and paused the journey the next day when anchoring the ship at the Farallon Islands where they hunted sea lions or seals.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Drake left the Pacific coast, heading south-west 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. Harry Kelsey maintains, against scholarly consensus, that because of the contrary prevailing winds and currents, it is much more probable that Drake careened his ship on the shore of Magdalena Bay in Lower California, and sailed to the Moluccas and Spice Islands from there. At this time Diego died from wounds he had sustained earlier in the voyage; Golden Hind later became caught on a reef and was almost lost. Afterwards, the sailors waited three days for convenient tides and had dumped cargo. Befriending Sultan Babullah of Ternate in 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.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "On 26 September 1580, 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 his was the second such voyage arriving with at least one ship intact, after Elcano's in 1520.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Queen Elizabeth 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 hidden from the eyes of rival Spain.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "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.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "To show her gratitude the queen gave him the Drake Jewel, a valuable pendant surrounded by diamonds, rubies and pearls. It was an unusual gift to bestow upon a commoner, and one that Drake wore in a 1591 portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts. On one side of the pendant 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 is a rare documented survivor among sixteenth-century jewels; it is conserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "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.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "After receiving his knighthood Drake unilaterally adopted the coat of arms of the ancient Devon family of Drake of Ash, to whom he claimed a distant but unspecified kinship. The right to use the arms was disputed in court so Queen Elizabeth awarded Drake his own coat of arms.",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Drake's heraldic achievement and coat of arms contains the motto, Sic Parvis Magna, which means: \"Great achievements from small beginnings\". A hand coming out of the clouds is labelled Auxilio Divino, which means \"By divine aid\".",
"title": "Circumnavigation (1577–1580)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Drake first became a member of parliament for the last session of the 4th Parliament of Elizabeth I, on 16 January 1581, for the constituency of Camelford. He did not actively participate at this point, and on 17 February 1581 he was granted leave of absence \"for certain his necessary business in the service of Her Majesty\".",
"title": "Political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Drake became the Mayor of Plymouth in September 1581. During his tenure, he installed a compass in the town's Hoe, and passed a law regulating the local pilchard trade. During his term as lord mayor, Drake contracted to construct a leat, or canal, to bring water from the River Meavy, and to build six new gristmills on it from which he derived a substantial profit.",
"title": "Political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Drake became a member of parliament again in 1584 for Bossiney, on the forming of the 5th Parliament of Elizabeth I. He served the duration of the parliament and was active in issues regarding the navy, fishing, early American colonisation, and issues related chiefly to Devon. He spent the time covered by the next two parliamentary terms engaged in other duties and an expedition to Portugal.",
"title": "Political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "He became a member of parliament for Plymouth in 1593. He was active in issues of interest to Plymouth as a whole, but also to emphasise defence against the Spanish.",
"title": "Political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "War broke out between England and Spain in 1585, after the signing of the Treaty of Nonsuch. Queen Elizabeth I, through her principal secretary Francis Walsingham, ordered Sir Francis Drake to lead an expedition to attack the Spanish colonies in a kind of pre-emptive 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. At Cartagena, Drake released one hundred Turks who were enslaved. On 6 June 1586, during the return leg of the voyage, he attacked the wooden Spanish fort at San Agustín in Spanish Florida and burnt the town to the ground.",
"title": "Great Expedition to America"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "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 Grenville arrived with supplies and more colonists. He finally reached England on 22 July, when he sailed into Portsmouth, England to a hero's welcome.",
"title": "Great Expedition to America"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "In part to prevent future such attacks by English and Dutch privateers against Spanish interests in the Americas, Philip II ordered a planned invasion of England.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "On 15 March 1587, Drake accepted a new commission with several purposes: to disrupt the shipping routes in order to slow supplies from Italy and Andalucia to Lisbon, to trouble enemy fleets that were in their home ports, and to capture Spanish ships laden with treasure. Drake was also to confront and attack the Spanish Armada had it already sailed for England. When arriving at Cádiz on 19 April, Drake found the harbour packed with ships and supplies as the Armada was readying and waiting for a fair wind to launch the fleet to attack. In the early hours of the next day, Drake pressed his attack into the inner harbour and inflicted heavy damage. Claims of the exact Spanish ship losses vary: Drake claimed he had sunk 39 ships, while the Spanish admitted the loss of only 24. The attack became known as the \"singeing of the King's beard\" and delayed the Spanish invasion by a year.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "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 had captured around 1,600 to 1,700 tons of barrel staves, enough to make 25,000 to 30,000 barrels (4,000 to 4,800 m) for containing provisions. The expedition resulted in a total profit for England of around £140,000, £18,235 of which went to Drake.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The Spanish Armada set sail for England in May 1588, and arrived on the English coast on 29 July, near Cornwall. An English fleet consisting of 55 ships set out from Plymouth to confront the Armada, under the command of Lord Howard of Effingham, with Sir Francis Drake serving as vice admiral, commanding from the galleon Revenge. As the English fleet pursued the Armada up the English Channel in closing darkness, Drake broke off and captured the disabled Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora del Rosario, along with Admiral Pedro de Valdés and most of his crew. The Spanish ship was known to be carrying substantial funds to pay the Spanish Armada. 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 English fleet into disarray overnight. The Duke of Medina Sidonia, whom Philip had appointed to command the Armada despite his complete lack of military experience on land or at sea, made his way up the Channel towards the French shore in his flagship San Martín with the English in pursuit, thinking that if he anchored in the roadstead of Calais they would not dare molest the Spanish ships in French waters.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "A council of war was held aboard Howard's flagship Ark, where Howard, Drake, Seymour, Hawkins, Martin Frobisher, and two or three others, decided to launch fire ships. That night the English launched eight fire ships into the midst of the Armada at its moorings, forcing its captains to cut their anchors and sail out of Calais into the open sea. The decisive action was fought the next day on the shoals off Gravelines, where Frobisher, Drake, and Hawkins pounded the Spanish ships with their guns. Drake's squadron gave Medina Sidonia's flagship San Martin a single broadside and moved on; Frobisher, directly behind him in the English line, stayed with the San Martin at close range and poured cannon shot into her oaken flanks, but failed to take her. Five Spanish ships were lost.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Drake 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 OS):",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The 21st we had them in chase, and so coming up unto them, there hath passed some cannon 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.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The Armada, having failed in their aim, were unable to sail back via the English channel. The English ships, including Revenge, pursued them to prevent any landing on English soil, although by this time most of Howard's ships were almost out of shot. Nevertheless, the battered Spanish fleet were forced to sail instead around the British isles and encountered heavy storms off the coast of Ireland. The fleet eventually limped back to Spanish ports having lost overall some 63 ships and vessels.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "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, perhaps because he was waiting for high tide. 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.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The people of quality dislike him for having risen so high from such a lowly family; the rest say he is the main cause of wars.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "– Gonzalo González del Castillo, letter to King Philip II, 1592",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "In 1589, the year after the failure of the Spanish Armada, the English sent their own armada to attack Spain. Drake and Norris were given three tasks. First, to destroy the battered Spanish Atlantic fleet, which was being repaired in ports of northern Spain. Second, to make a landing at Lisbon, Portugal and raise a revolt there against King Philip II (Philip I of Portugal) installing the pretender Dom António, Prior of Crato to the Portuguese throne. And, third, to take the Azores if possible so as to establish a permanent base.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "In the siege of Coruña, Drake and Norris destroyed a few ships in the harbour of A Coruña in Spain but were repelled. This defeat in all fronts delayed Drake for two weeks, and he was forced to forgo hunting the rest of the surviving ships and head on to Lisbon.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Norris led his army on a difficult march over the rocky coast to Lisbon, while Drake sailed around the peninsula to join Essex with his heavy artillery. Norris's troops were sick and exhausted by the time they reached the western limits of the city, consequently he demanded that Dom António raise provisions and men to fight for his cause from amongst the local populace, or the army would retreat. Drake, against their agreed plans, had anchored his fleet in the mouth of the Tagus estuary, rather than running the risk of sailing past the well-defended stretches of the Tagus to bring the desperately needed heavy cannon and ordnance. The anticipated rebellion never materialised and the ground campaign was a total failure, so Norris, with his army and António, re-embarked to make an attempt at capturing the treasure fleet. The weather was not in their favour so they eventually sailed for home.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "However, Drake wanted to atone for such a bitter setback and, in order not to return empty-handed and with the morale of his troops sunk, he made a fleeting stop in the Galician rías, or coastal inlets, pillaging the defenceless town of Vigo for two days and razing it to the ground. This abusive demonstration did not leave the corsair unharmed, as he lost hundreds more men on land, in addition to as many as two hundred wounded. The growing defences of the inhabitants, and the arrivals of militias from Portugal, put the ships in retreat again. Two of the vessels sailing back to Plymouth were captured in the Bay of Biscay by a squadron of zabras led by Captain Diego de Aramburu.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "The failure cost the lives of 11,000 English soldiers and sailors, according to Bucholz and Key; Robert Hutchinson says between 8,000 and 11,000 died; while Gorrochategui Santos calculates the number at over 20,000. Upon his return, Drake's behaviour in the expedition was increasingly called into question, culminating in his being charged by England's Privy Council of deliberate failings and a mishandling of his command. Despite never being publicly admonished on these charges, he nevertheless fell out of favour, and was not given command of another naval expedition until 1595.",
"title": "Conflict with the Spanish Armada"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "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, and lost the Battle of San Juan. The Spanish gunners from El Morro Castle shot a cannonball through his stateroom on the expedition's flagship, but he survived.",
"title": "Defeats and death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "He and his second-in-command, Thomas Baskerville, captured and burned Nombre de Dios, and started an overland crossing of the isthmus to attack the city of Panama, but were repulsed by the well-entrenched Spaniards who had barricaded the road; suffering heavy casualties, they gave up the attempt. A few weeks later, on 28 January 1596, Drake died (aged about 56) of dysentery, a common disease in the tropics at the time, while anchored off the coast of Portobelo where some Spanish treasure ships had sought shelter. Following his death, the English fleet withdrew defeated.",
"title": "Defeats and death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Before dying, he asked to be dressed in his full armour. He was buried at sea in a sealed lead-lined coffin, near Portobelo, a few miles off the coastline. It is supposed that his final resting place is near the wrecks of two British ships, Elizabeth and Delight, scuttled in Portobelo Bay. Efforts by researchers and treasure hunters to discover the location of his remains are ongoing, while divers continue to search the seabed for the coffin.",
"title": "Defeats and death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Francis Drake married Mary Newman at St Budeaux church near Plymouth, on 4 July 1569. She died about 24 January 1583. In 1585, Drake married Elizabeth Sydenham, born around 1562, the only child of Sir George Sydenham, of Combe Sydenham, who was the High Sheriff of Somerset.",
"title": "Family and heritage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "In 1580, Drake purchased Buckland Abbey, a large manor house near Yelverton, Devon, via intermediaries from Sir Richard Grenville. He lived there for fifteen years, until his final voyage, and it remained in his family until 1946. Buckland Abbey is now in the care of the National Trust and a number of mementos of his life are displayed there. His coat of arms and full achievement is depicted in the form of a large, coloured plaster overmantel in the Lifetimes Gallery at Buckland Abbey.",
"title": "Family and heritage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Drake was one of twelve children. His brother Thomas accompanied him on voyages, and named his son after him. That nephew eventually became Sir Francis Drake, 1st Baronet.",
"title": "Family and heritage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Historical sources on Drake's early life are scarce, and tend to be obscure. Two common scholarly traditions concerning his life and contributions have resulted. The older tradition can be found in Julian Corbett's biography, Drake and the Tudor Navy (1898) which identifies Drake as the single most important figure in the founding and triumph of the British navy. The alternative approach locates Drake squarely within privateering. The first has tended to laud only his successes, while Sugden writes that the second approach, which emphasises his flaws and failures, has sometimes been less than just. Drake left behind no words of his own, only his actions and their interpretation which, as Peter Whitfield says, \"is open to deep disagreement\". According to Whitfield, scholarship on Drake has moved \"from the hero worship of the Victorians to the cold iconoclasm\" of the twenty-first century.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "There are various places in the United Kingdom named after him, especially in Plymouth, Devon. Places there carrying his name include Drake's Island, Drake Circus Shopping Centre, and the Royal Navy base HMNB Devonport (also known as \"HMS Drake\"). Plymouth Hoe is also home to a statue of Drake. The Sir Francis Drake Channel is located in the British Virgin Islands.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Various mountains in British Columbia were named in the 1930s for Drake, 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. Fringe theorists suggest he may also have landed to the north of the usual site considered to be Nova Albion – among them Canadian Samuel Bawlf, who claims that its true location was on Vancouver Island at latitude 50 degrees north.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Several landmarks in northern California were named after Drake, beginning in the late 19th century and continuing into the 20th century. American historian Richard White posits that the origins of these commemorations to nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxonism. Public scrutiny of these memorials intensified in 2020 after the protests drew critical attention to place names and monuments perceived to be connected to white supremacy, colonialism, or racial injustice. Several California landmarks that commemorated Drake were removed or renamed. Citing Drake's associations with the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism and piracy, Sir Francis Drake High School, in San Anselmo, California, changed its name to Archie Williams High School, after former teacher and Olympic athlete Archie Williams. A statue of Drake in Larkspur, California was also removed by the city authorities. Multiple jurisdictions in Marin County considered renaming Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, one of its major thoroughfares, but left the name intact when they failed to reach a consensus. In San Francisco, the Sir Francis Drake Hotel was renamed the Beacon Grand Hotel.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Drake's will was the focus of an extensive confidence scam which Oscar Hartzell perpetrated in the 1920s and 1930s.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Drake's Drum has become an icon of English folklore with its variation of the classic king asleep in mountain story motif.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Drake was a major focus in the video game series Uncharted, specifically its first and third instalments, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, respectively. The series follows Nathan Drake, a self-proclaimed descendant of Drake who retraces his ancestor's voyages.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Drake was the subject of a TV series, Sir Francis Drake (1961–1962). Terence Morgan played Drake in the 26-episode adventure drama.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "In Valparaíso, Chile, folklore associates a cave known as Cueva del Pirata (lit. \"Cave of the Pirate\") with Francis Drake. A legend says that when Drake ransacked the port, he was disappointed with the scant plunder, and proceeded to enter the churches in fury to sack them and urinate on the chalices. Supposedly he still found the plunder to be not worth enough to take on board his galleon, and hid it in the cave.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
] |
Sir Francis Drake was an English explorer and privateer best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition between 1577 and 1580. This was the first English circumnavigation, and third circumnavigation overall. Having started as a simple seaman, in 1588 he was part of the fight against the Spanish Armada as a vice-admiral. At an early age, Drake was placed into the household of a relative, William Hawkins, a prominent sea captain in Plymouth. In 1572, he set sail on his first independent mission, privateering along the Spanish Main. Drake's circumnavigation began on 15 December 1577. He crossed the Pacific Ocean, until then an area of exclusive Spanish interest, and laid claim to New Albion, plundering coastal towns and ships for treasure and supplies as he went. He arrived back in England on 26 September 1580. Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581 which he received aboard his galleon the Golden Hind. Drake's circumnavigation inaugurated an era of conflict with the Spanish and in 1585, the Anglo-Spanish War began. Drake was in command of an expedition to the Americas that attacked Spanish shipping and ports. When Philip II sent the Spanish Armada to England in 1588 as a precursor to its invasion, Drake was second-in-command of the English fleet that fought against and repulsed the Spanish fleet. A year later he led the English Armada in a failed attempt to destroy the remaining Spanish fleet. Drake was the Member of Parliament (MP) for three constituencies: Camelford in 1581, Bossiney in 1584, and Plymouth in 1593. Drake's exploits made him a hero to the English, but his privateering led the Spanish to brand him a pirate, known to them as El Draque. He died of dysentery after his failed assault on Panama in January 1596.
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2001-11-14T20:02:44Z
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2023-12-30T16:36:52Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Drake
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Fast Fourier transform
|
A fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an algorithm that computes the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of a sequence, or its inverse (IDFT). Fourier analysis converts a signal from its original domain (often time or space) to a representation in the frequency domain and vice versa. The DFT is obtained by decomposing a sequence of values into components of different frequencies. This operation is useful in many fields, but computing it directly from the definition is often too slow to be practical. An FFT rapidly computes such transformations by factorizing the DFT matrix into a product of sparse (mostly zero) factors. As a result, it manages to reduce the complexity of computing the DFT from O ( n 2 ) {\textstyle O(n^{2})} , which arises if one simply applies the definition of DFT, to O ( n log n ) {\textstyle O(n\log n)} , where n is the data size. The difference in speed can be enormous, especially for long data sets where n may be in the thousands or millions. In the presence of round-off error, many FFT algorithms are much more accurate than evaluating the DFT definition directly or indirectly. There are many different FFT algorithms based on a wide range of published theories, from simple complex-number arithmetic to group theory and number theory.
Fast Fourier transforms are widely used for applications in engineering, music, science, and mathematics. The basic ideas were popularized in 1965, but some algorithms had been derived as early as 1805. In 1994, Gilbert Strang described the FFT as "the most important numerical algorithm of our lifetime", and it was included in Top 10 Algorithms of 20th Century by the IEEE magazine Computing in Science & Engineering.
The best-known FFT algorithms depend upon the factorization of n, but there are FFTs with O ( n log n ) {\displaystyle O(n\log n)} complexity for all, even prime, n. Many FFT algorithms depend only on the fact that e − 2 π i / n {\textstyle e^{-2\pi i/n}} is an n'th primitive root of unity, and thus can be applied to analogous transforms over any finite field, such as number-theoretic transforms. Since the inverse DFT is the same as the DFT, but with the opposite sign in the exponent and a 1/n factor, any FFT algorithm can easily be adapted for it.
The development of fast algorithms for DFT can be traced to Carl Friedrich Gauss's unpublished 1805 work on the orbits of asteroids Pallas and Juno. Gauss wanted to interpolate the orbits from sample observations; his method was very similar to the one that would be published in 1965 by James Cooley and John Tukey, who are generally credited for the invention of the modern generic FFT algorithm. While Gauss's work predated even Joseph Fourier's 1822 results, he did not analyze the method's complexity, and eventually used other methods to achieve the same end.
Between 1805 and 1965, some versions of FFT were published by other authors. Frank Yates in 1932 published his version called interaction algorithm, which provided efficient computation of Hadamard and Walsh transforms. Yates' algorithm is still used in the field of statistical design and analysis of experiments. In 1942, G. C. Danielson and Cornelius Lanczos published their version to compute DFT for x-ray crystallography, a field where calculation of Fourier transforms presented a formidable bottleneck. While many methods in the past had focused on reducing the constant factor for O ( n 2 ) {\textstyle O(n^{2})} computation by taking advantage of "symmetries", Danielson and Lanczos realized that one could use the "periodicity" and apply a "doubling trick" to "double [n] with only slightly more than double the labor", though like Gauss they did not analyze that this led to O ( n log n ) {\textstyle O(n\log n)} scaling.
James Cooley and John Tukey independently rediscovered these earlier algorithms and published a more general FFT in 1965 that is applicable when n is composite and not necessarily a power of 2, as well as analyzing the O ( n log n ) {\textstyle O(n\log n)} scaling. Tukey came up with the idea during a meeting of President Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee where a discussion topic involved detecting nuclear tests by the Soviet Union by setting up sensors to surround the country from outside. To analyze the output of these sensors, an FFT algorithm would be needed. In discussion with Tukey, Richard Garwin recognized the general applicability of the algorithm not just to national security problems, but also to a wide range of problems including one of immediate interest to him, determining the periodicities of the spin orientations in a 3-D crystal of Helium-3. Garwin gave Tukey's idea to Cooley (both worked at IBM's Watson labs) for implementation. Cooley and Tukey published the paper in a relatively short time of six months. As Tukey did not work at IBM, the patentability of the idea was doubted and the algorithm went into the public domain, which, through the computing revolution of the next decade, made FFT one of the indispensable algorithms in digital signal processing.
Let x 0 , … , x n − 1 {\displaystyle x_{0},\ldots ,x_{n-1}} be complex numbers. The DFT is defined by the formula
where e i 2 π / n {\displaystyle e^{i2\pi /n}} is a primitive n'th root of 1.
Evaluating this definition directly requires O ( n 2 ) {\textstyle O(n^{2})} operations: there are n outputs Xk , and each output requires a sum of n terms. An FFT is any method to compute the same results in O ( n log n ) {\textstyle O(n\log n)} operations. All known FFT algorithms require O ( n log n ) {\textstyle O(n\log n)} operations, although there is no known proof that lower complexity is impossible.
To illustrate the savings of an FFT, consider the count of complex multiplications and additions for n = 4096 {\textstyle n=4096} data points. Evaluating the DFT's sums directly involves n 2 {\textstyle n^{2}} complex multiplications and n ( n − 1 ) {\textstyle n(n-1)} complex additions, of which O ( n ) {\textstyle O(n)} operations can be saved by eliminating trivial operations such as multiplications by 1, leaving about 30 million operations. In contrast, the radix-2 Cooley–Tukey algorithm, for n a power of 2, can compute the same result with only ( n / 2 ) log 2 ( n ) {\textstyle (n/2)\log _{2}(n)} complex multiplications (again, ignoring simplifications of multiplications by 1 and similar) and n log 2 ( n ) {\textstyle n\log _{2}(n)} complex additions, in total about 30,000 operations — a thousand times less than with direct evaluation. In practice, actual performance on modern computers is usually dominated by factors other than the speed of arithmetic operations and the analysis is a complicated subject (for example, see Frigo & Johnson, 2005), but the overall improvement from O ( n 2 ) {\textstyle O(n^{2})} to O ( n log n ) {\textstyle O(n\log n)} remains.
By far the most commonly used FFT is the Cooley–Tukey algorithm. This is a divide-and-conquer algorithm that recursively breaks down a DFT of any composite size n = n 1 n 2 {\textstyle n=n_{1}n_{2}} into many smaller DFTs of sizes n 1 {\textstyle n_{1}} and n 2 {\textstyle n_{2}} , along with O ( n ) {\displaystyle O(n)} multiplications by complex roots of unity traditionally called twiddle factors (after Gentleman and Sande, 1966).
This method (and the general idea of an FFT) was popularized by a publication of Cooley and Tukey in 1965, but it was later discovered that those two authors had independently re-invented an algorithm known to Carl Friedrich Gauss around 1805 (and subsequently rediscovered several times in limited forms).
The best known use of the Cooley–Tukey algorithm is to divide the transform into two pieces of size n/2 at each step, and is therefore limited to power-of-two sizes, but any factorization can be used in general (as was known to both Gauss and Cooley/Tukey). These are called the radix-2 and mixed-radix cases, respectively (and other variants such as the split-radix FFT have their own names as well). Although the basic idea is recursive, most traditional implementations rearrange the algorithm to avoid explicit recursion. Also, because the Cooley–Tukey algorithm breaks the DFT into smaller DFTs, it can be combined arbitrarily with any other algorithm for the DFT, such as those described below.
There are FFT algorithms other than Cooley–Tukey.
For n = n 1 n 2 {\textstyle n=n_{1}n_{2}} with coprime n 1 {\textstyle n_{1}} and n 2 {\textstyle n_{2}} , one can use the prime-factor (Good–Thomas) algorithm (PFA), based on the Chinese remainder theorem, to factorize the DFT similarly to Cooley–Tukey but without the twiddle factors. The Rader–Brenner algorithm (1976) is a Cooley–Tukey-like factorization but with purely imaginary twiddle factors, reducing multiplications at the cost of increased additions and reduced numerical stability; it was later superseded by the split-radix variant of Cooley–Tukey (which achieves the same multiplication count but with fewer additions and without sacrificing accuracy). Algorithms that recursively factorize the DFT into smaller operations other than DFTs include the Bruun and QFT algorithms. (The Rader–Brenner and QFT algorithms were proposed for power-of-two sizes, but it is possible that they could be adapted to general composite n. Bruun's algorithm applies to arbitrary even composite sizes.) Bruun's algorithm, in particular, is based on interpreting the FFT as a recursive factorization of the polynomial z n − 1 {\displaystyle z^{n}-1} , here into real-coefficient polynomials of the form z m − 1 {\displaystyle z^{m}-1} and z 2 m + a z m + 1 {\displaystyle z^{2m}+az^{m}+1} .
Another polynomial viewpoint is exploited by the Winograd FFT algorithm, which factorizes z n − 1 {\displaystyle z^{n}-1} into cyclotomic polynomials—these often have coefficients of 1, 0, or −1, and therefore require few (if any) multiplications, so Winograd can be used to obtain minimal-multiplication FFTs and is often used to find efficient algorithms for small factors. Indeed, Winograd showed that the DFT can be computed with only O ( n ) {\displaystyle O(n)} irrational multiplications, leading to a proven achievable lower bound on the number of multiplications for power-of-two sizes; unfortunately, this comes at the cost of many more additions, a tradeoff no longer favorable on modern processors with hardware multipliers. In particular, Winograd also makes use of the PFA as well as an algorithm by Rader for FFTs of prime sizes.
Rader's algorithm, exploiting the existence of a generator for the multiplicative group modulo prime n, expresses a DFT of prime size n as a cyclic convolution of (composite) size n – 1, which can then be computed by a pair of ordinary FFTs via the convolution theorem (although Winograd uses other convolution methods). Another prime-size FFT is due to L. I. Bluestein, and is sometimes called the chirp-z algorithm; it also re-expresses a DFT as a convolution, but this time of the same size (which can be zero-padded to a power of two and evaluated by radix-2 Cooley–Tukey FFTs, for example), via the identity
Hexagonal fast Fourier transform (HFFT) aims at computing an efficient FFT for the hexagonally-sampled data by using a new addressing scheme for hexagonal grids, called Array Set Addressing (ASA).
In many applications, the input data for the DFT are purely real, in which case the outputs satisfy the symmetry
and efficient FFT algorithms have been designed for this situation (see e.g. Sorensen, 1987). One approach consists of taking an ordinary algorithm (e.g. Cooley–Tukey) and removing the redundant parts of the computation, saving roughly a factor of two in time and memory. Alternatively, it is possible to express an even-length real-input DFT as a complex DFT of half the length (whose real and imaginary parts are the even/odd elements of the original real data), followed by O ( n ) {\displaystyle O(n)} post-processing operations.
It was once believed that real-input DFTs could be more efficiently computed by means of the discrete Hartley transform (DHT), but it was subsequently argued that a specialized real-input DFT algorithm (FFT) can typically be found that requires fewer operations than the corresponding DHT algorithm (FHT) for the same number of inputs. Bruun's algorithm (above) is another method that was initially proposed to take advantage of real inputs, but it has not proved popular.
There are further FFT specializations for the cases of real data that have even/odd symmetry, in which case one can gain another factor of roughly two in time and memory and the DFT becomes the discrete cosine/sine transform(s) (DCT/DST). Instead of directly modifying an FFT algorithm for these cases, DCTs/DSTs can also be computed via FFTs of real data combined with O ( n ) {\displaystyle O(n)} pre- and post-processing.
What is the lower bound on the complexity of fast Fourier transform algorithms? Can they be faster than O ( N log N ) {\displaystyle O(N\log N)} ?
A fundamental question of longstanding theoretical interest is to prove lower bounds on the complexity and exact operation counts of fast Fourier transforms, and many open problems remain. It is not rigorously proved whether DFTs truly require Ω ( n log n ) {\textstyle \Omega (n\log n)} (i.e., order n log n {\displaystyle n\log n} or greater) operations, even for the simple case of power of two sizes, although no algorithms with lower complexity are known. In particular, the count of arithmetic operations is usually the focus of such questions, although actual performance on modern-day computers is determined by many other factors such as cache or CPU pipeline optimization.
Following work by Shmuel Winograd (1978), a tight Θ ( n ) {\displaystyle \Theta (n)} lower bound is known for the number of real multiplications required by an FFT. It can be shown that only 4 n − 2 log 2 2 ( n ) − 2 log 2 ( n ) − 4 {\textstyle 4n-2\log _{2}^{2}(n)-2\log _{2}(n)-4} irrational real multiplications are required to compute a DFT of power-of-two length n = 2 m {\displaystyle n=2^{m}} . Moreover, explicit algorithms that achieve this count are known (Heideman & Burrus, 1986; Duhamel, 1990). However, these algorithms require too many additions to be practical, at least on modern computers with hardware multipliers (Duhamel, 1990; Frigo & Johnson, 2005).
A tight lower bound is not known on the number of required additions, although lower bounds have been proved under some restrictive assumptions on the algorithms. In 1973, Morgenstern proved an Ω ( n log n ) {\displaystyle \Omega (n\log n)} lower bound on the addition count for algorithms where the multiplicative constants have bounded magnitudes (which is true for most but not all FFT algorithms). Pan (1986) proved an Ω ( n log n ) {\displaystyle \Omega (n\log n)} lower bound assuming a bound on a measure of the FFT algorithm's "asynchronicity", but the generality of this assumption is unclear. For the case of power-of-two n, Papadimitriou (1979) argued that the number n log 2 n {\textstyle n\log _{2}n} of complex-number additions achieved by Cooley–Tukey algorithms is optimal under certain assumptions on the graph of the algorithm (his assumptions imply, among other things, that no additive identities in the roots of unity are exploited). (This argument would imply that at least 2 N log 2 N {\textstyle 2N\log _{2}N} real additions are required, although this is not a tight bound because extra additions are required as part of complex-number multiplications.) Thus far, no published FFT algorithm has achieved fewer than n log 2 n {\textstyle n\log _{2}n} complex-number additions (or their equivalent) for power-of-two n.
A third problem is to minimize the total number of real multiplications and additions, sometimes called the "arithmetic complexity" (although in this context it is the exact count and not the asymptotic complexity that is being considered). Again, no tight lower bound has been proven. Since 1968, however, the lowest published count for power-of-two n was long achieved by the split-radix FFT algorithm, which requires 4 n log 2 ( n ) − 6 n + 8 {\textstyle 4n\log _{2}(n)-6n+8} real multiplications and additions for n > 1. This was recently reduced to ∼ 34 9 n log 2 n {\textstyle \sim {\frac {34}{9}}n\log _{2}n} (Johnson and Frigo, 2007; Lundy and Van Buskirk, 2007). A slightly larger count (but still better than split radix for n ≥ 256) was shown to be provably optimal for n ≤ 512 under additional restrictions on the possible algorithms (split-radix-like flowgraphs with unit-modulus multiplicative factors), by reduction to a satisfiability modulo theories problem solvable by brute force (Haynal & Haynal, 2011).
Most of the attempts to lower or prove the complexity of FFT algorithms have focused on the ordinary complex-data case, because it is the simplest. However, complex-data FFTs are so closely related to algorithms for related problems such as real-data FFTs, discrete cosine transforms, discrete Hartley transforms, and so on, that any improvement in one of these would immediately lead to improvements in the others (Duhamel & Vetterli, 1990).
All of the FFT algorithms discussed above compute the DFT exactly (i.e. neglecting floating-point errors). A few "FFT" algorithms have been proposed, however, that compute the DFT approximately, with an error that can be made arbitrarily small at the expense of increased computations. Such algorithms trade the approximation error for increased speed or other properties. For example, an approximate FFT algorithm by Edelman et al. (1999) achieves lower communication requirements for parallel computing with the help of a fast multipole method. A wavelet-based approximate FFT by Guo and Burrus (1996) takes sparse inputs/outputs (time/frequency localization) into account more efficiently than is possible with an exact FFT. Another algorithm for approximate computation of a subset of the DFT outputs is due to Shentov et al. (1995). The Edelman algorithm works equally well for sparse and non-sparse data, since it is based on the compressibility (rank deficiency) of the Fourier matrix itself rather than the compressibility (sparsity) of the data. Conversely, if the data are sparse—that is, if only k out of n Fourier coefficients are nonzero—then the complexity can be reduced to O ( k log n log n / k ) {\displaystyle O(k\log n\log n/k)} , and this has been demonstrated to lead to practical speedups compared to an ordinary FFT for n/k > 32 in a large-n example (n = 2) using a probabilistic approximate algorithm (which estimates the largest k coefficients to several decimal places).
FFT algorithms have errors when finite-precision floating-point arithmetic is used, but these errors are typically quite small; most FFT algorithms, e.g. Cooley–Tukey, have excellent numerical properties as a consequence of the pairwise summation structure of the algorithms. The upper bound on the relative error for the Cooley–Tukey algorithm is O ( ε log n ) {\textstyle O(\varepsilon \log n)} , compared to O ( ε n 3 / 2 ) {\textstyle O(\varepsilon n^{3/2})} for the naïve DFT formula, where 𝜀 is the machine floating-point relative precision. In fact, the root mean square (rms) errors are much better than these upper bounds, being only O ( ε log n ) {\textstyle O(\varepsilon {\sqrt {\log n}})} for Cooley–Tukey and O ( ε n ) {\textstyle O(\varepsilon {\sqrt {n}})} for the naïve DFT (Schatzman, 1996). These results, however, are very sensitive to the accuracy of the twiddle factors used in the FFT (i.e. the trigonometric function values), and it is not unusual for incautious FFT implementations to have much worse accuracy, e.g. if they use inaccurate trigonometric recurrence formulas. Some FFTs other than Cooley–Tukey, such as the Rader–Brenner algorithm, are intrinsically less stable.
In fixed-point arithmetic, the finite-precision errors accumulated by FFT algorithms are worse, with rms errors growing as O ( n ) {\textstyle O({\sqrt {n}})} for the Cooley–Tukey algorithm (Welch, 1969). Achieving this accuracy requires careful attention to scaling to minimize loss of precision, and fixed-point FFT algorithms involve rescaling at each intermediate stage of decompositions like Cooley–Tukey.
To verify the correctness of an FFT implementation, rigorous guarantees can be obtained in O ( n log n ) {\textstyle O(n\log n)} time by a simple procedure checking the linearity, impulse-response, and time-shift properties of the transform on random inputs (Ergün, 1995).
As defined in the multidimensional DFT article, the multidimensional DFT
transforms an array xn with a d-dimensional vector of indices n = ( n 1 , … , n d ) {\textstyle \mathbf {n} =\left(n_{1},\ldots ,n_{d}\right)} by a set of d nested summations (over n j = 0 … N j − 1 {\textstyle n_{j}=0\ldots N_{j}-1} for each j), where the division n / N = ( n 1 / N 1 , … , n d / N d ) {\textstyle \mathbf {n} /\mathbf {N} =\left(n_{1}/N_{1},\ldots ,n_{d}/N_{d}\right)} is performed element-wise. Equivalently, it is the composition of a sequence of d sets of one-dimensional DFTs, performed along one dimension at a time (in any order).
This compositional viewpoint immediately provides the simplest and most common multidimensional DFT algorithm, known as the row-column algorithm (after the two-dimensional case, below). That is, one simply performs a sequence of d one-dimensional FFTs (by any of the above algorithms): first you transform along the n1 dimension, then along the n2 dimension, and so on (actually, any ordering works). This method is easily shown to have the usual O ( n log n ) {\textstyle O(n\log n)} complexity, where n = n 1 ⋅ n 2 ⋯ n d {\textstyle n=n_{1}\cdot n_{2}\cdots n_{d}} is the total number of data points transformed. In particular, there are n/n1 transforms of size n1, etc., so the complexity of the sequence of FFTs is:
In two dimensions, the xk can be viewed as an n 1 × n 2 {\displaystyle n_{1}\times n_{2}} matrix, and this algorithm corresponds to first performing the FFT of all the rows (resp. columns), grouping the resulting transformed rows (resp. columns) together as another n 1 × n 2 {\displaystyle n_{1}\times n_{2}} matrix, and then performing the FFT on each of the columns (resp. rows) of this second matrix, and similarly grouping the results into the final result matrix.
In more than two dimensions, it is often advantageous for cache locality to group the dimensions recursively. For example, a three-dimensional FFT might first perform two-dimensional FFTs of each planar "slice" for each fixed n1, and then perform the one-dimensional FFTs along the n1 direction. More generally, an asymptotically optimal cache-oblivious algorithm consists of recursively dividing the dimensions into two groups ( n 1 , … , n d / 2 ) {\textstyle (n_{1},\ldots ,n_{d/2})} and ( n d / 2 + 1 , … , n d ) {\textstyle (n_{d/2+1},\ldots ,n_{d})} that are transformed recursively (rounding if d is not even) (see Frigo and Johnson, 2005). Still, this remains a straightforward variation of the row-column algorithm that ultimately requires only a one-dimensional FFT algorithm as the base case, and still has O ( n log n ) {\displaystyle O(n\log n)} complexity. Yet another variation is to perform matrix transpositions in between transforming subsequent dimensions, so that the transforms operate on contiguous data; this is especially important for out-of-core and distributed memory situations where accessing non-contiguous data is extremely time-consuming.
There are other multidimensional FFT algorithms that are distinct from the row-column algorithm, although all of them have O ( n log n ) {\textstyle O(n\log n)} complexity. Perhaps the simplest non-row-column FFT is the vector-radix FFT algorithm, which is a generalization of the ordinary Cooley–Tukey algorithm where one divides the transform dimensions by a vector r = ( r 1 , r 2 , … , r d ) {\textstyle \mathbf {r} =\left(r_{1},r_{2},\ldots ,r_{d}\right)} of radices at each step. (This may also have cache benefits.) The simplest case of vector-radix is where all of the radices are equal (e.g. vector-radix-2 divides all of the dimensions by two), but this is not necessary. Vector radix with only a single non-unit radix at a time, i.e. r = ( 1 , … , 1 , r , 1 , … , 1 ) {\textstyle \mathbf {r} =\left(1,\ldots ,1,r,1,\ldots ,1\right)} , is essentially a row-column algorithm. Other, more complicated, methods include polynomial transform algorithms due to Nussbaumer (1977), which view the transform in terms of convolutions and polynomial products. See Duhamel and Vetterli (1990) for more information and references.
An O ( n 5 / 2 log n ) {\textstyle O(n^{5/2}\log n)} generalization to spherical harmonics on the sphere s with n nodes was described by Mohlenkamp, along with an algorithm conjectured (but not proven) to have O ( n 2 log 2 ( n ) ) {\textstyle O(n^{2}\log ^{2}(n))} complexity; Mohlenkamp also provides an implementation in the libftsh library. A spherical-harmonic algorithm with O ( n 2 log n ) {\textstyle O(n^{2}\log n)} complexity is described by Rokhlin and Tygert.
The fast folding algorithm is analogous to the FFT, except that it operates on a series of binned waveforms rather than a series of real or complex scalar values. Rotation (which in the FFT is multiplication by a complex phasor) is a circular shift of the component waveform.
Various groups have also published "FFT" algorithms for non-equispaced data, as reviewed in Potts et al. (2001). Such algorithms do not strictly compute the DFT (which is only defined for equispaced data), but rather some approximation thereof (a non-uniform discrete Fourier transform, or NDFT, which itself is often computed only approximately). More generally there are various other methods of spectral estimation.
The FFT is used in digital recording, sampling, additive synthesis and pitch correction software.
The FFT's importance derives from the fact that it has made working in the frequency domain equally computationally feasible as working in the temporal or spatial domain. Some of the important applications of the FFT include:
An original application of the FFT in finance particularly in the Valuation of options was developed by Marcello Minenna.
FFT-related algorithms:
FFT implementations:
Other links:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an algorithm that computes the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of a sequence, or its inverse (IDFT). Fourier analysis converts a signal from its original domain (often time or space) to a representation in the frequency domain and vice versa. The DFT is obtained by decomposing a sequence of values into components of different frequencies. This operation is useful in many fields, but computing it directly from the definition is often too slow to be practical. An FFT rapidly computes such transformations by factorizing the DFT matrix into a product of sparse (mostly zero) factors. As a result, it manages to reduce the complexity of computing the DFT from O ( n 2 ) {\\textstyle O(n^{2})} , which arises if one simply applies the definition of DFT, to O ( n log n ) {\\textstyle O(n\\log n)} , where n is the data size. The difference in speed can be enormous, especially for long data sets where n may be in the thousands or millions. In the presence of round-off error, many FFT algorithms are much more accurate than evaluating the DFT definition directly or indirectly. There are many different FFT algorithms based on a wide range of published theories, from simple complex-number arithmetic to group theory and number theory.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Fast Fourier transforms are widely used for applications in engineering, music, science, and mathematics. The basic ideas were popularized in 1965, but some algorithms had been derived as early as 1805. In 1994, Gilbert Strang described the FFT as \"the most important numerical algorithm of our lifetime\", and it was included in Top 10 Algorithms of 20th Century by the IEEE magazine Computing in Science & Engineering.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The best-known FFT algorithms depend upon the factorization of n, but there are FFTs with O ( n log n ) {\\displaystyle O(n\\log n)} complexity for all, even prime, n. Many FFT algorithms depend only on the fact that e − 2 π i / n {\\textstyle e^{-2\\pi i/n}} is an n'th primitive root of unity, and thus can be applied to analogous transforms over any finite field, such as number-theoretic transforms. Since the inverse DFT is the same as the DFT, but with the opposite sign in the exponent and a 1/n factor, any FFT algorithm can easily be adapted for it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The development of fast algorithms for DFT can be traced to Carl Friedrich Gauss's unpublished 1805 work on the orbits of asteroids Pallas and Juno. Gauss wanted to interpolate the orbits from sample observations; his method was very similar to the one that would be published in 1965 by James Cooley and John Tukey, who are generally credited for the invention of the modern generic FFT algorithm. While Gauss's work predated even Joseph Fourier's 1822 results, he did not analyze the method's complexity, and eventually used other methods to achieve the same end.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Between 1805 and 1965, some versions of FFT were published by other authors. Frank Yates in 1932 published his version called interaction algorithm, which provided efficient computation of Hadamard and Walsh transforms. Yates' algorithm is still used in the field of statistical design and analysis of experiments. In 1942, G. C. Danielson and Cornelius Lanczos published their version to compute DFT for x-ray crystallography, a field where calculation of Fourier transforms presented a formidable bottleneck. While many methods in the past had focused on reducing the constant factor for O ( n 2 ) {\\textstyle O(n^{2})} computation by taking advantage of \"symmetries\", Danielson and Lanczos realized that one could use the \"periodicity\" and apply a \"doubling trick\" to \"double [n] with only slightly more than double the labor\", though like Gauss they did not analyze that this led to O ( n log n ) {\\textstyle O(n\\log n)} scaling.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "James Cooley and John Tukey independently rediscovered these earlier algorithms and published a more general FFT in 1965 that is applicable when n is composite and not necessarily a power of 2, as well as analyzing the O ( n log n ) {\\textstyle O(n\\log n)} scaling. Tukey came up with the idea during a meeting of President Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee where a discussion topic involved detecting nuclear tests by the Soviet Union by setting up sensors to surround the country from outside. To analyze the output of these sensors, an FFT algorithm would be needed. In discussion with Tukey, Richard Garwin recognized the general applicability of the algorithm not just to national security problems, but also to a wide range of problems including one of immediate interest to him, determining the periodicities of the spin orientations in a 3-D crystal of Helium-3. Garwin gave Tukey's idea to Cooley (both worked at IBM's Watson labs) for implementation. Cooley and Tukey published the paper in a relatively short time of six months. As Tukey did not work at IBM, the patentability of the idea was doubted and the algorithm went into the public domain, which, through the computing revolution of the next decade, made FFT one of the indispensable algorithms in digital signal processing.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Let x 0 , … , x n − 1 {\\displaystyle x_{0},\\ldots ,x_{n-1}} be complex numbers. The DFT is defined by the formula",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "where e i 2 π / n {\\displaystyle e^{i2\\pi /n}} is a primitive n'th root of 1.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Evaluating this definition directly requires O ( n 2 ) {\\textstyle O(n^{2})} operations: there are n outputs Xk , and each output requires a sum of n terms. An FFT is any method to compute the same results in O ( n log n ) {\\textstyle O(n\\log n)} operations. All known FFT algorithms require O ( n log n ) {\\textstyle O(n\\log n)} operations, although there is no known proof that lower complexity is impossible.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "To illustrate the savings of an FFT, consider the count of complex multiplications and additions for n = 4096 {\\textstyle n=4096} data points. Evaluating the DFT's sums directly involves n 2 {\\textstyle n^{2}} complex multiplications and n ( n − 1 ) {\\textstyle n(n-1)} complex additions, of which O ( n ) {\\textstyle O(n)} operations can be saved by eliminating trivial operations such as multiplications by 1, leaving about 30 million operations. In contrast, the radix-2 Cooley–Tukey algorithm, for n a power of 2, can compute the same result with only ( n / 2 ) log 2 ( n ) {\\textstyle (n/2)\\log _{2}(n)} complex multiplications (again, ignoring simplifications of multiplications by 1 and similar) and n log 2 ( n ) {\\textstyle n\\log _{2}(n)} complex additions, in total about 30,000 operations — a thousand times less than with direct evaluation. In practice, actual performance on modern computers is usually dominated by factors other than the speed of arithmetic operations and the analysis is a complicated subject (for example, see Frigo & Johnson, 2005), but the overall improvement from O ( n 2 ) {\\textstyle O(n^{2})} to O ( n log n ) {\\textstyle O(n\\log n)} remains.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "By far the most commonly used FFT is the Cooley–Tukey algorithm. This is a divide-and-conquer algorithm that recursively breaks down a DFT of any composite size n = n 1 n 2 {\\textstyle n=n_{1}n_{2}} into many smaller DFTs of sizes n 1 {\\textstyle n_{1}} and n 2 {\\textstyle n_{2}} , along with O ( n ) {\\displaystyle O(n)} multiplications by complex roots of unity traditionally called twiddle factors (after Gentleman and Sande, 1966).",
"title": "Algorithms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "This method (and the general idea of an FFT) was popularized by a publication of Cooley and Tukey in 1965, but it was later discovered that those two authors had independently re-invented an algorithm known to Carl Friedrich Gauss around 1805 (and subsequently rediscovered several times in limited forms).",
"title": "Algorithms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The best known use of the Cooley–Tukey algorithm is to divide the transform into two pieces of size n/2 at each step, and is therefore limited to power-of-two sizes, but any factorization can be used in general (as was known to both Gauss and Cooley/Tukey). These are called the radix-2 and mixed-radix cases, respectively (and other variants such as the split-radix FFT have their own names as well). Although the basic idea is recursive, most traditional implementations rearrange the algorithm to avoid explicit recursion. Also, because the Cooley–Tukey algorithm breaks the DFT into smaller DFTs, it can be combined arbitrarily with any other algorithm for the DFT, such as those described below.",
"title": "Algorithms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "There are FFT algorithms other than Cooley–Tukey.",
"title": "Algorithms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "For n = n 1 n 2 {\\textstyle n=n_{1}n_{2}} with coprime n 1 {\\textstyle n_{1}} and n 2 {\\textstyle n_{2}} , one can use the prime-factor (Good–Thomas) algorithm (PFA), based on the Chinese remainder theorem, to factorize the DFT similarly to Cooley–Tukey but without the twiddle factors. The Rader–Brenner algorithm (1976) is a Cooley–Tukey-like factorization but with purely imaginary twiddle factors, reducing multiplications at the cost of increased additions and reduced numerical stability; it was later superseded by the split-radix variant of Cooley–Tukey (which achieves the same multiplication count but with fewer additions and without sacrificing accuracy). Algorithms that recursively factorize the DFT into smaller operations other than DFTs include the Bruun and QFT algorithms. (The Rader–Brenner and QFT algorithms were proposed for power-of-two sizes, but it is possible that they could be adapted to general composite n. Bruun's algorithm applies to arbitrary even composite sizes.) Bruun's algorithm, in particular, is based on interpreting the FFT as a recursive factorization of the polynomial z n − 1 {\\displaystyle z^{n}-1} , here into real-coefficient polynomials of the form z m − 1 {\\displaystyle z^{m}-1} and z 2 m + a z m + 1 {\\displaystyle z^{2m}+az^{m}+1} .",
"title": "Algorithms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Another polynomial viewpoint is exploited by the Winograd FFT algorithm, which factorizes z n − 1 {\\displaystyle z^{n}-1} into cyclotomic polynomials—these often have coefficients of 1, 0, or −1, and therefore require few (if any) multiplications, so Winograd can be used to obtain minimal-multiplication FFTs and is often used to find efficient algorithms for small factors. Indeed, Winograd showed that the DFT can be computed with only O ( n ) {\\displaystyle O(n)} irrational multiplications, leading to a proven achievable lower bound on the number of multiplications for power-of-two sizes; unfortunately, this comes at the cost of many more additions, a tradeoff no longer favorable on modern processors with hardware multipliers. In particular, Winograd also makes use of the PFA as well as an algorithm by Rader for FFTs of prime sizes.",
"title": "Algorithms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Rader's algorithm, exploiting the existence of a generator for the multiplicative group modulo prime n, expresses a DFT of prime size n as a cyclic convolution of (composite) size n – 1, which can then be computed by a pair of ordinary FFTs via the convolution theorem (although Winograd uses other convolution methods). Another prime-size FFT is due to L. I. Bluestein, and is sometimes called the chirp-z algorithm; it also re-expresses a DFT as a convolution, but this time of the same size (which can be zero-padded to a power of two and evaluated by radix-2 Cooley–Tukey FFTs, for example), via the identity",
"title": "Algorithms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Hexagonal fast Fourier transform (HFFT) aims at computing an efficient FFT for the hexagonally-sampled data by using a new addressing scheme for hexagonal grids, called Array Set Addressing (ASA).",
"title": "Algorithms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In many applications, the input data for the DFT are purely real, in which case the outputs satisfy the symmetry",
"title": "FFT algorithms specialized for real or symmetric data"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "and efficient FFT algorithms have been designed for this situation (see e.g. Sorensen, 1987). One approach consists of taking an ordinary algorithm (e.g. Cooley–Tukey) and removing the redundant parts of the computation, saving roughly a factor of two in time and memory. Alternatively, it is possible to express an even-length real-input DFT as a complex DFT of half the length (whose real and imaginary parts are the even/odd elements of the original real data), followed by O ( n ) {\\displaystyle O(n)} post-processing operations.",
"title": "FFT algorithms specialized for real or symmetric data"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "It was once believed that real-input DFTs could be more efficiently computed by means of the discrete Hartley transform (DHT), but it was subsequently argued that a specialized real-input DFT algorithm (FFT) can typically be found that requires fewer operations than the corresponding DHT algorithm (FHT) for the same number of inputs. Bruun's algorithm (above) is another method that was initially proposed to take advantage of real inputs, but it has not proved popular.",
"title": "FFT algorithms specialized for real or symmetric data"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "There are further FFT specializations for the cases of real data that have even/odd symmetry, in which case one can gain another factor of roughly two in time and memory and the DFT becomes the discrete cosine/sine transform(s) (DCT/DST). Instead of directly modifying an FFT algorithm for these cases, DCTs/DSTs can also be computed via FFTs of real data combined with O ( n ) {\\displaystyle O(n)} pre- and post-processing.",
"title": "FFT algorithms specialized for real or symmetric data"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "What is the lower bound on the complexity of fast Fourier transform algorithms? Can they be faster than O ( N log N ) {\\displaystyle O(N\\log N)} ?",
"title": "Computational issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "A fundamental question of longstanding theoretical interest is to prove lower bounds on the complexity and exact operation counts of fast Fourier transforms, and many open problems remain. It is not rigorously proved whether DFTs truly require Ω ( n log n ) {\\textstyle \\Omega (n\\log n)} (i.e., order n log n {\\displaystyle n\\log n} or greater) operations, even for the simple case of power of two sizes, although no algorithms with lower complexity are known. In particular, the count of arithmetic operations is usually the focus of such questions, although actual performance on modern-day computers is determined by many other factors such as cache or CPU pipeline optimization.",
"title": "Computational issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Following work by Shmuel Winograd (1978), a tight Θ ( n ) {\\displaystyle \\Theta (n)} lower bound is known for the number of real multiplications required by an FFT. It can be shown that only 4 n − 2 log 2 2 ( n ) − 2 log 2 ( n ) − 4 {\\textstyle 4n-2\\log _{2}^{2}(n)-2\\log _{2}(n)-4} irrational real multiplications are required to compute a DFT of power-of-two length n = 2 m {\\displaystyle n=2^{m}} . Moreover, explicit algorithms that achieve this count are known (Heideman & Burrus, 1986; Duhamel, 1990). However, these algorithms require too many additions to be practical, at least on modern computers with hardware multipliers (Duhamel, 1990; Frigo & Johnson, 2005).",
"title": "Computational issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "A tight lower bound is not known on the number of required additions, although lower bounds have been proved under some restrictive assumptions on the algorithms. In 1973, Morgenstern proved an Ω ( n log n ) {\\displaystyle \\Omega (n\\log n)} lower bound on the addition count for algorithms where the multiplicative constants have bounded magnitudes (which is true for most but not all FFT algorithms). Pan (1986) proved an Ω ( n log n ) {\\displaystyle \\Omega (n\\log n)} lower bound assuming a bound on a measure of the FFT algorithm's \"asynchronicity\", but the generality of this assumption is unclear. For the case of power-of-two n, Papadimitriou (1979) argued that the number n log 2 n {\\textstyle n\\log _{2}n} of complex-number additions achieved by Cooley–Tukey algorithms is optimal under certain assumptions on the graph of the algorithm (his assumptions imply, among other things, that no additive identities in the roots of unity are exploited). (This argument would imply that at least 2 N log 2 N {\\textstyle 2N\\log _{2}N} real additions are required, although this is not a tight bound because extra additions are required as part of complex-number multiplications.) Thus far, no published FFT algorithm has achieved fewer than n log 2 n {\\textstyle n\\log _{2}n} complex-number additions (or their equivalent) for power-of-two n.",
"title": "Computational issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "A third problem is to minimize the total number of real multiplications and additions, sometimes called the \"arithmetic complexity\" (although in this context it is the exact count and not the asymptotic complexity that is being considered). Again, no tight lower bound has been proven. Since 1968, however, the lowest published count for power-of-two n was long achieved by the split-radix FFT algorithm, which requires 4 n log 2 ( n ) − 6 n + 8 {\\textstyle 4n\\log _{2}(n)-6n+8} real multiplications and additions for n > 1. This was recently reduced to ∼ 34 9 n log 2 n {\\textstyle \\sim {\\frac {34}{9}}n\\log _{2}n} (Johnson and Frigo, 2007; Lundy and Van Buskirk, 2007). A slightly larger count (but still better than split radix for n ≥ 256) was shown to be provably optimal for n ≤ 512 under additional restrictions on the possible algorithms (split-radix-like flowgraphs with unit-modulus multiplicative factors), by reduction to a satisfiability modulo theories problem solvable by brute force (Haynal & Haynal, 2011).",
"title": "Computational issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Most of the attempts to lower or prove the complexity of FFT algorithms have focused on the ordinary complex-data case, because it is the simplest. However, complex-data FFTs are so closely related to algorithms for related problems such as real-data FFTs, discrete cosine transforms, discrete Hartley transforms, and so on, that any improvement in one of these would immediately lead to improvements in the others (Duhamel & Vetterli, 1990).",
"title": "Computational issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "All of the FFT algorithms discussed above compute the DFT exactly (i.e. neglecting floating-point errors). A few \"FFT\" algorithms have been proposed, however, that compute the DFT approximately, with an error that can be made arbitrarily small at the expense of increased computations. Such algorithms trade the approximation error for increased speed or other properties. For example, an approximate FFT algorithm by Edelman et al. (1999) achieves lower communication requirements for parallel computing with the help of a fast multipole method. A wavelet-based approximate FFT by Guo and Burrus (1996) takes sparse inputs/outputs (time/frequency localization) into account more efficiently than is possible with an exact FFT. Another algorithm for approximate computation of a subset of the DFT outputs is due to Shentov et al. (1995). The Edelman algorithm works equally well for sparse and non-sparse data, since it is based on the compressibility (rank deficiency) of the Fourier matrix itself rather than the compressibility (sparsity) of the data. Conversely, if the data are sparse—that is, if only k out of n Fourier coefficients are nonzero—then the complexity can be reduced to O ( k log n log n / k ) {\\displaystyle O(k\\log n\\log n/k)} , and this has been demonstrated to lead to practical speedups compared to an ordinary FFT for n/k > 32 in a large-n example (n = 2) using a probabilistic approximate algorithm (which estimates the largest k coefficients to several decimal places).",
"title": "Computational issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "FFT algorithms have errors when finite-precision floating-point arithmetic is used, but these errors are typically quite small; most FFT algorithms, e.g. Cooley–Tukey, have excellent numerical properties as a consequence of the pairwise summation structure of the algorithms. The upper bound on the relative error for the Cooley–Tukey algorithm is O ( ε log n ) {\\textstyle O(\\varepsilon \\log n)} , compared to O ( ε n 3 / 2 ) {\\textstyle O(\\varepsilon n^{3/2})} for the naïve DFT formula, where 𝜀 is the machine floating-point relative precision. In fact, the root mean square (rms) errors are much better than these upper bounds, being only O ( ε log n ) {\\textstyle O(\\varepsilon {\\sqrt {\\log n}})} for Cooley–Tukey and O ( ε n ) {\\textstyle O(\\varepsilon {\\sqrt {n}})} for the naïve DFT (Schatzman, 1996). These results, however, are very sensitive to the accuracy of the twiddle factors used in the FFT (i.e. the trigonometric function values), and it is not unusual for incautious FFT implementations to have much worse accuracy, e.g. if they use inaccurate trigonometric recurrence formulas. Some FFTs other than Cooley–Tukey, such as the Rader–Brenner algorithm, are intrinsically less stable.",
"title": "Computational issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In fixed-point arithmetic, the finite-precision errors accumulated by FFT algorithms are worse, with rms errors growing as O ( n ) {\\textstyle O({\\sqrt {n}})} for the Cooley–Tukey algorithm (Welch, 1969). Achieving this accuracy requires careful attention to scaling to minimize loss of precision, and fixed-point FFT algorithms involve rescaling at each intermediate stage of decompositions like Cooley–Tukey.",
"title": "Computational issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "To verify the correctness of an FFT implementation, rigorous guarantees can be obtained in O ( n log n ) {\\textstyle O(n\\log n)} time by a simple procedure checking the linearity, impulse-response, and time-shift properties of the transform on random inputs (Ergün, 1995).",
"title": "Computational issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "As defined in the multidimensional DFT article, the multidimensional DFT",
"title": "Multidimensional FFTs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "transforms an array xn with a d-dimensional vector of indices n = ( n 1 , … , n d ) {\\textstyle \\mathbf {n} =\\left(n_{1},\\ldots ,n_{d}\\right)} by a set of d nested summations (over n j = 0 … N j − 1 {\\textstyle n_{j}=0\\ldots N_{j}-1} for each j), where the division n / N = ( n 1 / N 1 , … , n d / N d ) {\\textstyle \\mathbf {n} /\\mathbf {N} =\\left(n_{1}/N_{1},\\ldots ,n_{d}/N_{d}\\right)} is performed element-wise. Equivalently, it is the composition of a sequence of d sets of one-dimensional DFTs, performed along one dimension at a time (in any order).",
"title": "Multidimensional FFTs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "This compositional viewpoint immediately provides the simplest and most common multidimensional DFT algorithm, known as the row-column algorithm (after the two-dimensional case, below). That is, one simply performs a sequence of d one-dimensional FFTs (by any of the above algorithms): first you transform along the n1 dimension, then along the n2 dimension, and so on (actually, any ordering works). This method is easily shown to have the usual O ( n log n ) {\\textstyle O(n\\log n)} complexity, where n = n 1 ⋅ n 2 ⋯ n d {\\textstyle n=n_{1}\\cdot n_{2}\\cdots n_{d}} is the total number of data points transformed. In particular, there are n/n1 transforms of size n1, etc., so the complexity of the sequence of FFTs is:",
"title": "Multidimensional FFTs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In two dimensions, the xk can be viewed as an n 1 × n 2 {\\displaystyle n_{1}\\times n_{2}} matrix, and this algorithm corresponds to first performing the FFT of all the rows (resp. columns), grouping the resulting transformed rows (resp. columns) together as another n 1 × n 2 {\\displaystyle n_{1}\\times n_{2}} matrix, and then performing the FFT on each of the columns (resp. rows) of this second matrix, and similarly grouping the results into the final result matrix.",
"title": "Multidimensional FFTs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In more than two dimensions, it is often advantageous for cache locality to group the dimensions recursively. For example, a three-dimensional FFT might first perform two-dimensional FFTs of each planar \"slice\" for each fixed n1, and then perform the one-dimensional FFTs along the n1 direction. More generally, an asymptotically optimal cache-oblivious algorithm consists of recursively dividing the dimensions into two groups ( n 1 , … , n d / 2 ) {\\textstyle (n_{1},\\ldots ,n_{d/2})} and ( n d / 2 + 1 , … , n d ) {\\textstyle (n_{d/2+1},\\ldots ,n_{d})} that are transformed recursively (rounding if d is not even) (see Frigo and Johnson, 2005). Still, this remains a straightforward variation of the row-column algorithm that ultimately requires only a one-dimensional FFT algorithm as the base case, and still has O ( n log n ) {\\displaystyle O(n\\log n)} complexity. Yet another variation is to perform matrix transpositions in between transforming subsequent dimensions, so that the transforms operate on contiguous data; this is especially important for out-of-core and distributed memory situations where accessing non-contiguous data is extremely time-consuming.",
"title": "Multidimensional FFTs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "There are other multidimensional FFT algorithms that are distinct from the row-column algorithm, although all of them have O ( n log n ) {\\textstyle O(n\\log n)} complexity. Perhaps the simplest non-row-column FFT is the vector-radix FFT algorithm, which is a generalization of the ordinary Cooley–Tukey algorithm where one divides the transform dimensions by a vector r = ( r 1 , r 2 , … , r d ) {\\textstyle \\mathbf {r} =\\left(r_{1},r_{2},\\ldots ,r_{d}\\right)} of radices at each step. (This may also have cache benefits.) The simplest case of vector-radix is where all of the radices are equal (e.g. vector-radix-2 divides all of the dimensions by two), but this is not necessary. Vector radix with only a single non-unit radix at a time, i.e. r = ( 1 , … , 1 , r , 1 , … , 1 ) {\\textstyle \\mathbf {r} =\\left(1,\\ldots ,1,r,1,\\ldots ,1\\right)} , is essentially a row-column algorithm. Other, more complicated, methods include polynomial transform algorithms due to Nussbaumer (1977), which view the transform in terms of convolutions and polynomial products. See Duhamel and Vetterli (1990) for more information and references.",
"title": "Multidimensional FFTs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "An O ( n 5 / 2 log n ) {\\textstyle O(n^{5/2}\\log n)} generalization to spherical harmonics on the sphere s with n nodes was described by Mohlenkamp, along with an algorithm conjectured (but not proven) to have O ( n 2 log 2 ( n ) ) {\\textstyle O(n^{2}\\log ^{2}(n))} complexity; Mohlenkamp also provides an implementation in the libftsh library. A spherical-harmonic algorithm with O ( n 2 log n ) {\\textstyle O(n^{2}\\log n)} complexity is described by Rokhlin and Tygert.",
"title": "Other generalizations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The fast folding algorithm is analogous to the FFT, except that it operates on a series of binned waveforms rather than a series of real or complex scalar values. Rotation (which in the FFT is multiplication by a complex phasor) is a circular shift of the component waveform.",
"title": "Other generalizations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Various groups have also published \"FFT\" algorithms for non-equispaced data, as reviewed in Potts et al. (2001). Such algorithms do not strictly compute the DFT (which is only defined for equispaced data), but rather some approximation thereof (a non-uniform discrete Fourier transform, or NDFT, which itself is often computed only approximately). More generally there are various other methods of spectral estimation.",
"title": "Other generalizations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The FFT is used in digital recording, sampling, additive synthesis and pitch correction software.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The FFT's importance derives from the fact that it has made working in the frequency domain equally computationally feasible as working in the temporal or spatial domain. Some of the important applications of the FFT include:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "An original application of the FFT in finance particularly in the Valuation of options was developed by Marcello Minenna.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "FFT-related algorithms:",
"title": "See also"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "FFT implementations:",
"title": "See also"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Other links:",
"title": "See also"
}
] |
A fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an algorithm that computes the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of a sequence, or its inverse (IDFT). Fourier analysis converts a signal from its original domain to a representation in the frequency domain and vice versa. The DFT is obtained by decomposing a sequence of values into components of different frequencies. This operation is useful in many fields, but computing it directly from the definition is often too slow to be practical. An FFT rapidly computes such transformations by factorizing the DFT matrix into a product of sparse factors. As a result, it manages to reduce the complexity of computing the DFT from O , which arises if one simply applies the definition of DFT, to O , where n is the data size. The difference in speed can be enormous, especially for long data sets where n may be in the thousands or millions. In the presence of round-off error, many FFT algorithms are much more accurate than evaluating the DFT definition directly or indirectly. There are many different FFT algorithms based on a wide range of published theories, from simple complex-number arithmetic to group theory and number theory. Fast Fourier transforms are widely used for applications in engineering, music, science, and mathematics. The basic ideas were popularized in 1965, but some algorithms had been derived as early as 1805. In 1994, Gilbert Strang described the FFT as "the most important numerical algorithm of our lifetime", and it was included in Top 10 Algorithms of 20th Century by the IEEE magazine Computing in Science & Engineering. The best-known FFT algorithms depend upon the factorization of n, but there are FFTs with O complexity for all, even prime, n. Many FFT algorithms depend only on the fact that e − 2 π i / n is an n'th primitive root of unity, and thus can be applied to analogous transforms over any finite field, such as number-theoretic transforms. Since the inverse DFT is the same as the DFT, but with the opposite sign in the exponent and a 1/n factor, any FFT algorithm can easily be adapted for it.
|
2002-02-25T15:51:15Z
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2023-12-25T03:48:47Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Fourier_transform
|
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Fort William, Scotland
|
Fort William is a town in Lochaber in the Scottish Highlands, located on the eastern shore of Loch Linnhe. At the 2011 census, Fort William had a population of 10,459, making it the second largest settlement in both the Highland council area, and the whole of the Scottish Highlands; only the city of Inverness has a larger population.
Fort William is a major tourist centre on the Road to the Isles, with Glen Coe just to the south, Ben Nevis and Aonach Mòr to the east, and Glenfinnan to the west. It is a centre for hillwalking and climbing due to its proximity to Ben Nevis and many other Munros. It is also known for its nearby downhill mountain bike track. It is the start/end of both the West Highland Way (Milngavie – Fort William) and the Great Glen Way (a walk/cycle way Fort William–Inverness).
Around 726 people (7.33% of the population) can speak Gaelic.
The earliest recorded settlement on the site is a Cromwellian wooden fort built in 1654 as a base for the New Model Army to "pacify" Clan Cameron after the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The post-1688 revolution fort was named Fort William after William of Orange, who ordered that it be built to control some of the Scottish clans. The settlement that grew around it was called Maryburgh, after his wife Mary II of England. This settlement was later renamed Gordonsburgh, and then Duncansburgh before being renamed Fort William, this time after Prince William, Duke of Cumberland. There have been various suggestions over the years to rename the town (for example, to Invernevis).
The origin of the Gaelic name for Fort William, An Gearasdan, is not recorded but could be a loanword from the English garrison, having entered common usage some time after the royal garrison was established, during the reign of William of Orange or perhaps after the earlier Cromwellian fort.
Historically, the Fort William area of Lochaber was old Clan Chattan and then Clan Cameron country, and there were a number of mainly Cameron settlements in the area (such as Blarmacfoldach). Before the building of the fort, Inverlochy was the main local settlement and was also the site of two battles—the first Battle of Inverlochy in 1431 and the second Battle of Inverlochy in 1645.
The town grew in size as a settlement when the fort was constructed to control the population after Oliver Cromwell's invasion during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and then to suppress the Jacobite risings after the 1688 overthrow of the House of Stuart.
During the 1745 Jacobite Rising, known as the Forty-Five, Fort William was besieged for two weeks by the Jacobite forces, from 20 March to 3 April 1746. However, although the Jacobites had captured both of the other forts in the chain of three Great Glen fortifications (Fort Augustus and the original Fort George), they failed to take Fort William.
In 1934, the Laggan Dam on the River Spean was completed as part of the Lochaber hydroelectric scheme by Balfour Beatty for the British Aluminium Company. The supervising engineers were the firm of C. S. Meik and William Halcrow, now known as the Halcrow Group. The dam was built to power the aluminum smelter.
During the Second World War, Fort William was the home of HMS St Christopher, which was a training base for Royal Navy Coastal Forces.
In November 2016, Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty House Group purchased the Lochaber aluminum plant from the Rio Tinto Group.
On 3 April 2021, it came to light during Gupta's financial troubles involving Greensill Capital that the Jahama Highland Estates (formerly the "Alcan Estate") had been purchased in 2016 as part of the Rio Tinto Mines deal for the Lochaber aluminium plant, because the furnace requires so much power that the smelter is located near a hydroelectric plant, which drains the basin of the 114,000-acre (46,000-hectare) Estate.
The Estate includes the north face of Ben Nevis. According to reports, the Scottish National Party mandated that the Estate never be split from the hydro plant and aluminium smelter, but Gupta ignored them and placed ownership of the Estate in a company that is domiciled on the Isle of Man. The 2016 deal was worth £330 million and was guaranteed by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer. Conservative finance spokesperson Murdo Fraser was critical of the alleged breach of the SNP agreement and urged the SNP to "take whatever steps are necessary to protect public funds".
A "Waterfront" development was proposed by the council, but failed due to lack of public support. The development would have included a hotel, shops, and housing. The proposed development was slated to take 7 years by the local council, but opponents of the project said that it was unlikely to be completed before 2020. It was announced in April 2010 that the project had been abandoned.
Originally based on the still-extant village of Inverlochy, the town lies at the southern end of the Great Glen. Fort William lies near the head of Loch Linnhe, one of Scotland's longest sea lochs, beside the mouth of the rivers Nevis and Lochy. They join in the intertidal zone and briefly become one river before discharging to the sea. The town and its suburbs are surrounded by mountains. It is also on the shore of Loch Eil. It is close to Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles, Glen Nevis, and the town of Achnaphubuil, which is on the opposite shore of the loch. The original railway station, which was opened on 7 August 1894, was at the south end of the town. The consequence of this decision was that the town was separated from the lochside by railway tracks until the 1970s, when the present by-pass was built, and the station was re-located to the north end.
The town is centred on the High Street, which was pedestrianised in the 1990s. Off this, there are several squares: Monzie Square (named after the Cameron Campbells of Monzie, Perthshire, former landowners in the town); Station Square, where the long-since demolished railway station used to be; Gordon Square (named after the Gordons, who in the late 18th century owned land where the town now stands, when the town was named Gordonsburgh); and Cameron Square—formerly known as Town Hall Square. There is also Fraser Square, which is not so square-like, since it now opens out into Middle Street, but which still houses the Imperial Hotel.
The main residential areas of the town are unseen from the High Street and from the A82 main road. Upper Achintore and the Plantation spread steeply uphill from above the high street.
Inverlochy, Claggan, An-Aird, Lochyside, Caol, Banavie and Corpach outwith (i.e. outside) the town are the other main residential areas. These areas are built on much flatter land than the town.
Fort William is the northern end of the West Highland Way, a long-distance route which runs 95 miles (153 kilometres) through the Scottish Highlands to Milngavie, on the outskirts of Glasgow, and the start/end point of the Great Glen Way, which runs between Fort William and Inverness.
Glenfinnan, 17 miles (27 kilometres) away, is home of the Glenfinnan Monument (Jacobite era) and the famous Glenfinnan Viaduct (as seen on a Bank Of Scotland £10 note). The viaduct has become known to millions in recent years as the "Harry Potter Bridge" after it featured in the films of the books by J.K. Rowling, specifically Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Glenfinnan has also been used in Charlotte Gray and Highlander.
Just outside the town is a large aluminium plant once operated by Alcan and powered by the Lochaber hydroelectric scheme, in its day the biggest tunnelling project in the world. This was formerly served by the Lochaber Narrow Gauge Railway better known locally as the Puggy Line.
Fort William has an oceanic climate (Cfb) with moderate, but generally cool, temperatures and abundant precipitation. Fort William is one of the wettest locations in the British Isles, with December being the wettest month.
The West Highland Line passes through Fort William. Owing to the difficult terrain in the area, the line from Glasgow to the south, enters from the north-east. Trains from Glasgow to Mallaig, the terminus of the line, have to reverse at Fort William railway station.
An overnight train, the Caledonian sleeper, has its terminus at Fort William; this service is known colloquially as "The Deerstalker". The stands for local buses and express coaches are on MacFarlane Way adjacent to the railway station.
The Caledonian Canal connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast at Corpach near Fort William.
The Corran Ferry crosses Loch Linnhe, connecting the A82 to A861.
Fort William is located on the A82. The closest motorway access is the junction after Erskine bridge ( just off the A82) of the M898 near Erskine Renfrewshire, 98 miles to the south west, joining onto the M8 motorway and the south.
Just outside the town, parallel to the Nevis Range Gondola, there is a large downhill mountain bike track which attracts thousands of visitors every year, including international competitors and fans.
Each year since 2002, Fort William has hosted a round of UCI Mountain Bike World Cup and, in 2007, it hosted the UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships ('The Worlds'). Also a trials competition is held at the various courses at the bottom.
Fort William has hosted the World Endurance Mountain Bike Organisation (WEMBO) solo 24 hour championship in 2014 and again in 2018. The event consists of riders racing for a full 24 hours and is won by the rider who has completed the greater number of laps.
Fort William is the home of the Scottish Six Day Motorcycle Trial (SSDT); it is held annually in the first full week of May. It attracts many competitors from all across the globe and, in 2011, the event celebrated its centenary year.
Fort William has two major shinty teams: Fort William Shinty Club and Kilmallie Shinty Club. It also has a football team, Fort William F.C., that competes in the Scottish North Caledonian League and plays home games at Claggan Park. There is also a cricket club at Fort William that participates in the North of Scotland Cricket Association league (NoSCA).
In addition, the town is home to Lochaber Rugby Club and to the Lochaber Yacht Club, a Community Amateur Sports Club that was founded in 1954. The town also has one golf club, called Fort William Golf Club, which has eighteen holes and is open all-year-round; it also hosts weekly competitions.
Movies filmed in or near Fort William include Being Human, Braveheart, Highlander, Restless Natives, Harry Potter and Rob Roy. The TV series Rockface was filmed mainly around Fort William and some scenes of Monarch of the Glen were filmed around Lochaber, although mostly near Newtonmore. Local Hero shot the internal Houston scenes in Fort William.
In a celebration of mountains and the culture that surrounds them, and in recognition of the importance of climbing and walking tourism to the town, the Fort William Mountain Festival is held there each year. For a number of years, this volunteer-led festival has concentrated mostly around film but, starting in the Year of Highland Culture – Highland 2007, its scope was widened, and it dropped the word 'film' from its title.
Lochaber High School is the local high school and serves a large catchment area which includes the surrounding villages. West Highland College is part of the University of the Highlands & Islands. It hosts the School of Adventure Studies (SOAS) offering both FE courses & HE honours degrees.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fort William is a town in Lochaber in the Scottish Highlands, located on the eastern shore of Loch Linnhe. At the 2011 census, Fort William had a population of 10,459, making it the second largest settlement in both the Highland council area, and the whole of the Scottish Highlands; only the city of Inverness has a larger population.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Fort William is a major tourist centre on the Road to the Isles, with Glen Coe just to the south, Ben Nevis and Aonach Mòr to the east, and Glenfinnan to the west. It is a centre for hillwalking and climbing due to its proximity to Ben Nevis and many other Munros. It is also known for its nearby downhill mountain bike track. It is the start/end of both the West Highland Way (Milngavie – Fort William) and the Great Glen Way (a walk/cycle way Fort William–Inverness).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Around 726 people (7.33% of the population) can speak Gaelic.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The earliest recorded settlement on the site is a Cromwellian wooden fort built in 1654 as a base for the New Model Army to \"pacify\" Clan Cameron after the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The post-1688 revolution fort was named Fort William after William of Orange, who ordered that it be built to control some of the Scottish clans. The settlement that grew around it was called Maryburgh, after his wife Mary II of England. This settlement was later renamed Gordonsburgh, and then Duncansburgh before being renamed Fort William, this time after Prince William, Duke of Cumberland. There have been various suggestions over the years to rename the town (for example, to Invernevis).",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The origin of the Gaelic name for Fort William, An Gearasdan, is not recorded but could be a loanword from the English garrison, having entered common usage some time after the royal garrison was established, during the reign of William of Orange or perhaps after the earlier Cromwellian fort.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Historically, the Fort William area of Lochaber was old Clan Chattan and then Clan Cameron country, and there were a number of mainly Cameron settlements in the area (such as Blarmacfoldach). Before the building of the fort, Inverlochy was the main local settlement and was also the site of two battles—the first Battle of Inverlochy in 1431 and the second Battle of Inverlochy in 1645.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The town grew in size as a settlement when the fort was constructed to control the population after Oliver Cromwell's invasion during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and then to suppress the Jacobite risings after the 1688 overthrow of the House of Stuart.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "During the 1745 Jacobite Rising, known as the Forty-Five, Fort William was besieged for two weeks by the Jacobite forces, from 20 March to 3 April 1746. However, although the Jacobites had captured both of the other forts in the chain of three Great Glen fortifications (Fort Augustus and the original Fort George), they failed to take Fort William.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1934, the Laggan Dam on the River Spean was completed as part of the Lochaber hydroelectric scheme by Balfour Beatty for the British Aluminium Company. The supervising engineers were the firm of C. S. Meik and William Halcrow, now known as the Halcrow Group. The dam was built to power the aluminum smelter.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "During the Second World War, Fort William was the home of HMS St Christopher, which was a training base for Royal Navy Coastal Forces.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In November 2016, Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty House Group purchased the Lochaber aluminum plant from the Rio Tinto Group.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "On 3 April 2021, it came to light during Gupta's financial troubles involving Greensill Capital that the Jahama Highland Estates (formerly the \"Alcan Estate\") had been purchased in 2016 as part of the Rio Tinto Mines deal for the Lochaber aluminium plant, because the furnace requires so much power that the smelter is located near a hydroelectric plant, which drains the basin of the 114,000-acre (46,000-hectare) Estate.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Estate includes the north face of Ben Nevis. According to reports, the Scottish National Party mandated that the Estate never be split from the hydro plant and aluminium smelter, but Gupta ignored them and placed ownership of the Estate in a company that is domiciled on the Isle of Man. The 2016 deal was worth £330 million and was guaranteed by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer. Conservative finance spokesperson Murdo Fraser was critical of the alleged breach of the SNP agreement and urged the SNP to \"take whatever steps are necessary to protect public funds\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "A \"Waterfront\" development was proposed by the council, but failed due to lack of public support. The development would have included a hotel, shops, and housing. The proposed development was slated to take 7 years by the local council, but opponents of the project said that it was unlikely to be completed before 2020. It was announced in April 2010 that the project had been abandoned.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Originally based on the still-extant village of Inverlochy, the town lies at the southern end of the Great Glen. Fort William lies near the head of Loch Linnhe, one of Scotland's longest sea lochs, beside the mouth of the rivers Nevis and Lochy. They join in the intertidal zone and briefly become one river before discharging to the sea. The town and its suburbs are surrounded by mountains. It is also on the shore of Loch Eil. It is close to Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles, Glen Nevis, and the town of Achnaphubuil, which is on the opposite shore of the loch. The original railway station, which was opened on 7 August 1894, was at the south end of the town. The consequence of this decision was that the town was separated from the lochside by railway tracks until the 1970s, when the present by-pass was built, and the station was re-located to the north end.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The town is centred on the High Street, which was pedestrianised in the 1990s. Off this, there are several squares: Monzie Square (named after the Cameron Campbells of Monzie, Perthshire, former landowners in the town); Station Square, where the long-since demolished railway station used to be; Gordon Square (named after the Gordons, who in the late 18th century owned land where the town now stands, when the town was named Gordonsburgh); and Cameron Square—formerly known as Town Hall Square. There is also Fraser Square, which is not so square-like, since it now opens out into Middle Street, but which still houses the Imperial Hotel.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The main residential areas of the town are unseen from the High Street and from the A82 main road. Upper Achintore and the Plantation spread steeply uphill from above the high street.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Inverlochy, Claggan, An-Aird, Lochyside, Caol, Banavie and Corpach outwith (i.e. outside) the town are the other main residential areas. These areas are built on much flatter land than the town.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Fort William is the northern end of the West Highland Way, a long-distance route which runs 95 miles (153 kilometres) through the Scottish Highlands to Milngavie, on the outskirts of Glasgow, and the start/end point of the Great Glen Way, which runs between Fort William and Inverness.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Glenfinnan, 17 miles (27 kilometres) away, is home of the Glenfinnan Monument (Jacobite era) and the famous Glenfinnan Viaduct (as seen on a Bank Of Scotland £10 note). The viaduct has become known to millions in recent years as the \"Harry Potter Bridge\" after it featured in the films of the books by J.K. Rowling, specifically Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Glenfinnan has also been used in Charlotte Gray and Highlander.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Just outside the town is a large aluminium plant once operated by Alcan and powered by the Lochaber hydroelectric scheme, in its day the biggest tunnelling project in the world. This was formerly served by the Lochaber Narrow Gauge Railway better known locally as the Puggy Line.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Fort William has an oceanic climate (Cfb) with moderate, but generally cool, temperatures and abundant precipitation. Fort William is one of the wettest locations in the British Isles, with December being the wettest month.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The West Highland Line passes through Fort William. Owing to the difficult terrain in the area, the line from Glasgow to the south, enters from the north-east. Trains from Glasgow to Mallaig, the terminus of the line, have to reverse at Fort William railway station.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "An overnight train, the Caledonian sleeper, has its terminus at Fort William; this service is known colloquially as \"The Deerstalker\". The stands for local buses and express coaches are on MacFarlane Way adjacent to the railway station.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The Caledonian Canal connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast at Corpach near Fort William.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The Corran Ferry crosses Loch Linnhe, connecting the A82 to A861.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Fort William is located on the A82. The closest motorway access is the junction after Erskine bridge ( just off the A82) of the M898 near Erskine Renfrewshire, 98 miles to the south west, joining onto the M8 motorway and the south.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Just outside the town, parallel to the Nevis Range Gondola, there is a large downhill mountain bike track which attracts thousands of visitors every year, including international competitors and fans.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Each year since 2002, Fort William has hosted a round of UCI Mountain Bike World Cup and, in 2007, it hosted the UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships ('The Worlds'). Also a trials competition is held at the various courses at the bottom.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Fort William has hosted the World Endurance Mountain Bike Organisation (WEMBO) solo 24 hour championship in 2014 and again in 2018. The event consists of riders racing for a full 24 hours and is won by the rider who has completed the greater number of laps.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Fort William is the home of the Scottish Six Day Motorcycle Trial (SSDT); it is held annually in the first full week of May. It attracts many competitors from all across the globe and, in 2011, the event celebrated its centenary year.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Fort William has two major shinty teams: Fort William Shinty Club and Kilmallie Shinty Club. It also has a football team, Fort William F.C., that competes in the Scottish North Caledonian League and plays home games at Claggan Park. There is also a cricket club at Fort William that participates in the North of Scotland Cricket Association league (NoSCA).",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In addition, the town is home to Lochaber Rugby Club and to the Lochaber Yacht Club, a Community Amateur Sports Club that was founded in 1954. The town also has one golf club, called Fort William Golf Club, which has eighteen holes and is open all-year-round; it also hosts weekly competitions.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Movies filmed in or near Fort William include Being Human, Braveheart, Highlander, Restless Natives, Harry Potter and Rob Roy. The TV series Rockface was filmed mainly around Fort William and some scenes of Monarch of the Glen were filmed around Lochaber, although mostly near Newtonmore. Local Hero shot the internal Houston scenes in Fort William.",
"title": "As a film location"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In a celebration of mountains and the culture that surrounds them, and in recognition of the importance of climbing and walking tourism to the town, the Fort William Mountain Festival is held there each year. For a number of years, this volunteer-led festival has concentrated mostly around film but, starting in the Year of Highland Culture – Highland 2007, its scope was widened, and it dropped the word 'film' from its title.",
"title": "Festivals"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Lochaber High School is the local high school and serves a large catchment area which includes the surrounding villages. West Highland College is part of the University of the Highlands & Islands. It hosts the School of Adventure Studies (SOAS) offering both FE courses & HE honours degrees.",
"title": "Education"
}
] |
Fort William is a town in Lochaber in the Scottish Highlands, located on the eastern shore of Loch Linnhe. At the 2011 census, Fort William had a population of 10,459, making it the second largest settlement in both the Highland council area, and the whole of the Scottish Highlands; only the city of Inverness has a larger population. Fort William is a major tourist centre on the Road to the Isles, with Glen Coe just to the south, Ben Nevis and Aonach Mòr to the east, and Glenfinnan to the west. It is a centre for hillwalking and climbing due to its proximity to Ben Nevis and many other Munros. It is also known for its nearby downhill mountain bike track. It is the start/end of both the West Highland Way and the Great Glen Way. Around 726 people can speak Gaelic.
|
2001-11-16T09:46:47Z
|
2023-12-26T20:53:50Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_William,_Scotland
|
11,515 |
Glossary of French words and expressions in English
|
Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern English. English words of French origin, such as art, competition, force, machine, and table are pronounced according to English rules of phonology, rather than French, and are commonly used by English speakers without any consciousness of their French origin.
This article, on the other hand, covers French words and phrases that have entered the English lexicon without ever losing their character as Gallicisms: they remain unmistakably "French" to an English speaker. They are most common in written English, where they retain French diacritics and are usually printed in italics. In spoken English, at least some attempt is generally made to pronounce them as they would sound in French; an entirely English pronunciation is regarded as a solecism.
Some of them were never "good French", in the sense of being grammatical, idiomatic French usage. Some others were once normal French but have become very old-fashioned, or have acquired different meanings and connotations in the original language, to the extent that they would not be understood (either at all, or in the intended sense) by a native French speaker.
au sec
c'est la guerre: "That's war!", or...
c'est la vie: "That's life!" or "Such is life!"
a small pickled cucumber; French for "little horn"
Through the evolution of the language, many words and phrases are no longer used in modern French. Also there are expressions that, even though grammatically correct, do not have the same meaning in French as the English words derived from them. Some older word usages still appear in Quebec French.
International authorities have adopted a number of words and phrases from French for use by speakers of all languages in voice communications during air-sea rescues. Note that the "phonetic" versions of spelling are presented as shown and not the IPA.
It is a serious breach in most countries, and in international zones, to use any of these phrases without justification.
See Mayday (distress signal) for a more detailed explanation.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern English. English words of French origin, such as art, competition, force, machine, and table are pronounced according to English rules of phonology, rather than French, and are commonly used by English speakers without any consciousness of their French origin.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "This article, on the other hand, covers French words and phrases that have entered the English lexicon without ever losing their character as Gallicisms: they remain unmistakably \"French\" to an English speaker. They are most common in written English, where they retain French diacritics and are usually printed in italics. In spoken English, at least some attempt is generally made to pronounce them as they would sound in French; an entirely English pronunciation is regarded as a solecism.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Some of them were never \"good French\", in the sense of being grammatical, idiomatic French usage. Some others were once normal French but have become very old-fashioned, or have acquired different meanings and connotations in the original language, to the extent that they would not be understood (either at all, or in the intended sense) by a native French speaker.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "au sec",
"title": "Used in English and French"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "c'est la guerre: \"That's war!\", or...",
"title": "Used in English and French"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "c'est la vie: \"That's life!\" or \"Such is life!\"",
"title": "Used in English and French"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "a small pickled cucumber; French for \"little horn\"",
"title": "Used in English and French"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Through the evolution of the language, many words and phrases are no longer used in modern French. Also there are expressions that, even though grammatically correct, do not have the same meaning in French as the English words derived from them. Some older word usages still appear in Quebec French.",
"title": "Not used as such in French"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "International authorities have adopted a number of words and phrases from French for use by speakers of all languages in voice communications during air-sea rescues. Note that the \"phonetic\" versions of spelling are presented as shown and not the IPA.",
"title": "French phrases in international air-sea rescue"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "It is a serious breach in most countries, and in international zones, to use any of these phrases without justification.",
"title": "French phrases in international air-sea rescue"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "See Mayday (distress signal) for a more detailed explanation.",
"title": "French phrases in international air-sea rescue"
}
] |
Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern English. English words of French origin, such as art, competition, force, machine, and table are pronounced according to English rules of phonology, rather than French, and are commonly used by English speakers without any consciousness of their French origin. This article, on the other hand, covers French words and phrases that have entered the English lexicon without ever losing their character as Gallicisms: they remain unmistakably "French" to an English speaker. They are most common in written English, where they retain French diacritics and are usually printed in italics. In spoken English, at least some attempt is generally made to pronounce them as they would sound in French; an entirely English pronunciation is regarded as a solecism. Some of them were never "good French", in the sense of being grammatical, idiomatic French usage. Some others were once normal French but have become very old-fashioned, or have acquired different meanings and connotations in the original language, to the extent that they would not be understood by a native French speaker.
|
2001-11-16T21:50:17Z
|
2023-11-24T10:39:42Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_French_words_and_expressions_in_English
|
11,516 |
Financial rand
|
The South African financial rand was the most visible part of a system of capital controls. Although the financial rand was abolished in March 1995, some capital controls remain in place. These capital controls are locally referred to as "exchange controls", although the system has since 1995 moved towards surveillance — recording and reporting to the authorities of foreign currency transactions — rather than control.
Capital controls have been in place in South Africa in various guises on an uninterrupted basis since the outbreak of World War II, when Great Britain and its dominions implemented the Sterling area.
Following the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, South Africa experienced significant outflows of foreign exchange on the capital account of the balance of payments and instituted an additional level of capital controls, known as the Blocked Rand system. This had the principal effect of blocking outflows of capital to the other countries in the Sterling Area, notably Britain.
To some extent the Blocked Rand system mirrored Germany's Reichsbank system introduced under Hjalmar Schacht in 1937, called "aski" accounts — short for Ausländer Sonderkonten für Inlandszahlungen ("foreigners' special accounts for inland payments"). In other words, creating a closed loop system that did not create a claim on the foreign exchange reserves of the Third Reich, or in this case South Africa.
The report of the De Kock Commission on Exchange Controls tabled in November 1978, proposed a gradual easing of exchange controls. This saw the replacement of the Blocked Rand by the Financial Rand in early 1979. In line with this policy, the Financial Rand itself was abolished in 1983 and non-residents could repatriate the majority of their South African investments via the Commercial Rand.
This easing was, however, short-lived and the Financial Rand system was re-introduced on 1 September 1985. The outflows during 1984–1985 were largely the result of economic sanctions in response to apartheid. At the same time, the government enacted the exchange controls. Investments in South Africa by foreigners could only be sold for financial rand.
The financial rand system provided for two exchange rates for the rand — one for current account transactions and one for capital account transactions for non-residents. Investments made in South Africa by non-residents could only be sold for financial rand, and limitations were placed on the convertibility of financial rand into foreign currencies. Financial rand had the ISO 4217 currency code ZAL. Financial rand had a previous life, from January 1979 to February 1983. The 1985 crisis coincided with a default (then called a "standstill") on foreign debt by the apartheid government.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The South African financial rand was the most visible part of a system of capital controls. Although the financial rand was abolished in March 1995, some capital controls remain in place. These capital controls are locally referred to as \"exchange controls\", although the system has since 1995 moved towards surveillance — recording and reporting to the authorities of foreign currency transactions — rather than control.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Capital controls have been in place in South Africa in various guises on an uninterrupted basis since the outbreak of World War II, when Great Britain and its dominions implemented the Sterling area.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Following the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, South Africa experienced significant outflows of foreign exchange on the capital account of the balance of payments and instituted an additional level of capital controls, known as the Blocked Rand system. This had the principal effect of blocking outflows of capital to the other countries in the Sterling Area, notably Britain.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "To some extent the Blocked Rand system mirrored Germany's Reichsbank system introduced under Hjalmar Schacht in 1937, called \"aski\" accounts — short for Ausländer Sonderkonten für Inlandszahlungen (\"foreigners' special accounts for inland payments\"). In other words, creating a closed loop system that did not create a claim on the foreign exchange reserves of the Third Reich, or in this case South Africa.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The report of the De Kock Commission on Exchange Controls tabled in November 1978, proposed a gradual easing of exchange controls. This saw the replacement of the Blocked Rand by the Financial Rand in early 1979. In line with this policy, the Financial Rand itself was abolished in 1983 and non-residents could repatriate the majority of their South African investments via the Commercial Rand.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "This easing was, however, short-lived and the Financial Rand system was re-introduced on 1 September 1985. The outflows during 1984–1985 were largely the result of economic sanctions in response to apartheid. At the same time, the government enacted the exchange controls. Investments in South Africa by foreigners could only be sold for financial rand.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The financial rand system provided for two exchange rates for the rand — one for current account transactions and one for capital account transactions for non-residents. Investments made in South Africa by non-residents could only be sold for financial rand, and limitations were placed on the convertibility of financial rand into foreign currencies. Financial rand had the ISO 4217 currency code ZAL. Financial rand had a previous life, from January 1979 to February 1983. The 1985 crisis coincided with a default (then called a \"standstill\") on foreign debt by the apartheid government.",
"title": ""
}
] |
The South African financial rand was the most visible part of a system of capital controls. Although the financial rand was abolished in March 1995, some capital controls remain in place. These capital controls are locally referred to as "exchange controls", although the system has since 1995 moved towards surveillance — recording and reporting to the authorities of foreign currency transactions — rather than control. Capital controls have been in place in South Africa in various guises on an uninterrupted basis since the outbreak of World War II, when Great Britain and its dominions implemented the Sterling area. Following the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, South Africa experienced significant outflows of foreign exchange on the capital account of the balance of payments and instituted an additional level of capital controls, known as the Blocked Rand system. This had the principal effect of blocking outflows of capital to the other countries in the Sterling Area, notably Britain. To some extent the Blocked Rand system mirrored Germany's Reichsbank system introduced under Hjalmar Schacht in 1937, called "aski" accounts — short for Ausländer Sonderkonten für Inlandszahlungen. In other words, creating a closed loop system that did not create a claim on the foreign exchange reserves of the Third Reich, or in this case South Africa. The report of the De Kock Commission on Exchange Controls tabled in November 1978, proposed a gradual easing of exchange controls. This saw the replacement of the Blocked Rand by the Financial Rand in early 1979. In line with this policy, the Financial Rand itself was abolished in 1983 and non-residents could repatriate the majority of their South African investments via the Commercial Rand. This easing was, however, short-lived and the Financial Rand system was re-introduced on 1 September 1985. The outflows during 1984–1985 were largely the result of economic sanctions in response to apartheid. At the same time, the government enacted the exchange controls. Investments in South Africa by foreigners could only be sold for financial rand. The financial rand system provided for two exchange rates for the rand — one for current account transactions and one for capital account transactions for non-residents. Investments made in South Africa by non-residents could only be sold for financial rand, and limitations were placed on the convertibility of financial rand into foreign currencies. Financial rand had the ISO 4217 currency code ZAL. Financial rand had a previous life, from January 1979 to February 1983. The 1985 crisis coincided with a default on foreign debt by the apartheid government.
|
2001-11-17T15:52:47Z
|
2023-11-07T19:14:17Z
|
[
"Template:Use dmy dates",
"Template:Infobox currency",
"Template:Reflist",
"Template:Cite journal",
"Template:Cite book",
"Template:Cite web",
"Template:Portal"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_rand
|
11,517 |
List of FIPS country codes
|
This is a list of FIPS 10-4 country codes for Countries, Dependencies, Areas of Special Sovereignty, and Their Principal Administrative Divisions.
The two-letter country codes were used by the US government for geographical data processing in many publications, such as the CIA World Factbook. The standard is also known as DAFIF 0413 ed 7 Amdt. No. 3 (Nov 2003) and as DIA 65-18 (Defense Intelligence Agency, 1994, "Geopolitical Data Elements and Related Features").
The FIPS standard includes both the codes for independent countries (similar but sometimes incompatible with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 standard) and the codes for top-level subdivision of the countries (similar to but usually incompatible with the ISO 3166-2 standard). The ISO 3166 codes are used by the United Nations and for Internet top-level country code domains.
Non-sovereign entities are in italics.
On September 2, 2008, FIPS 10-4 was one of ten standards withdrawn by NIST as a Federal Information Processing Standard. It was replaced in the U.S. Government by the Geopolitical Entities, Names, and Codes (GENC), which is based on ISO 3166.
The complete standard can be found at:
Updates to previous version of the standard (before FIPS-10 was withdrawn in September 2008) are at:
Updates to the standard since September 2008 are at:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "This is a list of FIPS 10-4 country codes for Countries, Dependencies, Areas of Special Sovereignty, and Their Principal Administrative Divisions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The two-letter country codes were used by the US government for geographical data processing in many publications, such as the CIA World Factbook. The standard is also known as DAFIF 0413 ed 7 Amdt. No. 3 (Nov 2003) and as DIA 65-18 (Defense Intelligence Agency, 1994, \"Geopolitical Data Elements and Related Features\").",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The FIPS standard includes both the codes for independent countries (similar but sometimes incompatible with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 standard) and the codes for top-level subdivision of the countries (similar to but usually incompatible with the ISO 3166-2 standard). The ISO 3166 codes are used by the United Nations and for Internet top-level country code domains.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Non-sovereign entities are in italics.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "On September 2, 2008, FIPS 10-4 was one of ten standards withdrawn by NIST as a Federal Information Processing Standard. It was replaced in the U.S. Government by the Geopolitical Entities, Names, and Codes (GENC), which is based on ISO 3166.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The complete standard can be found at:",
"title": "Resources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Updates to previous version of the standard (before FIPS-10 was withdrawn in September 2008) are at:",
"title": "Resources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Updates to the standard since September 2008 are at:",
"title": "Resources"
}
] |
This is a list of FIPS 10-4 country codes for Countries, Dependencies, Areas of Special Sovereignty, and Their Principal Administrative Divisions. The two-letter country codes were used by the US government for geographical data processing in many publications, such as the CIA World Factbook. The standard is also known as DAFIF 0413 ed 7 Amdt. No. 3 and as DIA 65-18. The FIPS standard includes both the codes for independent countries and the codes for top-level subdivision of the countries. The ISO 3166 codes are used by the United Nations and for Internet top-level country code domains. Non-sovereign entities are in italics. On September 2, 2008, FIPS 10-4 was one of ten standards withdrawn by NIST as a Federal Information Processing Standard. It was replaced in the U.S. Government by the Geopolitical Entities, Names, and Codes (GENC), which is based on ISO 3166.
|
2001-11-17T18:42:36Z
|
2023-11-01T05:29:09Z
|
[
"Template:Mono",
"Template:Flag",
"Template:Flagicon",
"Template:Noflag",
"Template:Include-USGov",
"Template:Geocoding-systems",
"Template:Short description",
"Template:Horizontal TOC",
"Template:Reflist",
"Template:Cite web",
"Template:Clear"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIPS_country_codes
|
11,519 |
Fair Isle
|
Fair Isle (/ˈfɛər ˌaɪl/; Scots: Fair Isle; Old Norse: Friðarey; Scottish Gaelic: Fara), sometimes Fairisle, is the southernmost Shetland island, situated roughly 38km (24 mi) from the Shetland Mainland and about 43km (27 mi) from North Ronaldsay (the most northerly island of Orkney). The entire archipelago is located off of the northernmost coast of Scotland, in the North Sea. As the most remote inhabited island within the United Kingdom (and among the most northerly settlements in Great Britain), Fair Isle is known for its wild bird observatory, interesting historic shipwrecks, Scottish and Shetland-style traditional music, and its traditional style of knitting. The island has been owned by the National Trust for Scotland since 1954.
Fair Isle has been occupied since Neolithic times, which is remarkable given the lack of raw materials on the island, although it is surrounded by rich fishing waters. There are two known Iron Age sites: a promontory fort at Landberg and the foundations of a house underlying an early Christian settlement at Kirkigeo.
Most of the place names date from after the 9th-century Norse settlement of the Northern Isles. By that time the croft lands had clearly been in use for centuries.
Between the 9th and 15th centuries, Fair Isle was a Norwegian possession. In 1469, Shetland, along with Orkney, was part of the dowry of the King of Denmark's daughter, Margaret, on her marriage to James III of Scotland.
On 20 August 1588 the flagship of the Spanish Armada, El Gran Grifón, was shipwrecked in the cove of Stroms Hellier, forcing its 300 sailors to spend six weeks living with the islanders. The wreck was discovered in 1970. The large Canadian sailing ship Black Watch was wrecked on Fair Isle in 1877.
Fair Isle was bought by the National Trust for Scotland in 1954 from George Waterston, the founder of the bird observatory. In that decade, electricity was not yet available to residents and only some homes had running water; the population was declining at a level that created concern.
The population decreased steadily from about 400 in 1900. There were around 55 permanent residents on the island in 2015, the majority of whom were crofters. In April 2021, the population was 48 and the island became the first place in the UK all of whose adult inhabitants had been vaccinated against COVID-19. The island has 14 scheduled monuments, ranging from the earliest signs of human activity to the remains of a Second World War radar station. The two automated lighthouses are protected as listed buildings.
The island houses a series of high-technology relay stations carrying vital TV, radio, telephone and military communication links between Shetland, Orkney and the Scottish mainland. In this respect it continues its historic role as a signal station, linking the mainland and the more remote island groups. In 1976, when television relay equipment was updated to permit colour broadcasts to Shetland, the new equipment was housed in former Second World War radar station buildings on Fair Isle. Many television signals are relayed from Orkney to Shetland (rather than from the Scottish mainland) via Orkney's Keelylang Hill transmitter station.
During the Second World War, the Royal Air Force built a radar station on top of Ward Hill [712 ft (217 m)] during the Battle of the Atlantic. The ruined buildings and Nissen huts are still present. A cable-operated narrow gauge railway lies disused, though it was once used to send supplies up to the summit of Ward Hill.
On 17 January 1941, a German Heinkel He 111 bomber, modified as a meteorological aircraft, crashed on the island; wreckage remains on the crash-site to the present day. The aircraft had been flying on a routine weather reconnaissance flight from its base at Oldenburg in Germany. It was intercepted by RAF Hawker Hurricane fighters from 3 Squadron, based at RAF Sumburgh; both of the aircraft's engines were damaged and several of the five crew were wounded. The pilot managed to make a crash-landing on Fair Isle to avoid ditching his crippled aircraft in the sea. Two crew died and three survived. The dead crew were buried in the island's churchyard; the survivors were detained by the islanders and remained for several days until weather conditions allowed them to be taken off the island by means of the Lerwick Lifeboat. Before the Lerwick boat reached the island, two separate boats from Orkney ran aground whilst making their way to collect the prisoners of war.
The South Light was a target. During raids, the wife of an assistant keeper was killed in 1941 and their daughter was injured; in 1942, the wife of another keeper and their daughter also died in a raid.
On 22 July 1941, Spitfire X5401 piloted by Flying Officer M. D. S. Hood crash-landed on Fair Isle returning from a reconnaissance mission over Ålesund, Norway. The pilot recalled the crash site to be adjacent to the track which crossed the airstrip. The cause of the crash proved to be a leak of coolant, which resulted in the engine overheating. The aircraft was recovered and flew again, and the pilot survived the war.
Fair Isle is administratively part of the parish of Dunrossness, Shetland, and is roughly equidistant from Sumburgh Head, some 38 km (24 mi) to the northeast on the Mainland of Shetland and North Ronaldsay, Orkney, some 43 km (27 mi) to the southwest. Fair Isle is 4.8 km (3 mi) long and 2.4 km (1.5 mi) wide. It has an area of 8 km (3 sq mi), making it the tenth-largest of the Shetland Islands. It gives its name to one of the British Sea Areas.
Most of the islanders live in the crofts on the southern half of the island, the northern half consisting of rocky moorland. The western coast consists of cliffs of up to 200 m (660 ft) in height, Ward Hill at 217 m (712 ft) being the highest point of the island and its only Marilyn. On the eastern coast the almost detached headland of Sheep Rock rises to 132 m (433 ft).
Fair Isle experiences an oceanic climate (Köppen Cfb), bordering on a subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc), with cool summers and mild winters. This is especially pronounced because of its location far from any sizeable landmass; Fair Isle has the smallest overall temperature range (least continental) of any weather station in the British Isles: an absolute maximum of 22.6 °C (72.7 °F) and an absolute minimum of −5.6 °C (21.9 °F) since 1951. This 60+ year temperature span is actually smaller than many places in inland southern England will record within a given three-month period. To further illustrate how extreme the maritime moderation at Fair Isle is, a rural location near the coastline in Northern Stockholm County on a similar latitude in Sweden broke Fair Isle's then all-time records in both directions within a 48-hour period between 26 and 28 April 2014.
On 19 July 2022, a maximum temperature of 22.6 °C (72.7 °F) was registered in Fair Isle.
The lowest temperature recorded in recent years was −4.6 °C (23.7 °F) in February 2010. Rainfall, at under 1,000 mm (39 in), is lower than one might expect for somewhere often in the main path of Atlantic depressions. This is explained by a lack of heavy convective rainfall during spring and summer months due to the absence of warm surface conditions.
Fair Isle's ocean moderation is so strong that areas on the same latitudes in the Scandinavian inland less than 1,000 km (620 mi) to the east have average summer highs 2–3 °C (4–5 °F) higher than Fair Isle's all-time record temperature, for example the Norwegian capital of Oslo and the Swedish capital of Stockholm. The −5 °C (23 °F) all-time low is uniquely mild for European locations on the 59th parallel north. The winter daily means are comparable to many areas as far south in the British Isles as south-central England, because of the extreme maritime moderation.
Over the centuries the island has changed hands many times. Trading links with Northern Europe are reflected in Fair Isle Haa, a traditional Hanseatic trading booth located not far from the South Harbour, traditionally used by residents of the southern part of the island. Rent was usually paid to absentee landlords (who rarely visited) in butter, cloth and fish oil.
Fishing has always been an important industry for the island. In 1702, the Dutch, who were interested in Shetland's herring fisheries, fought a naval battle against French warships just off the island.
Fair Isle is noted for its woollen jumpers, with knitting forming an important source of income for the women of the islands. The principal activity for the male islanders is crofting.
In January 2004, Fair Isle was granted Fairtrade Island status.
Many rare species of bird have been found on the island, with at least 27 species found on the island that were the first British records, and is probably the best place in western Europe to see skulking Siberian passerines such as Pechora pipit, lanceolated warbler and Pallas's grasshopper warbler. For example, in 2015, rare birds discovered on the island included pallid harrier, arctic warbler, Moltoni's warbler, booted warbler, paddyfield warbler, siberian thrush, and thrush nightingale.
The island is also home to an endemic subspecies of Eurasian wren, the Fair Isle wren Troglodytes troglodytes fridariensis.
In 1948, George Waterston founded a permanent bird observatory on the island. Because of its importance as a bird migration watchpoint, it provided most of the accommodation on the island. The first director of the observatory was Kenneth Williamson. It was unusual amongst bird observatories in providing catered, rather than hostel-style, accommodation.
In 2010, a new observatory was built: a wooden lodge of two storeys, which cost £4 million and accommodated around 30 guests. The 2010 observatory building was destroyed by fire on 10 March 2019; the observatory's records had been digitised and were not affected. The cost of rebuilding was estimated at £7.4m.
Other than the restaurant of the bird observatory, and its small evening-only bar, there are no pubs or restaurants on the island. There is one shop, one school and a community hall used for meetings and social events. There is no police station on the island; the main station is Lerwick and a section station is located in the village of Brae.
Passenger service to the island is provided by SIC Ferries on the vessel Good Shepherd IV or by a nine-seat passenger aeroplane from Tingwall Airport near Lerwick, operated by regional carrier Directflight.
Fair Isle is not connected to the National Grid; electricity is provided by the Fair Isle Electricity Company. From the 1980s, power was generated by two diesel generators and two wind turbines. Diesel generators were automatically switched off if wind turbines provided sufficient power. Excess capacity was distributed through a separate network for home heating, with remote frequency-sensitive programmable relays controlling water heaters and storage heaters in the buildings of the community. Following the installation of three wind turbines, combined with solar panels and batteries, in a £3.5 million scheme completed in October 2018, the island has had a 24-hour electricity supply.
Fair Isle is home to two GSM 900 MHz base stations operated by Vodafone and O2. On 16 April 2019, an EE 4G antenna was turned on by Openreach.
Fair Isle has a fire station equipped with a single fire appliance, and staffed by a retained fire crew of local volunteers. It was originally part of the Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service, which was absorbed into the national Scottish Fire and Rescue Service on 1 April 2013. A locally organised volunteer fire brigade was formed in 1996 by island residents. This was later absorbed into the statutory fire service, with professional training provided, and the local service designated a retained fire crew. The first purpose-built fire engine was stationed to the island in 2002.
In October 2011, a contract for the construction of a £140,000 purpose-built fire station was awarded to Shetland company Ness Engineering, who completed the construction and equipping of the fire station, including its connection to the island power and water supplies, and the installation of a rainwater harvesting system within the building. The new fire station was officially opened on 14 March 2013.
There is a small Coastguard cliff-rescue team on the island. Like the fire service, the Coastguard is a retained (volunteer) emergency service. The Fair Isle Coastguard cliff rescue team were the first British Coastguard unit to be equipped with a quad ATV. The quad is painted in HM Coastguard livery, with reflective Battenburg markings and has an optional equipment trailer.
There are no emergency medical services on Fair Isle. Routine medical care is provided by a community nurse. In the event of accident and emergency the community nurse provides first aid until casualties can be removed to Shetland Mainland, usually by helicopter air ambulance. In severe weather conditions or life-threatening emergencies, the Coastguard helicopter can undertake the patient evacuation.
Fair Isle Airport serves the island with flights to Tingwall Airport near Lerwick, and weekly to Sumburgh Airport, both on Shetland Mainland. Flights to Kirkwall on Orkney were scheduled to begin in September 2017, provided by Loganair. Private aircraft use the facility and scheduled flights arrive twice daily, three days a week. There is a small terminal building providing limited services. Fire cover is provided by the island fire service.
There are two helipads on the island; one at the South Fair Isle lighthouse and used by Northern Lighthouse Board and HM Coastguard helicopters, and the other at the North Fair Isle lighthouse.
There are two main harbours, north harbour and south harbour; both formed naturally, being sheltered by the headland of Bu Ness. They are separated by a narrow isthmus of gravel. The north harbour is the main route for goods, provisions, and Royal Mail postal services arriving at and departing from the island. The ferry Good Shepherd IV plies between Fair Isle north harbour and Grutness on Shetland Mainland. In summer only, the ferry also runs from Lerwick once every two weeks.
A road connects the populated areas of the island, along its full length.
Fair Isle has one primary school, with two classrooms. There is a full-time head teacher, and a part-time assistant teacher. The number of pupils varies over time, but has generally been between five and ten, with three pupils as of 2021. Islanders of secondary school age are generally educated off-island, on Shetland Mainland, where they board in halls of residence, returning to Fair Isle during holiday periods.
Christianity is the only formally organised religion on Fair Isle. There are two churches, one Methodist, and one Church of Scotland (Presbyterian). The Methodist Church has a resident non-stipendiary minister, who reports to a full-time minister on Shetland Mainland. The Methodist Church was constructed in 1886.
The Church of Scotland church was built in 1892. The Church of Scotland parish which contains Fair Isle is Dunrossness, which is linked with Sandwick, Cunningsburgh and Quarff parish. The congregation's minister is Reverend Charles H. Greig.
Most of the island is designated by NatureScot as both a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special Area of Conservation (SCA). The island and its surrounding seas are also designated by NatureScot as a Special Protection Area (SPA) due to the important bird species present.
In 2016 the seas around Fair Isle were designated as a Marine Protected Area (MPA). As of 2019 it is the only MPA in Scotland to be designated specifically as a "Demonstration and Research" MPA. The aims of this MPA designation are defined as being:
To demonstrate and research the use of an ecosystem approach, which includes the following - a) the environmental monitoring of seabirds and of other mobile marine species; b) the environmental monitoring of the factors which influence the populations of seabirds and of other mobile species; c) the development and implementation of a local sustainable shellfish fishery; d) the development of a research programme into local fisheries which includes research on species composition, size, distribution and temporal and spatial changes in fish stocks; e) based upon the research undertaken under sub-paragraph (d), the development of a sustainable-use management programme for local fisheries.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fair Isle (/ˈfɛər ˌaɪl/; Scots: Fair Isle; Old Norse: Friðarey; Scottish Gaelic: Fara), sometimes Fairisle, is the southernmost Shetland island, situated roughly 38km (24 mi) from the Shetland Mainland and about 43km (27 mi) from North Ronaldsay (the most northerly island of Orkney). The entire archipelago is located off of the northernmost coast of Scotland, in the North Sea. As the most remote inhabited island within the United Kingdom (and among the most northerly settlements in Great Britain), Fair Isle is known for its wild bird observatory, interesting historic shipwrecks, Scottish and Shetland-style traditional music, and its traditional style of knitting. The island has been owned by the National Trust for Scotland since 1954.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Fair Isle has been occupied since Neolithic times, which is remarkable given the lack of raw materials on the island, although it is surrounded by rich fishing waters. There are two known Iron Age sites: a promontory fort at Landberg and the foundations of a house underlying an early Christian settlement at Kirkigeo.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Most of the place names date from after the 9th-century Norse settlement of the Northern Isles. By that time the croft lands had clearly been in use for centuries.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Between the 9th and 15th centuries, Fair Isle was a Norwegian possession. In 1469, Shetland, along with Orkney, was part of the dowry of the King of Denmark's daughter, Margaret, on her marriage to James III of Scotland.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "On 20 August 1588 the flagship of the Spanish Armada, El Gran Grifón, was shipwrecked in the cove of Stroms Hellier, forcing its 300 sailors to spend six weeks living with the islanders. The wreck was discovered in 1970. The large Canadian sailing ship Black Watch was wrecked on Fair Isle in 1877.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Fair Isle was bought by the National Trust for Scotland in 1954 from George Waterston, the founder of the bird observatory. In that decade, electricity was not yet available to residents and only some homes had running water; the population was declining at a level that created concern.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The population decreased steadily from about 400 in 1900. There were around 55 permanent residents on the island in 2015, the majority of whom were crofters. In April 2021, the population was 48 and the island became the first place in the UK all of whose adult inhabitants had been vaccinated against COVID-19. The island has 14 scheduled monuments, ranging from the earliest signs of human activity to the remains of a Second World War radar station. The two automated lighthouses are protected as listed buildings.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The island houses a series of high-technology relay stations carrying vital TV, radio, telephone and military communication links between Shetland, Orkney and the Scottish mainland. In this respect it continues its historic role as a signal station, linking the mainland and the more remote island groups. In 1976, when television relay equipment was updated to permit colour broadcasts to Shetland, the new equipment was housed in former Second World War radar station buildings on Fair Isle. Many television signals are relayed from Orkney to Shetland (rather than from the Scottish mainland) via Orkney's Keelylang Hill transmitter station.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "During the Second World War, the Royal Air Force built a radar station on top of Ward Hill [712 ft (217 m)] during the Battle of the Atlantic. The ruined buildings and Nissen huts are still present. A cable-operated narrow gauge railway lies disused, though it was once used to send supplies up to the summit of Ward Hill.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "On 17 January 1941, a German Heinkel He 111 bomber, modified as a meteorological aircraft, crashed on the island; wreckage remains on the crash-site to the present day. The aircraft had been flying on a routine weather reconnaissance flight from its base at Oldenburg in Germany. It was intercepted by RAF Hawker Hurricane fighters from 3 Squadron, based at RAF Sumburgh; both of the aircraft's engines were damaged and several of the five crew were wounded. The pilot managed to make a crash-landing on Fair Isle to avoid ditching his crippled aircraft in the sea. Two crew died and three survived. The dead crew were buried in the island's churchyard; the survivors were detained by the islanders and remained for several days until weather conditions allowed them to be taken off the island by means of the Lerwick Lifeboat. Before the Lerwick boat reached the island, two separate boats from Orkney ran aground whilst making their way to collect the prisoners of war.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The South Light was a target. During raids, the wife of an assistant keeper was killed in 1941 and their daughter was injured; in 1942, the wife of another keeper and their daughter also died in a raid.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "On 22 July 1941, Spitfire X5401 piloted by Flying Officer M. D. S. Hood crash-landed on Fair Isle returning from a reconnaissance mission over Ålesund, Norway. The pilot recalled the crash site to be adjacent to the track which crossed the airstrip. The cause of the crash proved to be a leak of coolant, which resulted in the engine overheating. The aircraft was recovered and flew again, and the pilot survived the war.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Fair Isle is administratively part of the parish of Dunrossness, Shetland, and is roughly equidistant from Sumburgh Head, some 38 km (24 mi) to the northeast on the Mainland of Shetland and North Ronaldsay, Orkney, some 43 km (27 mi) to the southwest. Fair Isle is 4.8 km (3 mi) long and 2.4 km (1.5 mi) wide. It has an area of 8 km (3 sq mi), making it the tenth-largest of the Shetland Islands. It gives its name to one of the British Sea Areas.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Most of the islanders live in the crofts on the southern half of the island, the northern half consisting of rocky moorland. The western coast consists of cliffs of up to 200 m (660 ft) in height, Ward Hill at 217 m (712 ft) being the highest point of the island and its only Marilyn. On the eastern coast the almost detached headland of Sheep Rock rises to 132 m (433 ft).",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Fair Isle experiences an oceanic climate (Köppen Cfb), bordering on a subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc), with cool summers and mild winters. This is especially pronounced because of its location far from any sizeable landmass; Fair Isle has the smallest overall temperature range (least continental) of any weather station in the British Isles: an absolute maximum of 22.6 °C (72.7 °F) and an absolute minimum of −5.6 °C (21.9 °F) since 1951. This 60+ year temperature span is actually smaller than many places in inland southern England will record within a given three-month period. To further illustrate how extreme the maritime moderation at Fair Isle is, a rural location near the coastline in Northern Stockholm County on a similar latitude in Sweden broke Fair Isle's then all-time records in both directions within a 48-hour period between 26 and 28 April 2014.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "On 19 July 2022, a maximum temperature of 22.6 °C (72.7 °F) was registered in Fair Isle.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The lowest temperature recorded in recent years was −4.6 °C (23.7 °F) in February 2010. Rainfall, at under 1,000 mm (39 in), is lower than one might expect for somewhere often in the main path of Atlantic depressions. This is explained by a lack of heavy convective rainfall during spring and summer months due to the absence of warm surface conditions.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Fair Isle's ocean moderation is so strong that areas on the same latitudes in the Scandinavian inland less than 1,000 km (620 mi) to the east have average summer highs 2–3 °C (4–5 °F) higher than Fair Isle's all-time record temperature, for example the Norwegian capital of Oslo and the Swedish capital of Stockholm. The −5 °C (23 °F) all-time low is uniquely mild for European locations on the 59th parallel north. The winter daily means are comparable to many areas as far south in the British Isles as south-central England, because of the extreme maritime moderation.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Over the centuries the island has changed hands many times. Trading links with Northern Europe are reflected in Fair Isle Haa, a traditional Hanseatic trading booth located not far from the South Harbour, traditionally used by residents of the southern part of the island. Rent was usually paid to absentee landlords (who rarely visited) in butter, cloth and fish oil.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Fishing has always been an important industry for the island. In 1702, the Dutch, who were interested in Shetland's herring fisheries, fought a naval battle against French warships just off the island.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Fair Isle is noted for its woollen jumpers, with knitting forming an important source of income for the women of the islands. The principal activity for the male islanders is crofting.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In January 2004, Fair Isle was granted Fairtrade Island status.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Many rare species of bird have been found on the island, with at least 27 species found on the island that were the first British records, and is probably the best place in western Europe to see skulking Siberian passerines such as Pechora pipit, lanceolated warbler and Pallas's grasshopper warbler. For example, in 2015, rare birds discovered on the island included pallid harrier, arctic warbler, Moltoni's warbler, booted warbler, paddyfield warbler, siberian thrush, and thrush nightingale.",
"title": "Bird life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The island is also home to an endemic subspecies of Eurasian wren, the Fair Isle wren Troglodytes troglodytes fridariensis.",
"title": "Bird life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In 1948, George Waterston founded a permanent bird observatory on the island. Because of its importance as a bird migration watchpoint, it provided most of the accommodation on the island. The first director of the observatory was Kenneth Williamson. It was unusual amongst bird observatories in providing catered, rather than hostel-style, accommodation.",
"title": "Bird life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In 2010, a new observatory was built: a wooden lodge of two storeys, which cost £4 million and accommodated around 30 guests. The 2010 observatory building was destroyed by fire on 10 March 2019; the observatory's records had been digitised and were not affected. The cost of rebuilding was estimated at £7.4m.",
"title": "Bird life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Other than the restaurant of the bird observatory, and its small evening-only bar, there are no pubs or restaurants on the island. There is one shop, one school and a community hall used for meetings and social events. There is no police station on the island; the main station is Lerwick and a section station is located in the village of Brae.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Passenger service to the island is provided by SIC Ferries on the vessel Good Shepherd IV or by a nine-seat passenger aeroplane from Tingwall Airport near Lerwick, operated by regional carrier Directflight.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Fair Isle is not connected to the National Grid; electricity is provided by the Fair Isle Electricity Company. From the 1980s, power was generated by two diesel generators and two wind turbines. Diesel generators were automatically switched off if wind turbines provided sufficient power. Excess capacity was distributed through a separate network for home heating, with remote frequency-sensitive programmable relays controlling water heaters and storage heaters in the buildings of the community. Following the installation of three wind turbines, combined with solar panels and batteries, in a £3.5 million scheme completed in October 2018, the island has had a 24-hour electricity supply.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Fair Isle is home to two GSM 900 MHz base stations operated by Vodafone and O2. On 16 April 2019, an EE 4G antenna was turned on by Openreach.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Fair Isle has a fire station equipped with a single fire appliance, and staffed by a retained fire crew of local volunteers. It was originally part of the Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service, which was absorbed into the national Scottish Fire and Rescue Service on 1 April 2013. A locally organised volunteer fire brigade was formed in 1996 by island residents. This was later absorbed into the statutory fire service, with professional training provided, and the local service designated a retained fire crew. The first purpose-built fire engine was stationed to the island in 2002.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In October 2011, a contract for the construction of a £140,000 purpose-built fire station was awarded to Shetland company Ness Engineering, who completed the construction and equipping of the fire station, including its connection to the island power and water supplies, and the installation of a rainwater harvesting system within the building. The new fire station was officially opened on 14 March 2013.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "There is a small Coastguard cliff-rescue team on the island. Like the fire service, the Coastguard is a retained (volunteer) emergency service. The Fair Isle Coastguard cliff rescue team were the first British Coastguard unit to be equipped with a quad ATV. The quad is painted in HM Coastguard livery, with reflective Battenburg markings and has an optional equipment trailer.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "There are no emergency medical services on Fair Isle. Routine medical care is provided by a community nurse. In the event of accident and emergency the community nurse provides first aid until casualties can be removed to Shetland Mainland, usually by helicopter air ambulance. In severe weather conditions or life-threatening emergencies, the Coastguard helicopter can undertake the patient evacuation.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Fair Isle Airport serves the island with flights to Tingwall Airport near Lerwick, and weekly to Sumburgh Airport, both on Shetland Mainland. Flights to Kirkwall on Orkney were scheduled to begin in September 2017, provided by Loganair. Private aircraft use the facility and scheduled flights arrive twice daily, three days a week. There is a small terminal building providing limited services. Fire cover is provided by the island fire service.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "There are two helipads on the island; one at the South Fair Isle lighthouse and used by Northern Lighthouse Board and HM Coastguard helicopters, and the other at the North Fair Isle lighthouse.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "There are two main harbours, north harbour and south harbour; both formed naturally, being sheltered by the headland of Bu Ness. They are separated by a narrow isthmus of gravel. The north harbour is the main route for goods, provisions, and Royal Mail postal services arriving at and departing from the island. The ferry Good Shepherd IV plies between Fair Isle north harbour and Grutness on Shetland Mainland. In summer only, the ferry also runs from Lerwick once every two weeks.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "A road connects the populated areas of the island, along its full length.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Fair Isle has one primary school, with two classrooms. There is a full-time head teacher, and a part-time assistant teacher. The number of pupils varies over time, but has generally been between five and ten, with three pupils as of 2021. Islanders of secondary school age are generally educated off-island, on Shetland Mainland, where they board in halls of residence, returning to Fair Isle during holiday periods.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Christianity is the only formally organised religion on Fair Isle. There are two churches, one Methodist, and one Church of Scotland (Presbyterian). The Methodist Church has a resident non-stipendiary minister, who reports to a full-time minister on Shetland Mainland. The Methodist Church was constructed in 1886.",
"title": "Religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The Church of Scotland church was built in 1892. The Church of Scotland parish which contains Fair Isle is Dunrossness, which is linked with Sandwick, Cunningsburgh and Quarff parish. The congregation's minister is Reverend Charles H. Greig.",
"title": "Religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Most of the island is designated by NatureScot as both a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special Area of Conservation (SCA). The island and its surrounding seas are also designated by NatureScot as a Special Protection Area (SPA) due to the important bird species present.",
"title": "Conservation designations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In 2016 the seas around Fair Isle were designated as a Marine Protected Area (MPA). As of 2019 it is the only MPA in Scotland to be designated specifically as a \"Demonstration and Research\" MPA. The aims of this MPA designation are defined as being:",
"title": "Conservation designations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "To demonstrate and research the use of an ecosystem approach, which includes the following - a) the environmental monitoring of seabirds and of other mobile marine species; b) the environmental monitoring of the factors which influence the populations of seabirds and of other mobile species; c) the development and implementation of a local sustainable shellfish fishery; d) the development of a research programme into local fisheries which includes research on species composition, size, distribution and temporal and spatial changes in fish stocks; e) based upon the research undertaken under sub-paragraph (d), the development of a sustainable-use management programme for local fisheries.",
"title": "Conservation designations"
}
] |
Fair Isle, sometimes Fairisle, is the southernmost Shetland island, situated roughly 38km from the Shetland Mainland and about 43km from North Ronaldsay. The entire archipelago is located off of the northernmost coast of Scotland, in the North Sea. As the most remote inhabited island within the United Kingdom, Fair Isle is known for its wild bird observatory, interesting historic shipwrecks, Scottish and Shetland-style traditional music, and its traditional style of knitting. The island has been owned by the National Trust for Scotland since 1954.
|
2001-11-19T13:27:36Z
|
2023-12-22T19:46:01Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Isle
|
11,520 |
Four Feather Falls
|
Four Feather Falls is a British television programme, the third puppet TV show produced by Gerry Anderson for Granada Television. It was based on an idea by Barry Gray, who also wrote the show's music. The series was the first to use an early version of Anderson's Supermarionation puppetry. Thirty-nine 13-minute episodes were produced, broadcast by Granada from February until November 1960.
The setting is the late 19th-century fictional Kansas town of Four Feather Falls, where the hero of the series, Tex Tucker, is a sheriff. The four feathers of the title refers to four magical feathers given to Tex by the Indian chief Kalamakooya as a reward for saving his grandson. One of the feathers allowed Tex's guns to swivel and fire without being touched whenever he was in danger, two conferred the power of speech on Tex's horse and dog, and the fourth feather could summon Kalamakooya.
Tex's speaking voice was provided by Nicholas Parsons, and his singing voice by Michael Holliday. The series was sporadically repeated on British television until 1968, and was released on DVD in 2005.
The series is set in the fictitious late 19th-century Western town of Four Feather Falls, Kansas, and features the adventures of its sheriff, Tex Tucker.
In the first episode, Grandpa Twink relates the story of how it all began to his grandson, Little Jake. Tex is riding up from the valley and comes across a lost and hungry Indian boy, Makooya, and saves him. Tex is given four magic feathers by the boy's grandfather, Chief Kalamakooya, as a reward for saving his grandson. Two of the feathers allow his guns to swivel and fire automatically (often while Tex's hands are raised), and the other two allow his horse, Rocky, and his dog, Dusty, to speak. As Tex, his horse, and dog are very thirsty, Kalamakooya also makes a waterfall where there had been no water before, and so when the town was built it was named after Tex's feathers and the waterfall.
The characters of the town are Grandpa Twink, who does little but rest in a chair; his grandson Little Jake, the only child in town; Ma Jones, who runs the town store; Doc Haggerty; Slim Jim, the bartender of the Denison saloon; Marvin Jackson, the bank manager; and Dan Morse, the telegraphist. Other characters appeared from time to time for only one episode, often just visiting town.
The villains included Pedro, who was introduced in the first show and Fernando, who first appeared in the second episode as a sidekick and someone Pedro could blame when things went wrong, as they always did. Big Ben was another villain who appeared from time to time, as did Red Scalp, a renegade Indian. Other villains only appeared in single episodes.
Denise Bryer had worked with Anderson on The Adventures of Twizzle, and he wanted her to play some of the voices in Four Feather Falls. Anderson visited Bryer at her home with some scripts and asked her husband, Nicholas Parsons, to help by reading some of the other parts, including the sheriff Tex Tucker. Anderson liked Parsons' interpretation and offered him the job of providing Tex's speaking voice.
American Western television shows such as Wagon Train and Gunsmoke were popular with British audiences, therefore Gerry Anderson and his business partner Arthur Provis decided to make a cowboy series, based on an idea offered to them by Barry Gray. Anderson considered the puppets with static heads, made by Christine Glanville for his earlier productions, to be unacceptable because the viewer could not tell which character was talking unless its puppet moved up or down. Anderson's aim was to make the puppets look as realistic as possible, the beginning of the Supermarionation puppetry process, although that term was not coined until his next series, Supercar.
The puppets' papier-mâché heads were replaced by interchangeable hollow fibre glass heads with internal rods that could move the eyes from side to side. The heads also contained sound-activated solenoids, which allowed the puppets' lips to move automatically in synchronisation with the dialogue. The electronics of the day required more space than would be available in a human-scale head, therefore all the puppets in Four Feather Falls had oversized heads.
Except for the pilot episode, which was made in AP Films' studios at Islet Park, the series was produced in a converted warehouse in the Slough Trading Estate. The cast assembled to record each script without seeing the puppets, much like recording a radio series; synchronisation of each character's speech with the movement of its puppet's mouth was performed later. The show was filmed in black and white. Its tight budget precluded the use of sophisticated special effects, and less-costly alternatives were used. For example, to achieve the effect of muzzle flashes, small specks of black paint were carefully applied to the 35 mm negatives so they would appear as white flashes on the finished prints. The wires used to control the puppets were eight feet long and made of tungsten, an improvement on the curtain wire used in Anderson's two earlier puppet series (The Adventures of Twizzle and Torchy the Battery Boy), and were only 1/200 of an inch thick. Being shiny, the wires had to be blackened. The puppets were made one-third life size with the puppeteers on a bridge eight feet above the set. The horses moved by being pulled along on a trolley, which meant the viewer never saw their feet when they were moving.
The series was filmed between April 1959 and April 1960. Continuity for the series was provided by Sylvia Thamm, who later married Gerry Anderson.
The show's music and song lyrics were composed by Barry Gray. Michael Holliday provided Tex's singing voice, and Tommy Reilly performed the harmonica pieces. The best known song to come out of the series was "Four Feather Falls", sung in some episodes by Michael Holliday in the style of Bing Crosby and sometimes incorrectly described as the theme song to the series. The closing theme song was "Two Gun Tex of Texas." Holliday was paid £2000 for his singing work on the pilot episode, equivalent to about £38,000 as of 2010, a significant part of the show's £6000 budget. In all, Holliday recorded six songs for the series: "Four Feather Falls", "The Phantom Rider", "The Rick-Rick-A-Rackety Train", "Happy Hearts and Friendly Faces", "My Home Town", and "Two Gun Tex of Texas".
The series was repeated in some British TV regions on a sporadic basis up until 1968. In December 2004, it was announced that the rights had been acquired by Network, and it was released on three Region 2 DVDs in May 2005. It is the only Supermarionation series not yet released to DVD in North America as of January 2006. Sylvia Anderson wrote two British children's annuals based on the show, published by Collins in 1960 and 1961. The first book featured a short text story based on the pilot episode of the TV series.
The show was adapted into comics form and published as an ongoing strip in Polystyle Publications' TV Comic. The Four Feathers Falls strip was drawn by Neville Main, and appeared from issue #439 (14 May 1960) until issue #564 (6 October 1962).
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Four Feather Falls is a British television programme, the third puppet TV show produced by Gerry Anderson for Granada Television. It was based on an idea by Barry Gray, who also wrote the show's music. The series was the first to use an early version of Anderson's Supermarionation puppetry. Thirty-nine 13-minute episodes were produced, broadcast by Granada from February until November 1960.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The setting is the late 19th-century fictional Kansas town of Four Feather Falls, where the hero of the series, Tex Tucker, is a sheriff. The four feathers of the title refers to four magical feathers given to Tex by the Indian chief Kalamakooya as a reward for saving his grandson. One of the feathers allowed Tex's guns to swivel and fire without being touched whenever he was in danger, two conferred the power of speech on Tex's horse and dog, and the fourth feather could summon Kalamakooya.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Tex's speaking voice was provided by Nicholas Parsons, and his singing voice by Michael Holliday. The series was sporadically repeated on British television until 1968, and was released on DVD in 2005.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The series is set in the fictitious late 19th-century Western town of Four Feather Falls, Kansas, and features the adventures of its sheriff, Tex Tucker.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In the first episode, Grandpa Twink relates the story of how it all began to his grandson, Little Jake. Tex is riding up from the valley and comes across a lost and hungry Indian boy, Makooya, and saves him. Tex is given four magic feathers by the boy's grandfather, Chief Kalamakooya, as a reward for saving his grandson. Two of the feathers allow his guns to swivel and fire automatically (often while Tex's hands are raised), and the other two allow his horse, Rocky, and his dog, Dusty, to speak. As Tex, his horse, and dog are very thirsty, Kalamakooya also makes a waterfall where there had been no water before, and so when the town was built it was named after Tex's feathers and the waterfall.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The characters of the town are Grandpa Twink, who does little but rest in a chair; his grandson Little Jake, the only child in town; Ma Jones, who runs the town store; Doc Haggerty; Slim Jim, the bartender of the Denison saloon; Marvin Jackson, the bank manager; and Dan Morse, the telegraphist. Other characters appeared from time to time for only one episode, often just visiting town.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The villains included Pedro, who was introduced in the first show and Fernando, who first appeared in the second episode as a sidekick and someone Pedro could blame when things went wrong, as they always did. Big Ben was another villain who appeared from time to time, as did Red Scalp, a renegade Indian. Other villains only appeared in single episodes.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Denise Bryer had worked with Anderson on The Adventures of Twizzle, and he wanted her to play some of the voices in Four Feather Falls. Anderson visited Bryer at her home with some scripts and asked her husband, Nicholas Parsons, to help by reading some of the other parts, including the sheriff Tex Tucker. Anderson liked Parsons' interpretation and offered him the job of providing Tex's speaking voice.",
"title": "Cast"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "American Western television shows such as Wagon Train and Gunsmoke were popular with British audiences, therefore Gerry Anderson and his business partner Arthur Provis decided to make a cowboy series, based on an idea offered to them by Barry Gray. Anderson considered the puppets with static heads, made by Christine Glanville for his earlier productions, to be unacceptable because the viewer could not tell which character was talking unless its puppet moved up or down. Anderson's aim was to make the puppets look as realistic as possible, the beginning of the Supermarionation puppetry process, although that term was not coined until his next series, Supercar.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The puppets' papier-mâché heads were replaced by interchangeable hollow fibre glass heads with internal rods that could move the eyes from side to side. The heads also contained sound-activated solenoids, which allowed the puppets' lips to move automatically in synchronisation with the dialogue. The electronics of the day required more space than would be available in a human-scale head, therefore all the puppets in Four Feather Falls had oversized heads.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Except for the pilot episode, which was made in AP Films' studios at Islet Park, the series was produced in a converted warehouse in the Slough Trading Estate. The cast assembled to record each script without seeing the puppets, much like recording a radio series; synchronisation of each character's speech with the movement of its puppet's mouth was performed later. The show was filmed in black and white. Its tight budget precluded the use of sophisticated special effects, and less-costly alternatives were used. For example, to achieve the effect of muzzle flashes, small specks of black paint were carefully applied to the 35 mm negatives so they would appear as white flashes on the finished prints. The wires used to control the puppets were eight feet long and made of tungsten, an improvement on the curtain wire used in Anderson's two earlier puppet series (The Adventures of Twizzle and Torchy the Battery Boy), and were only 1/200 of an inch thick. Being shiny, the wires had to be blackened. The puppets were made one-third life size with the puppeteers on a bridge eight feet above the set. The horses moved by being pulled along on a trolley, which meant the viewer never saw their feet when they were moving.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The series was filmed between April 1959 and April 1960. Continuity for the series was provided by Sylvia Thamm, who later married Gerry Anderson.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The show's music and song lyrics were composed by Barry Gray. Michael Holliday provided Tex's singing voice, and Tommy Reilly performed the harmonica pieces. The best known song to come out of the series was \"Four Feather Falls\", sung in some episodes by Michael Holliday in the style of Bing Crosby and sometimes incorrectly described as the theme song to the series. The closing theme song was \"Two Gun Tex of Texas.\" Holliday was paid £2000 for his singing work on the pilot episode, equivalent to about £38,000 as of 2010, a significant part of the show's £6000 budget. In all, Holliday recorded six songs for the series: \"Four Feather Falls\", \"The Phantom Rider\", \"The Rick-Rick-A-Rackety Train\", \"Happy Hearts and Friendly Faces\", \"My Home Town\", and \"Two Gun Tex of Texas\".",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The series was repeated in some British TV regions on a sporadic basis up until 1968. In December 2004, it was announced that the rights had been acquired by Network, and it was released on three Region 2 DVDs in May 2005. It is the only Supermarionation series not yet released to DVD in North America as of January 2006. Sylvia Anderson wrote two British children's annuals based on the show, published by Collins in 1960 and 1961. The first book featured a short text story based on the pilot episode of the TV series.",
"title": "Syndication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The show was adapted into comics form and published as an ongoing strip in Polystyle Publications' TV Comic. The Four Feathers Falls strip was drawn by Neville Main, and appeared from issue #439 (14 May 1960) until issue #564 (6 October 1962).",
"title": "Other media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Notes",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Citations",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Bibliography",
"title": "References"
}
] |
Four Feather Falls is a British television programme, the third puppet TV show produced by Gerry Anderson for Granada Television. It was based on an idea by Barry Gray, who also wrote the show's music. The series was the first to use an early version of Anderson's Supermarionation puppetry. Thirty-nine 13-minute episodes were produced, broadcast by Granada from February until November 1960. The setting is the late 19th-century fictional Kansas town of Four Feather Falls, where the hero of the series, Tex Tucker, is a sheriff. The four feathers of the title refers to four magical feathers given to Tex by the Indian chief Kalamakooya as a reward for saving his grandson. One of the feathers allowed Tex's guns to swivel and fire without being touched whenever he was in danger, two conferred the power of speech on Tex's horse and dog, and the fourth feather could summon Kalamakooya. Tex's speaking voice was provided by Nicholas Parsons, and his singing voice by Michael Holliday. The series was sporadically repeated on British television until 1968, and was released on DVD in 2005.
|
2002-02-25T15:51:15Z
|
2023-09-03T20:03:53Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Feather_Falls
|
11,522 |
Fly-by-wire
|
Fly-by-wire (FBW) is a system that replaces the conventional manual flight controls of an aircraft with an electronic interface. The movements of flight controls are converted to electronic signals transmitted by wires, and flight control computers determine how to move the actuators at each control surface to provide the ordered response. It can use mechanical flight control backup systems (like the Boeing 777) or use fully fly-by-wire controls.
Improved fully fly-by-wire systems interpret the pilot's control inputs as a desired outcome and calculate the control surface positions required to achieve that outcome; this results in various combinations of rudder, elevator, aileron, flaps and engine controls in different situations using a closed feedback loop. The pilot may not be fully aware of all the control outputs acting to effect the outcome, only that the aircraft is reacting as expected. The fly-by-wire computers act to stabilize the aircraft and adjust the flying characteristics without the pilot's involvement, and to prevent the pilot from operating outside of the aircraft's safe performance envelope.
Mechanical and hydro-mechanical flight control systems are relatively heavy and require careful routing of flight control cables through the aircraft by systems of pulleys, cranks, tension cables and hydraulic pipes. Both systems often require redundant backup to deal with failures, which increases weight. Both have limited ability to compensate for changing aerodynamic conditions. Dangerous characteristics such as stalling, spinning and pilot-induced oscillation (PIO), which depend mainly on the stability and structure of the aircraft concerned rather than the control system itself, are dependent on the pilot's actions.
The term "fly-by-wire" implies a purely electrically signaled control system. It is used in the general sense of computer-configured controls, where a computer system is interposed between the operator and the final control actuators or surfaces. This modifies the manual inputs of the pilot in accordance with control parameters.
Side-sticks or conventional flight control yokes can be used to fly FBW aircraft.
A FBW aircraft can be lighter than a similar design with conventional controls. This is partly due to the lower overall weight of the system components and partly because the natural stability of the aircraft can be relaxed (slightly for a transport aircraft; more for a maneuverable fighter), which means that the stability surfaces that are part of the aircraft structure can therefore be made smaller. These include the vertical and horizontal stabilizers (fin and tailplane) that are (normally) at the rear of the fuselage. If these structures can be reduced in size, airframe weight is reduced. The advantages of FBW controls were first exploited by the military and then in the commercial airline market. The Airbus series of airliners used full-authority FBW controls beginning with their A320 series, see A320 flight control (though some limited FBW functions existed on A310). Boeing followed with their 777 and later designs.
A pilot commands the flight control computer to make the aircraft perform a certain action, such as pitch the aircraft up, or roll to one side, by moving the control column or sidestick. The flight control computer then calculates what control surface movements will cause the plane to perform that action and issues those commands to the electronic controllers for each surface. The controllers at each surface receive these commands and then move actuators attached to the control surface until it has moved to where the flight control computer commanded it to. The controllers measure the position of the flight control surface with sensors such as LVDTs.
Fly-by-wire control systems allow aircraft computers to perform tasks without pilot input. Automatic stability systems operate in this way. Gyroscopes and sensors such as accelerometers are mounted in an aircraft to sense rotation on the pitch, roll and yaw axes. Any movement (from straight and level flight for example) results in signals to the computer, which can automatically move control actuators to stabilize the aircraft.
While traditional mechanical or hydraulic control systems usually fail gradually, the loss of all flight control computers immediately renders the aircraft uncontrollable. For this reason, most fly-by-wire systems incorporate either redundant computers (triplex, quadruplex etc.), some kind of mechanical or hydraulic backup or a combination of both. A "mixed" control system with mechanical backup feedbacks any rudder elevation directly to the pilot and therefore makes closed loop (feedback) systems senseless.
Aircraft systems may be quadruplexed (four independent channels) to prevent loss of signals in the case of failure of one or even two channels. High performance aircraft that have fly-by-wire controls (also called CCVs or Control-Configured Vehicles) may be deliberately designed to have low or even negative stability in some flight regimes – rapid-reacting CCV controls can electronically stabilize the lack of natural stability.
Pre-flight safety checks of a fly-by-wire system are often performed using built-in test equipment (BITE). A number of control movement steps can be automatically performed, reducing workload of the pilot or groundcrew and speeding up flight-checks.
Some aircraft, the Panavia Tornado for example, retain a very basic hydro-mechanical backup system for limited flight control capability on losing electrical power; in the case of the Tornado this allows rudimentary control of the stabilators only for pitch and roll axis movements.
Servo-electrically operated control surfaces were first tested in the 1930s on the Soviet Tupolev ANT-20. Long runs of mechanical and hydraulic connections were replaced with wires and electric servos.
In 1934, Karl Otto Altvater [de] filed a patent about the automatic-electronic system, which flared the aircraft, when it was close to the ground.
In 1941, an engineer from Siemens, Karl Otto Altvater developed and tested the first fly-by-wire system for the Heinkel He 111, in which the aircraft was fully controlled by electronic impulses.
The first non-experimental aircraft that was designed and flown (in 1958) with a fly-by-wire flight control system was the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow, a feat not repeated with a production aircraft (though the Arrow was cancelled with five built) until Concorde in 1969, which became the first fly-by-wire airliner. This system also included solid-state components and system redundancy, was designed to be integrated with a computerised navigation and automatic search and track radar, was flyable from ground control with data uplink and downlink, and provided artificial feel (feedback) to the pilot.
The first electronic fly-by-wire testbed operated by the U.S. Air Force was a Boeing B-47E Stratojet (Ser. No. 53-2280)
The first pure electronic fly-by-wire aircraft with no mechanical or hydraulic backup was the Apollo Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV), first flown in 1968. This was preceded in 1964 by the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) which pioneered fly-by-wire flight with no mechanical backup. Control was through a digital computer with three analog redundant channels. In the USSR, the Sukhoi T-4 also flew. At about the same time in the United Kingdom a trainer variant of the British Hawker Hunter fighter was modified at the British Royal Aircraft Establishment with fly-by-wire flight controls for the right-seat pilot.
In the UK the two seater Avro 707C was flown with a Fairey system with mechanical backup in the early to mid-60s. The program was curtailed when the air-frame ran out of flight time.
In 1972, the first digital fly-by-wire fixed-wing aircraft without a mechanical backup to take to the air was an F-8 Crusader, which had been modified electronically by NASA of the United States as a test aircraft; the F-8 used the Apollo guidance, navigation and control hardware.
The Airbus A320 began service in 1988 as the first airliner with digital fly-by-wire controls.
All "fly-by-wire" flight control systems eliminate the complexity, the fragility and the weight of the mechanical circuit of the hydromechanical or electromechanical flight control systems – each being replaced with electronic circuits. The control mechanisms in the cockpit now operate signal transducers, which in turn generate the appropriate electronic commands. These are next processed by an electronic controller—either an analog one, or (more modernly) a digital one. Aircraft and spacecraft autopilots are now part of the electronic controller.
The hydraulic circuits are similar except that mechanical servo valves are replaced with electrically controlled servo valves, operated by the electronic controller. This is the simplest and earliest configuration of an analog fly-by-wire flight control system. In this configuration, the flight control systems must simulate "feel". The electronic controller controls electrical feel devices that provide the appropriate "feel" forces on the manual controls. This was used in Concorde, the first production fly-by-wire airliner.
A digital fly-by-wire flight control system can be extended from its analog counterpart. Digital signal processing can receive and interpret input from multiple sensors simultaneously (such as the altimeters and the pitot tubes) and adjust the controls in real time. The computers sense position and force inputs from pilot controls and aircraft sensors. They then solve differential equations related to the aircraft's equations of motion to determine the appropriate command signals for the flight controls to execute the intentions of the pilot.
The programming of the digital computers enable flight envelope protection. These protections are tailored to an aircraft's handling characteristics to stay within aerodynamic and structural limitations of the aircraft. For example, the computer in flight envelope protection mode can try to prevent the aircraft from being handled dangerously by preventing pilots from exceeding preset limits on the aircraft's flight-control envelope, such as those that prevent stalls and spins, and which limit airspeeds and g forces on the airplane. Software can also be included that stabilize the flight-control inputs to avoid pilot-induced oscillations.
Since the flight-control computers continuously feedback the environment, pilot's workloads can be reduced. This also enables military aircraft with relaxed stability. The primary benefit for such aircraft is more maneuverability during combat and training flights, and the so-called "carefree handling" because stalling, spinning and other undesirable performances are prevented automatically by the computers. Digital flight control systems enable inherently unstable combat aircraft, such as the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk and the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit flying wing to fly in usable and safe manners.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States has adopted the RTCA/DO-178C, titled "Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification", as the certification standard for aviation software. Any safety-critical component in a digital fly-by-wire system including applications of the laws of aeronautics and computer operating systems will need to be certified to DO-178C Level A or B, depending on the class of aircraft, which is applicable for preventing potential catastrophic failures.
Nevertheless, the top concern for computerized, digital, fly-by-wire systems is reliability, even more so than for analog electronic control systems. This is because the digital computers that are running software are often the only control path between the pilot and aircraft's flight control surfaces. If the computer software crashes for any reason, the pilot may be unable to control an aircraft. Hence virtually all fly-by-wire flight control systems are either triply or quadruply redundant in their computers and electronics. These have three or four flight-control computers operating in parallel and three or four separate data buses connecting them with each control surface.
The multiple redundant flight control computers continuously monitor each other's output. If one computer begins to give aberrant results for any reason, potentially including software or hardware failures or flawed input data, then the combined system is designed to exclude the results from that computer in deciding the appropriate actions for the flight controls. Depending on specific system details there may be the potential to reboot an aberrant flight control computer, or to reincorporate its inputs if they return to agreement. Complex logic exists to deal with multiple failures, which may prompt the system to revert to simpler back-up modes.
In addition, most of the early digital fly-by-wire aircraft also had an analog electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic back-up flight control system. The Space Shuttle had, in addition to its redundant set of four digital computers running its primary flight-control software, a fifth back-up computer running a separately developed, reduced-function, software flight-control system – one that could be commanded to take over in the event that a fault ever affected all of the computers in the other four. This back-up system served to reduce the risk of total flight-control-system failure ever happening because of a general-purpose flight software fault that had escaped notice in the other four computers.
For airliners, flight-control redundancy improves their safety, but fly-by-wire control systems, which are physically lighter and have lower maintenance demands than conventional controls also improve economy, both in terms of cost of ownership and for in-flight economy. In certain designs with limited relaxed stability in the pitch axis, for example the Boeing 777, the flight control system may allow the aircraft to fly at a more aerodynamically efficient angle of attack than a conventionally stable design. Modern airliners also commonly feature computerized Full-Authority Digital Engine Control systems (FADECs) that control their jet engines, air inlets, fuel storage and distribution system, in a similar fashion to the way that FBW controls the flight control surfaces. This allows the engine output to be continually varied for the most efficient usage possible.
The second generation Embraer E-Jet family gained a 1.5% efficiency improvement over the first generation from the fly-by-wire system, which enabled a reduction from 280 ft.² to 250 ft.² for the horizontal stabilizer on the E190/195 variants.
Airbus and Boeing differ in their approaches to implementing fly-by-wire systems in commercial aircraft. Since the Airbus A320, Airbus flight-envelope control systems always retain ultimate flight control when flying under normal law and will not permit the pilots to violate aircraft performance limits unless they choose to fly under alternate law. This strategy has been continued on subsequent Airbus airliners. However, in the event of multiple failures of redundant computers, the A320 does have a mechanical back-up system for its pitch trim and its rudder, the Airbus A340 has a purely electrical (not electronic) back-up rudder control system and beginning with the A380, all flight-control systems have back-up systems that are purely electrical through the use of a "three-axis Backup Control Module" (BCM).
Boeing airliners, such as the Boeing 777, allow the pilots to completely override the computerised flight-control system, permitting the aircraft to be flown outside of its usual flight-control envelope.
The advent of FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) engines permits operation of the flight control systems and autothrottles for the engines to be fully integrated. On modern military aircraft other systems such as autostabilization, navigation, radar and weapons system are all integrated with the flight control systems. FADEC allows maximum performance to be extracted from the aircraft without fear of engine misoperation, aircraft damage or high pilot workloads.
In the civil field, the integration increases flight safety and economy. Airbus fly-by-wire aircraft are protected from dangerous situations such as low-speed stall or overstressing by flight envelope protection. As a result, in such conditions, the flight control systems commands the engines to increase thrust without pilot intervention. In economy cruise modes, the flight control systems adjust the throttles and fuel tank selections precisely. FADEC reduces rudder drag needed to compensate for sideways flight from unbalanced engine thrust. On the A330/A340 family, fuel is transferred between the main (wing and center fuselage) tanks and a fuel tank in the horizontal stabilizer, to optimize the aircraft's center of gravity during cruise flight. The fuel management controls keep the aircraft's center of gravity accurately trimmed with fuel weight, rather than drag-inducing aerodynamic trims in the elevators.
Fly-by-optics is sometimes used instead of fly-by-wire because it offers a higher data transfer rate, immunity to electromagnetic interference and lighter weight. In most cases, the cables are just changed from electrical to optical fiber cables. Sometimes it is referred to as "fly-by-light" due to its use of fiber optics. The data generated by the software and interpreted by the controller remain the same. Fly-by-light has the effect of decreasing electro-magnetic disturbances to sensors in comparison to more common fly-by-wire control systems. The Kawasaki P-1 is the first production aircraft in the world to be equipped with such a flight control system.
Having eliminated the mechanical transmission circuits in fly-by-wire flight control systems, the next step is to eliminate the bulky and heavy hydraulic circuits. The hydraulic circuit is replaced by an electrical power circuit. The power circuits power electrical or self-contained electrohydraulic actuators that are controlled by the digital flight control computers. All benefits of digital fly-by-wire are retained since the power-by-wire components are strictly complementary to the fly-by-wire components.
The biggest benefits are weight savings, the possibility of redundant power circuits and tighter integration between the aircraft flight control systems and its avionics systems. The absence of hydraulics greatly reduces maintenance costs. This system is used in the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II and in Airbus A380 backup flight controls. The Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 also incorporate electrically powered backup flight controls which remain operational even in the event of a total loss of hydraulic power.
Wiring adds a considerable amount of weight to an aircraft; therefore, researchers are exploring implementing fly-by-wireless solutions. Fly-by-wireless systems are very similar to fly-by-wire systems, however, instead of using a wired protocol for the physical layer a wireless protocol is employed.
In addition to reducing weight, implementing a wireless solution has the potential to reduce costs throughout an aircraft's life cycle. For example, many key failure points associated with wire and connectors will be eliminated thus hours spent troubleshooting wires and connectors will be reduced. Furthermore, engineering costs could potentially decrease because less time would be spent on designing wiring installations, late changes in an aircraft's design would be easier to manage, etc.
A newer flight control system, called intelligent flight control system (IFCS), is an extension of modern digital fly-by-wire flight control systems. The aim is to intelligently compensate for aircraft damage and failure during flight, such as automatically using engine thrust and other avionics to compensate for severe failures such as loss of hydraulics, loss of rudder, loss of ailerons, loss of an engine, etc. Several demonstrations were made on a flight simulator where a Cessna-trained small-aircraft pilot successfully landed a heavily damaged full-size concept jet, without prior experience with large-body jet aircraft. This development is being spearheaded by NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. It is reported that enhancements are mostly software upgrades to existing fully computerized digital fly-by-wire flight control systems. The Dassault Falcon 7X and Embraer Legacy 500 business jets have flight computers that can partially compensate for engine-out scenarios by adjusting thrust levels and control inputs, but still require pilots to respond appropriately.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fly-by-wire (FBW) is a system that replaces the conventional manual flight controls of an aircraft with an electronic interface. The movements of flight controls are converted to electronic signals transmitted by wires, and flight control computers determine how to move the actuators at each control surface to provide the ordered response. It can use mechanical flight control backup systems (like the Boeing 777) or use fully fly-by-wire controls.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Improved fully fly-by-wire systems interpret the pilot's control inputs as a desired outcome and calculate the control surface positions required to achieve that outcome; this results in various combinations of rudder, elevator, aileron, flaps and engine controls in different situations using a closed feedback loop. The pilot may not be fully aware of all the control outputs acting to effect the outcome, only that the aircraft is reacting as expected. The fly-by-wire computers act to stabilize the aircraft and adjust the flying characteristics without the pilot's involvement, and to prevent the pilot from operating outside of the aircraft's safe performance envelope.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Mechanical and hydro-mechanical flight control systems are relatively heavy and require careful routing of flight control cables through the aircraft by systems of pulleys, cranks, tension cables and hydraulic pipes. Both systems often require redundant backup to deal with failures, which increases weight. Both have limited ability to compensate for changing aerodynamic conditions. Dangerous characteristics such as stalling, spinning and pilot-induced oscillation (PIO), which depend mainly on the stability and structure of the aircraft concerned rather than the control system itself, are dependent on the pilot's actions.",
"title": "Rationale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The term \"fly-by-wire\" implies a purely electrically signaled control system. It is used in the general sense of computer-configured controls, where a computer system is interposed between the operator and the final control actuators or surfaces. This modifies the manual inputs of the pilot in accordance with control parameters.",
"title": "Rationale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Side-sticks or conventional flight control yokes can be used to fly FBW aircraft.",
"title": "Rationale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "A FBW aircraft can be lighter than a similar design with conventional controls. This is partly due to the lower overall weight of the system components and partly because the natural stability of the aircraft can be relaxed (slightly for a transport aircraft; more for a maneuverable fighter), which means that the stability surfaces that are part of the aircraft structure can therefore be made smaller. These include the vertical and horizontal stabilizers (fin and tailplane) that are (normally) at the rear of the fuselage. If these structures can be reduced in size, airframe weight is reduced. The advantages of FBW controls were first exploited by the military and then in the commercial airline market. The Airbus series of airliners used full-authority FBW controls beginning with their A320 series, see A320 flight control (though some limited FBW functions existed on A310). Boeing followed with their 777 and later designs.",
"title": "Rationale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "A pilot commands the flight control computer to make the aircraft perform a certain action, such as pitch the aircraft up, or roll to one side, by moving the control column or sidestick. The flight control computer then calculates what control surface movements will cause the plane to perform that action and issues those commands to the electronic controllers for each surface. The controllers at each surface receive these commands and then move actuators attached to the control surface until it has moved to where the flight control computer commanded it to. The controllers measure the position of the flight control surface with sensors such as LVDTs.",
"title": "Basic operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Fly-by-wire control systems allow aircraft computers to perform tasks without pilot input. Automatic stability systems operate in this way. Gyroscopes and sensors such as accelerometers are mounted in an aircraft to sense rotation on the pitch, roll and yaw axes. Any movement (from straight and level flight for example) results in signals to the computer, which can automatically move control actuators to stabilize the aircraft.",
"title": "Basic operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "While traditional mechanical or hydraulic control systems usually fail gradually, the loss of all flight control computers immediately renders the aircraft uncontrollable. For this reason, most fly-by-wire systems incorporate either redundant computers (triplex, quadruplex etc.), some kind of mechanical or hydraulic backup or a combination of both. A \"mixed\" control system with mechanical backup feedbacks any rudder elevation directly to the pilot and therefore makes closed loop (feedback) systems senseless.",
"title": "Safety and redundancy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Aircraft systems may be quadruplexed (four independent channels) to prevent loss of signals in the case of failure of one or even two channels. High performance aircraft that have fly-by-wire controls (also called CCVs or Control-Configured Vehicles) may be deliberately designed to have low or even negative stability in some flight regimes – rapid-reacting CCV controls can electronically stabilize the lack of natural stability.",
"title": "Safety and redundancy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Pre-flight safety checks of a fly-by-wire system are often performed using built-in test equipment (BITE). A number of control movement steps can be automatically performed, reducing workload of the pilot or groundcrew and speeding up flight-checks.",
"title": "Safety and redundancy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Some aircraft, the Panavia Tornado for example, retain a very basic hydro-mechanical backup system for limited flight control capability on losing electrical power; in the case of the Tornado this allows rudimentary control of the stabilators only for pitch and roll axis movements.",
"title": "Safety and redundancy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Servo-electrically operated control surfaces were first tested in the 1930s on the Soviet Tupolev ANT-20. Long runs of mechanical and hydraulic connections were replaced with wires and electric servos.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 1934, Karl Otto Altvater [de] filed a patent about the automatic-electronic system, which flared the aircraft, when it was close to the ground.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In 1941, an engineer from Siemens, Karl Otto Altvater developed and tested the first fly-by-wire system for the Heinkel He 111, in which the aircraft was fully controlled by electronic impulses.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The first non-experimental aircraft that was designed and flown (in 1958) with a fly-by-wire flight control system was the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow, a feat not repeated with a production aircraft (though the Arrow was cancelled with five built) until Concorde in 1969, which became the first fly-by-wire airliner. This system also included solid-state components and system redundancy, was designed to be integrated with a computerised navigation and automatic search and track radar, was flyable from ground control with data uplink and downlink, and provided artificial feel (feedback) to the pilot.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The first electronic fly-by-wire testbed operated by the U.S. Air Force was a Boeing B-47E Stratojet (Ser. No. 53-2280)",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The first pure electronic fly-by-wire aircraft with no mechanical or hydraulic backup was the Apollo Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV), first flown in 1968. This was preceded in 1964 by the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) which pioneered fly-by-wire flight with no mechanical backup. Control was through a digital computer with three analog redundant channels. In the USSR, the Sukhoi T-4 also flew. At about the same time in the United Kingdom a trainer variant of the British Hawker Hunter fighter was modified at the British Royal Aircraft Establishment with fly-by-wire flight controls for the right-seat pilot.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In the UK the two seater Avro 707C was flown with a Fairey system with mechanical backup in the early to mid-60s. The program was curtailed when the air-frame ran out of flight time.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In 1972, the first digital fly-by-wire fixed-wing aircraft without a mechanical backup to take to the air was an F-8 Crusader, which had been modified electronically by NASA of the United States as a test aircraft; the F-8 used the Apollo guidance, navigation and control hardware.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Airbus A320 began service in 1988 as the first airliner with digital fly-by-wire controls.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "All \"fly-by-wire\" flight control systems eliminate the complexity, the fragility and the weight of the mechanical circuit of the hydromechanical or electromechanical flight control systems – each being replaced with electronic circuits. The control mechanisms in the cockpit now operate signal transducers, which in turn generate the appropriate electronic commands. These are next processed by an electronic controller—either an analog one, or (more modernly) a digital one. Aircraft and spacecraft autopilots are now part of the electronic controller.",
"title": "Analog systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The hydraulic circuits are similar except that mechanical servo valves are replaced with electrically controlled servo valves, operated by the electronic controller. This is the simplest and earliest configuration of an analog fly-by-wire flight control system. In this configuration, the flight control systems must simulate \"feel\". The electronic controller controls electrical feel devices that provide the appropriate \"feel\" forces on the manual controls. This was used in Concorde, the first production fly-by-wire airliner.",
"title": "Analog systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "A digital fly-by-wire flight control system can be extended from its analog counterpart. Digital signal processing can receive and interpret input from multiple sensors simultaneously (such as the altimeters and the pitot tubes) and adjust the controls in real time. The computers sense position and force inputs from pilot controls and aircraft sensors. They then solve differential equations related to the aircraft's equations of motion to determine the appropriate command signals for the flight controls to execute the intentions of the pilot.",
"title": "Digital systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The programming of the digital computers enable flight envelope protection. These protections are tailored to an aircraft's handling characteristics to stay within aerodynamic and structural limitations of the aircraft. For example, the computer in flight envelope protection mode can try to prevent the aircraft from being handled dangerously by preventing pilots from exceeding preset limits on the aircraft's flight-control envelope, such as those that prevent stalls and spins, and which limit airspeeds and g forces on the airplane. Software can also be included that stabilize the flight-control inputs to avoid pilot-induced oscillations.",
"title": "Digital systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Since the flight-control computers continuously feedback the environment, pilot's workloads can be reduced. This also enables military aircraft with relaxed stability. The primary benefit for such aircraft is more maneuverability during combat and training flights, and the so-called \"carefree handling\" because stalling, spinning and other undesirable performances are prevented automatically by the computers. Digital flight control systems enable inherently unstable combat aircraft, such as the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk and the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit flying wing to fly in usable and safe manners.",
"title": "Digital systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States has adopted the RTCA/DO-178C, titled \"Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification\", as the certification standard for aviation software. Any safety-critical component in a digital fly-by-wire system including applications of the laws of aeronautics and computer operating systems will need to be certified to DO-178C Level A or B, depending on the class of aircraft, which is applicable for preventing potential catastrophic failures.",
"title": "Digital systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Nevertheless, the top concern for computerized, digital, fly-by-wire systems is reliability, even more so than for analog electronic control systems. This is because the digital computers that are running software are often the only control path between the pilot and aircraft's flight control surfaces. If the computer software crashes for any reason, the pilot may be unable to control an aircraft. Hence virtually all fly-by-wire flight control systems are either triply or quadruply redundant in their computers and electronics. These have three or four flight-control computers operating in parallel and three or four separate data buses connecting them with each control surface.",
"title": "Digital systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The multiple redundant flight control computers continuously monitor each other's output. If one computer begins to give aberrant results for any reason, potentially including software or hardware failures or flawed input data, then the combined system is designed to exclude the results from that computer in deciding the appropriate actions for the flight controls. Depending on specific system details there may be the potential to reboot an aberrant flight control computer, or to reincorporate its inputs if they return to agreement. Complex logic exists to deal with multiple failures, which may prompt the system to revert to simpler back-up modes.",
"title": "Digital systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In addition, most of the early digital fly-by-wire aircraft also had an analog electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic back-up flight control system. The Space Shuttle had, in addition to its redundant set of four digital computers running its primary flight-control software, a fifth back-up computer running a separately developed, reduced-function, software flight-control system – one that could be commanded to take over in the event that a fault ever affected all of the computers in the other four. This back-up system served to reduce the risk of total flight-control-system failure ever happening because of a general-purpose flight software fault that had escaped notice in the other four computers.",
"title": "Digital systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "For airliners, flight-control redundancy improves their safety, but fly-by-wire control systems, which are physically lighter and have lower maintenance demands than conventional controls also improve economy, both in terms of cost of ownership and for in-flight economy. In certain designs with limited relaxed stability in the pitch axis, for example the Boeing 777, the flight control system may allow the aircraft to fly at a more aerodynamically efficient angle of attack than a conventionally stable design. Modern airliners also commonly feature computerized Full-Authority Digital Engine Control systems (FADECs) that control their jet engines, air inlets, fuel storage and distribution system, in a similar fashion to the way that FBW controls the flight control surfaces. This allows the engine output to be continually varied for the most efficient usage possible.",
"title": "Digital systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The second generation Embraer E-Jet family gained a 1.5% efficiency improvement over the first generation from the fly-by-wire system, which enabled a reduction from 280 ft.² to 250 ft.² for the horizontal stabilizer on the E190/195 variants.",
"title": "Digital systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Airbus and Boeing differ in their approaches to implementing fly-by-wire systems in commercial aircraft. Since the Airbus A320, Airbus flight-envelope control systems always retain ultimate flight control when flying under normal law and will not permit the pilots to violate aircraft performance limits unless they choose to fly under alternate law. This strategy has been continued on subsequent Airbus airliners. However, in the event of multiple failures of redundant computers, the A320 does have a mechanical back-up system for its pitch trim and its rudder, the Airbus A340 has a purely electrical (not electronic) back-up rudder control system and beginning with the A380, all flight-control systems have back-up systems that are purely electrical through the use of a \"three-axis Backup Control Module\" (BCM).",
"title": "Digital systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Boeing airliners, such as the Boeing 777, allow the pilots to completely override the computerised flight-control system, permitting the aircraft to be flown outside of its usual flight-control envelope.",
"title": "Digital systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The advent of FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) engines permits operation of the flight control systems and autothrottles for the engines to be fully integrated. On modern military aircraft other systems such as autostabilization, navigation, radar and weapons system are all integrated with the flight control systems. FADEC allows maximum performance to be extracted from the aircraft without fear of engine misoperation, aircraft damage or high pilot workloads.",
"title": "Engine digital control"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In the civil field, the integration increases flight safety and economy. Airbus fly-by-wire aircraft are protected from dangerous situations such as low-speed stall or overstressing by flight envelope protection. As a result, in such conditions, the flight control systems commands the engines to increase thrust without pilot intervention. In economy cruise modes, the flight control systems adjust the throttles and fuel tank selections precisely. FADEC reduces rudder drag needed to compensate for sideways flight from unbalanced engine thrust. On the A330/A340 family, fuel is transferred between the main (wing and center fuselage) tanks and a fuel tank in the horizontal stabilizer, to optimize the aircraft's center of gravity during cruise flight. The fuel management controls keep the aircraft's center of gravity accurately trimmed with fuel weight, rather than drag-inducing aerodynamic trims in the elevators.",
"title": "Engine digital control"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Fly-by-optics is sometimes used instead of fly-by-wire because it offers a higher data transfer rate, immunity to electromagnetic interference and lighter weight. In most cases, the cables are just changed from electrical to optical fiber cables. Sometimes it is referred to as \"fly-by-light\" due to its use of fiber optics. The data generated by the software and interpreted by the controller remain the same. Fly-by-light has the effect of decreasing electro-magnetic disturbances to sensors in comparison to more common fly-by-wire control systems. The Kawasaki P-1 is the first production aircraft in the world to be equipped with such a flight control system.",
"title": "Further developments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Having eliminated the mechanical transmission circuits in fly-by-wire flight control systems, the next step is to eliminate the bulky and heavy hydraulic circuits. The hydraulic circuit is replaced by an electrical power circuit. The power circuits power electrical or self-contained electrohydraulic actuators that are controlled by the digital flight control computers. All benefits of digital fly-by-wire are retained since the power-by-wire components are strictly complementary to the fly-by-wire components.",
"title": "Further developments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The biggest benefits are weight savings, the possibility of redundant power circuits and tighter integration between the aircraft flight control systems and its avionics systems. The absence of hydraulics greatly reduces maintenance costs. This system is used in the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II and in Airbus A380 backup flight controls. The Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 also incorporate electrically powered backup flight controls which remain operational even in the event of a total loss of hydraulic power.",
"title": "Further developments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Wiring adds a considerable amount of weight to an aircraft; therefore, researchers are exploring implementing fly-by-wireless solutions. Fly-by-wireless systems are very similar to fly-by-wire systems, however, instead of using a wired protocol for the physical layer a wireless protocol is employed.",
"title": "Further developments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In addition to reducing weight, implementing a wireless solution has the potential to reduce costs throughout an aircraft's life cycle. For example, many key failure points associated with wire and connectors will be eliminated thus hours spent troubleshooting wires and connectors will be reduced. Furthermore, engineering costs could potentially decrease because less time would be spent on designing wiring installations, late changes in an aircraft's design would be easier to manage, etc.",
"title": "Further developments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "A newer flight control system, called intelligent flight control system (IFCS), is an extension of modern digital fly-by-wire flight control systems. The aim is to intelligently compensate for aircraft damage and failure during flight, such as automatically using engine thrust and other avionics to compensate for severe failures such as loss of hydraulics, loss of rudder, loss of ailerons, loss of an engine, etc. Several demonstrations were made on a flight simulator where a Cessna-trained small-aircraft pilot successfully landed a heavily damaged full-size concept jet, without prior experience with large-body jet aircraft. This development is being spearheaded by NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. It is reported that enhancements are mostly software upgrades to existing fully computerized digital fly-by-wire flight control systems. The Dassault Falcon 7X and Embraer Legacy 500 business jets have flight computers that can partially compensate for engine-out scenarios by adjusting thrust levels and control inputs, but still require pilots to respond appropriately.",
"title": "Further developments"
}
] |
Fly-by-wire (FBW) is a system that replaces the conventional manual flight controls of an aircraft with an electronic interface. The movements of flight controls are converted to electronic signals transmitted by wires, and flight control computers determine how to move the actuators at each control surface to provide the ordered response. It can use mechanical flight control backup systems or use fully fly-by-wire controls. Improved fully fly-by-wire systems interpret the pilot's control inputs as a desired outcome and calculate the control surface positions required to achieve that outcome; this results in various combinations of rudder, elevator, aileron, flaps and engine controls in different situations using a closed feedback loop. The pilot may not be fully aware of all the control outputs acting to effect the outcome, only that the aircraft is reacting as expected. The fly-by-wire computers act to stabilize the aircraft and adjust the flying characteristics without the pilot's involvement, and to prevent the pilot from operating outside of the aircraft's safe performance envelope.
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2001-11-18T20:02:35Z
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2023-11-13T15:03:23Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire
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Falklands War
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The Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial dependency, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The conflict began on 2 April 1982, when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands, followed by the invasion of South Georgia the next day. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with an Argentine surrender on 14 June, returning the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders were killed during the hostilities.
The conflict was a major episode in the protracted dispute over the territories' sovereignty. Argentina asserted (and maintains) that the islands are Argentine territory, and the Argentine government thus characterised its military action as the reclamation of its own territory. The British government regarded the action as an invasion of a territory that had been a Crown colony since 1841. Falkland Islanders, who have inhabited the islands since the early 19th century, are predominantly descendants of British settlers, and strongly favour British sovereignty. Neither state officially declared war, although both governments declared the islands a war zone.
The conflict had a strong effect in both countries and has been the subject of various books, articles, films, and songs. Patriotic sentiment ran high in Argentina, but the unfavourable outcome prompted large protests against the ruling military government, hastening its downfall and the democratisation of the country. In the United Kingdom, the Conservative government, bolstered by the successful outcome, was re-elected with an increased majority the following year. The cultural and political effect of the conflict has been less in the UK than in Argentina, where it has remained a common topic for discussion.
Diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Argentina were restored in 1989 following a meeting in Madrid, at which the two governments issued a joint statement. No change in either country's position regarding the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands was made explicit. In 1994, Argentina adopted a new constitution, which declared the Falkland Islands as part of one of its provinces by law. However, the islands continue to operate as a self-governing British Overseas Territory.
In 1965, the United Nations called upon Argentina and the United Kingdom to reach a settlement of the sovereignty dispute. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) regarded the islands as a nuisance and barrier to UK trade in South America. Therefore, while confident of British sovereignty, the FCO was prepared to cede the islands to Argentina. When news of a proposed transfer broke in 1968, elements sympathetic with the plight of the islanders were able to organise an effective parliamentary lobby to frustrate the FCO plans. Negotiations continued, but in general failed to make meaningful progress; the islanders steadfastly refused to consider Argentine sovereignty on one side, whilst Argentina would not compromise over sovereignty on the other. The FCO then sought to make the islands dependent on Argentina, hoping this would make the islanders more amenable to Argentine sovereignty. A Communications Agreement signed in 1971 created an airlink and later YPF, the Argentine oil company, was given a monopoly in the islands.
In 1977, the British prime minister, James Callaghan, in response to heightened tensions in the region and the Argentine occupation of Southern Thule, secretly sent a force of two frigates and a nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Dreadnought, to the South Atlantic, codenamed Operation Journeyman. It is unclear whether the Argentines were aware of their presence, but British sources state that they were advised of it through informal channels. Nevertheless, talks with Argentina on Falklands sovereignty and economic cooperation opened in December of that year, though they proved inconclusive.
In 1980, a new UK Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Nicholas Ridley, went to the Falklands trying to sell the islanders the benefits of a leaseback scheme, which met with strong opposition from the islanders. On his return to London in December 1980, he reported to parliament but was viciously attacked at what was seen as a sellout. (It was unlikely that leaseback could have succeeded since the British had sought a long-term lease of 99 years, whereas Argentina was pressing for a much shorter period of only ten years.) At a private committee meeting that evening, it was reported that Ridley said: "If we don't do something, they will invade. And there is nothing we could do."
In the period leading up to the war—and, in particular, following the transfer of power between the military dictators General Jorge Rafael Videla and General Roberto Eduardo Viola late in March 1981—Argentina had been in the midst of devastating economic stagnation and large-scale civil unrest against the National Reorganization Process, the military junta that had been governing the country since 1976.
In December 1981, there was a further change in the Argentine military regime, bringing to office a new junta headed by General Leopoldo Galtieri (acting president), Air Brigadier Basilio Lami Dozo and Admiral Jorge Anaya. Anaya was the main architect and supporter of a military solution for the long-standing claim over the islands, expecting that the United Kingdom would never respond militarily.
By opting for military action, the Galtieri government hoped to mobilise the long-standing patriotic feelings of Argentines towards the islands, diverting public attention from the chronic economic problems and the ongoing human rights violations of its Dirty War, bolstering the junta's dwindling legitimacy. The newspaper La Prensa speculated on a step-by-step plan beginning with cutting off supplies to the islands, ending in direct actions late in 1982, if the UN talks were fruitless.
The ongoing tension between the two countries over the islands increased on 19 March, when a group of Argentine scrap metal merchants (which had been infiltrated by Argentine Marines) raised the Argentine flag at South Georgia Island, an act that would later be seen as the first offensive action in the war. The Royal Navy ice patrol vessel HMS Endurance was dispatched from Stanley to South Georgia on the 25th in response. The Argentine military junta, suspecting that the UK would reinforce its South Atlantic Forces, ordered the invasion of the Falkland Islands to be brought forward to 2 April.
The UK was initially taken by surprise by the Argentine attack on the South Atlantic islands, despite repeated warnings by Royal Navy captain Nicholas Barker (Commanding Officer of the Endurance) and others. Barker believed that Defence Secretary John Nott's 1981 Defence White Paper (in which Nott described plans to withdraw the Endurance, the UK's only naval presence in the South Atlantic) had sent a signal to the Argentines that the UK was unwilling, and would soon be unable, to defend its territories and subjects in the Falklands.
On 2 April 1982 Argentine forces mounted amphibious landings, known as Operation Rosario, on the Falkland Islands. The invasion was met with a fierce but brief defence organised by the Falkland Islands' Governor Sir Rex Hunt, giving command to Major Mike Norman of the Royal Marines. The garrison consisted of 68 marines and eleven naval hydrographers, assisted by 23 volunteers of the Falkland Islands Defence Force (FIDF), who had few weapons and were used as lookouts. The invasion started with the landing of Lieutenant Commander Guillermo Sanchez-Sabarots' Amphibious Commandos Group, who attacked the empty Moody Brook barracks and then moved on Government House in Stanley. When the 2nd Marine Infantry Battalion with Assault Amphibious Vehicles arrived, the governor ordered a ceasefire and surrendered. The governor, his family and the British military personnel were flown to Argentina that afternoon and later repatriated to the United Kingdom.
The British had already taken action prior to the 2 April invasion. In response to events on South Georgia, on 29 March, Ministers decided to send the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Fort Austin south from the Mediterranean to support HMS Endurance, and the nuclear-powered fleet submarine HMS Spartan from Gibraltar, with HMS Splendid ordered south from Scotland the following day. Lord Carrington had wished to send a third submarine, but the decision was deferred due to concerns about the impact on operational commitments. Coincidentally, on 26 March, the submarine HMS Superb left Gibraltar and it was assumed in the press she was heading south. There has since been speculation that the effect of those reports was to panic the Argentine junta into invading the Falklands before submarines could be deployed; however, post-war research has established that the final decision to proceed was made at a junta meeting in Buenos Aires on 23 March.
The following day, during a crisis meeting headed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sir Henry Leach, advised that "Britain could and should send a task force if the islands are invaded". On 1 April, Leach sent orders to a Royal Navy force carrying out exercises in the Mediterranean to prepare to sail south. Following the invasion on 2 April, after an emergency meeting of the cabinet, approval was given to form a task force to retake the islands. This was backed in an emergency sitting of the House of Commons the next day.
Word of the invasion first reached the UK from Argentine sources. A Ministry of Defence operative in London had a short telex conversation with Governor Hunt's telex operator, who confirmed that Argentines were on the island and in control. Later that day, BBC journalist Laurie Margolis spoke with an islander at Goose Green via amateur radio, who confirmed the presence of a large Argentine fleet and that Argentine forces had taken control of the island. British military operations in the Falklands War were given the codename Operation Corporate, and the commander of the task force was Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse. Operations lasted from 1 April 1982 to 20 June 1982.
On 6 April, the British Government set up a War Cabinet to provide day-to-day political oversight of the campaign. This was the critical instrument of crisis management for the British with its remit being to "keep under review political and military developments relating to the South Atlantic, and to report as necessary to the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee". The War Cabinet met at least daily until it was dissolved on 12 August. Although Margaret Thatcher is described as dominating the War Cabinet, Lawrence Freedman notes in the Official History of the Falklands Campaign that she did not ignore opposition or fail to consult others. However, once a decision was reached, she "did not look back".
On 31 March 1982, the Argentine ambassador to the UN, Eduardo Roca, began attempting to garner support against a British military build-up designed to thwart earlier UN resolutions calling for both countries to resolve the Falklands dispute through discussion. On 2 April, the night of the invasion, a banquet was held at Roca's official residence for the US ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and several high-ranking officials of the United States Department of State and the United States Department of Defense. This led British diplomats to view Kirkpatrick, who had earlier called for closer relationships with South American dictatorships, with considerable suspicion.
On 1 April, London told the UK ambassador to the UN, Sir Anthony Parsons, that an invasion was imminent and he should call an urgent meeting of the Security Council to get a favourable resolution against Argentina. Parsons had to get nine affirmative votes from the 15 Council members (not a simple majority) and to avoid a blocking vote from any of the other four permanent members. The meeting took place at 11:00 am on 3 April, New York time (4:00 pm in London). United Nations Security Council Resolution 502 was adopted by 10 to 1 (with Panama voting against) and 4 abstentions. Significantly, the Soviet Union and China both abstained. The resolution stated that the UN Security Council was:
Deeply disturbed at reports of an invasion on 2 April 1982 by armed forces of Argentina; Determining that there exists a breach of the peace in the region of the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), Demands an immediate cessation of hostilities; Demands an immediate withdrawal of all Argentine forces from the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) Calls on the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom to seek a diplomatic solution to their differences and to respect fully the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
This was a significant win for the UK, giving it the upper hand diplomatically. The draft resolution Parsons submitted had avoided any reference to the sovereignty dispute (which might have worked against the UK): instead it focused on Argentina's breach of Chapter VII of the UN Charter which forbids the threat or use of force to settle disputes. The resolution called for the removal only of Argentine forces: this freed Britain to retake the islands militarily, if Argentina did not leave, by exercising its right to self-defence allowed under the UN Charter.
The Argentine Army unit earmarked for the occupation was the 25th Infantry Regiment, a unit of about 681 men specially trained from all the regions of Argentina; it was flown into Port Stanley Airport as soon as the runway had been cleared. Once it became clear that the British were sending an amphibious task force, there was a general recall of reservists and two brigades of eight infantry regiments and their supporting units were dispatched to the islands. The total Argentine garrison numbered some 13,000 troops by the beginning of May. The conscripts born in 1963 had only recently been called-up, so they were supplemented by the recall of the previous year's intake. Brigadier General Mario Benjamín Menéndez was appointed Military Governor of the Malvinas.
Argentine military police arrived with detailed files on many islanders, allowing intelligence officer Major Patricio Dowling to arrest and interrogate islanders who he suspected might lead opposition to the occupation. Initially, Islanders suspected of holding anti-Argentine views were expelled, including the Luxton family (who had lived in the islands since the 1840s) and David Colville, editor of the Falklands Times. This proved to be counter-productive, as those expelled gave interviews to the press. Subsequently, fourteen other community leaders, including the senior medical officer, were interned at Fox Bay on West Falkland. Concerned by Dowling's actions, senior Argentine officers had him removed from the islands. For almost a month, the civilian population of Goose Green was detained in the village hall in "unpleasant conditions". Less well known are similar detentions in other outlying settlements, including one islander who died after being denied access to his medication. As the war's end approached, some troops began to place booby traps in civilian homes, defiled homes with excrement, destroyed civilian property and committed arson against civilian properties.
Argentine officers and NCOs have been accused of handing out rough Field punishment to their conscript soldiers. Ration packs from the Moody Brook depot were found to have foodstuff missing according to Private Alan Craig from the 7th Regiment, and troops garrisoning Port Howard were starved, and according to Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins in their book The Battle for the Falklands (Norton, 1984), "Attempts to go absent without leave were punished by beatings or forcing the offender to sit for hours with his naked feet in the freezing water on the mountainside." Private Rito Portillo from the 1st Marine Anti-Aircraft Battalion and Private Remigio Fernández from the 5th Regiment were reported to have been executed or died because of mistreatment by their own officers. Soldiers were made to sign non-disclosure documents on their return from the Islands.
On 8 April, Alexander Haig, the United States Secretary of State, arrived in London on a shuttle diplomacy mission from President Ronald Reagan to broker a peace deal based on an interim authority taking control of the islands pending negotiations. After hearing from Thatcher that the task force would not be withdrawn unless the Argentines evacuated their troops, Haig headed for Buenos Aires. There he met the junta and Nicanor Costa Méndez, the foreign minister. Haig was treated coolly and told that Argentine sovereignty must be a pre-condition of any talks. Returning to London on 11 April, he found the British cabinet in no mood for compromise. Haig flew back to Washington before returning to Buenos Aires for a final protracted round of talks. These made little progress, but just as Haig and his mission were leaving, they were told that Galtieri would meet them at the airport VIP lounge to make an important concession; however, this was cancelled at the last minute. On 30 April, the Reagan administration announced that they would be publicly supporting the United Kingdom.
The nuclear-powered submarine Conqueror set sail from Faslane, Scotland on 4 April. The two aircraft carriers Invincible and Hermes and their escort vessels left Portsmouth, England only a day later. On its return to Southampton from a world cruise on 7 April, the ocean liner SS Canberra was requisitioned and set sail two days later with the 3 Commando Brigade aboard. The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 was also requisitioned, and left Southampton on 12 May, with the 5th Infantry Brigade on board. The whole task force eventually comprised 127 ships: 43 Royal Navy vessels, 22 Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships, and 62 merchant ships.
The retaking of the Falkland Islands was considered extremely difficult. The chances of a British counter-invasion succeeding were assessed by the US Navy, according to historian Arthur L. Herman, as "a military impossibility". Firstly, the British were significantly constrained by the disparity in deployable air cover. The British had 42 aircraft (28 Sea Harriers and 14 Harrier GR.3s) available for air combat operations, against approximately 122 serviceable jet fighters, of which about 50 were used as air superiority fighters and the remainder as strike aircraft, in Argentina's air forces during the war. Crucially, the British lacked airborne early warning and control (AEW) aircraft. Planning also considered the Argentine surface fleet and the threat posed by Exocet-equipped vessels or the two Type 209 submarines.
By mid-April, the Royal Air Force had set up an airbase on RAF Ascension Island, co-located with Wideawake Airfield, on the mid-Atlantic British overseas territory of Ascension Island. They included a sizeable force of Avro Vulcan B Mk 2 bombers, Handley Page Victor K Mk 2 refuelling aircraft, and McDonnell Douglas Phantom FGR Mk 2 fighters to protect them. Meanwhile, the main British naval task force arrived at Ascension to prepare for active service. A small force had already been sent south to recapture South Georgia.
Encounters began in April; the British Task Force was shadowed by Boeing 707 aircraft of the Argentine Air Force during their travel to the south. Several of these flights were intercepted by Sea Harriers outside the British-imposed Total Exclusion Zone; the unarmed 707s were not attacked because diplomatic moves were still in progress and the UK had not yet decided to commit itself to armed force. On 23 April, a Brazilian commercial Douglas DC-10 from VARIG Airlines en route to South Africa was intercepted by British Harriers who visually identified the civilian plane.
The South Georgia force, Operation Paraquet, under the command of Major Guy Sheridan RM, consisted of Marines from 42 Commando, a troop of the Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service (SBS) troops who were intended to land as reconnaissance forces for an invasion by the Royal Marines, a total of 240 men. All were embarked on RFA Tidespring. First to arrive was the Churchill-class submarine HMS Conqueror on 19 April, and the island was over-flown by a Handley Page Victor aircraft with radar-mapping equipment on 20 April, to establish that no Argentine ships were in the vicinity.
The first landings of SAS and SBS troops took place on 21 April, but a mission to establish an observation post on the Fortuna Glacier had to be withdrawn after two helicopters crashed in fog and high winds. On 23 April, a submarine alert was sounded and operations were halted, with Tidespring being withdrawn to deeper water to avoid interception. On 24 April, British forces regrouped and headed in to attack.
On 25 April, after resupplying the Argentine garrison in South Georgia, the submarine ARA Santa Fe was spotted on the surface by a Westland Wessex HAS Mk 3 helicopter from HMS Antrim, which attacked the Argentine submarine with depth charges. HMS Plymouth launched a Westland Wasp HAS.Mk.1 helicopter, and HMS Brilliant launched a Westland Lynx HAS Mk 2. The Lynx launched a torpedo, and strafed the submarine with its pintle-mounted general purpose machine gun; the Wessex also fired on Santa Fe with its GPMG. The Wasp from HMS Plymouth as well as two other Wasps launched from HMS Endurance fired AS-12 ASM antiship missiles at the submarine, scoring hits. Santa Fe was damaged badly enough to prevent her from diving. The crew abandoned the submarine at the jetty at King Edward Point on South Georgia.
With Tidespring now far out to sea and the Argentine forces augmented by the submarine's crew, Major Sheridan decided to gather the 76 men he had and make a direct assault that day. After a short forced march by the British troops and a naval bombardment demonstration by two Royal Navy vessels (Antrim and Plymouth), the Argentine forces, a total of 190 men, surrendered without resistance. The message sent from the naval force at South Georgia to London was, "Be pleased to inform Her Majesty that the White Ensign flies alongside the Union Jack in South Georgia. God Save the Queen." The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, broke the news to the media, telling them to "Just rejoice at that news, and congratulate our forces and the Marines!"
On 1 May British operations on the Falklands opened with the "Black Buck 1" attack (of a series of five) on the airfield at Stanley. A Vulcan bomber from Ascension flew an 8,000-nautical-mile (15,000 km; 9,200 mi) round trip, dropping conventional bombs across the runway at Stanley. The mission required repeated aerial refuelling using several Victor K2 tanker aircraft operating in concert, including tanker-to-tanker refuelling. The overall effect of the raids on the war is difficult to determine. The runway was cratered by only one of the twenty one bombs, but as a result, the Argentines realised that their mainland was vulnerable and fighter aircraft were redeployed from the theatre to bases further north.
Historian Lawrence Freedman, who was given access to official sources, comments that the significance of the Vulcan raids remains a subject of controversy. Although they took pressure off the small Sea Harrier force, the raids were costly and used a great deal of resources. The single hit in the centre of the runway was probably the best that could have been expected, but it did reduce the capability of the runway to operate fast jets and caused the Argentine air force to deploy Mirage IIIs to defend the capital. Argentine sources confirm that the Vulcan raids influenced Argentina to shift some of its Mirage IIIs from southern Argentina to the Buenos Aires Defence Zone. This dissuasive effect was watered down when British officials made clear that there would not be strikes on air bases in Argentina. The raids were later dismissed as propaganda by Falklands veteran Commander Nigel Ward.
Of the five Black Buck raids, three were against Stanley Airfield, with the other two being anti-radar missions using Shrike anti-radiation missiles.
The Falklands had only three airfields. The longest and only paved runway was at the capital, Stanley, and even that was too short to support fast jets. Therefore, the Argentines were forced to launch their major strikes from the mainland, severely hampering their efforts at forward staging, combat air patrols, and close air support over the islands. The effective loiter time of incoming Argentine aircraft was low, limiting the ability of fighters to protect attack aircraft, which were often compelled to attack the first target of opportunity, rather than selecting the most lucrative target.
The first major Argentine strike force comprised 36 aircraft (A-4 Skyhawks, IAI Daggers, English Electric Canberras, and Mirage III escorts), and was sent on 1 May, in the belief that the British invasion was imminent or landings had already taken place. Only a section of Grupo 6 (flying IAI Dagger aircraft) found ships, which were firing at Argentine defences near the islands. The Daggers managed to attack the ships and return safely. This greatly boosted the morale of the Argentine pilots, who now knew they could survive an attack against modern warships, protected by radar ground clutter from the islands and by using a late pop up profile. Meanwhile, other Argentine aircraft were intercepted by BAE Sea Harriers operating from HMS Invincible. A Dagger and a Canberra were shot down.
Combat broke out between Sea Harrier FRS Mk 1 fighters of No. 801 Naval Air Squadron and Mirage III fighters of Grupo 8. Both sides refused to fight at the other's best altitude, until two Mirages finally descended to engage. One was shot down by an AIM-9L Sidewinder air-to-air missile (AAM), while the other escaped but was damaged and without enough fuel to return to its mainland airbase. The plane made for Stanley, where it fell victim to friendly fire from the Argentine defenders.
As a result of this experience, Argentine Air Force staff decided to employ A-4 Skyhawks and Daggers only as strike units, the Canberras only during the night, and Mirage IIIs (without air refuelling capability or any capable AAM) as decoys to lure away the British Sea Harriers. The decoying would be later extended with the formation of the Escuadrón Fénix, a squadron of civilian jets flying 24 hours a day, simulating strike aircraft preparing to attack the fleet. On one of these flights on 7 June, an Air Force Learjet 35A was shot down by HMS Exeter, killing the squadron commander, Vice Commodore Rodolfo de la Colina, the highest-ranking Argentine officer to die in the war.
Stanley was used as an Argentine strongpoint throughout the conflict. Despite the Black Buck and Harrier raids on Stanley airfield (no fast jets were stationed there for air defence) and overnight shelling by detached ships, it was never out of action entirely. Stanley was defended by a mixture of surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems (Franco-German Roland and British Tigercat) and light anti-aircraft guns, including Swiss-built Oerlikon 35 mm twin cannons and 30 mm Hispano-Suiza cannon and German Rheinmetall 20 mm twin anti-aircraft cannons. More of the anti-aircraft guns were deployed to the airstrip at Goose Green. Lockheed Hercules transport night flights brought supplies, weapons, vehicles, and fuel, and airlifted out the wounded up until the end of the conflict.
The only Argentine Hercules shot down by the British was lost on 1 June when TC-63 was intercepted by a Sea Harrier in daylight as it was searching for the British fleet north-east of the islands, after the Argentine Navy retired its last SP-2H Neptune due to unreliability.
Various options to attack the home base of the five Argentine Étendards at Río Grande were examined and discounted (Operation Mikado); subsequently five Royal Navy submarines were lined up, submerged, on the edge of Argentina's 12-nautical-mile (22 km; 14 mi) territorial limit to provide early warning of bombing raids on the British task force.
Operation Folklore was a plan to deploy two Canberra PR.9 aircraft of No. 39 Squadron RAF, disguised in Chilean Air Force markings, to the Chilean air base at Punta Arenas, with the intention of undertaking high-level photo-reconnaissance flights over the Falklands; however the Canberras had reached Belize when the operation was abandoned after part of the plan had been reported in the British press. Operation Acme was the deployment of a single Nimrod R.1 surveillance aircraft of No. 51 Squadron RAF to the Chilean base at Isla San Félix to gather signals intelligence from Argentinian forces in the Falklands; three sorties were conducted, the last on 17 May narrowly avoided being shot down by the Chileans, leading to the cancellation of the operation. More successful was Operation Fingent, the placement of a Marconi S259 radar on high ground in Tierra del Fuego from where it could monitor movements at southern Argentinian air bases; the RAF crew wore civilian clothes in the guise of a sales team. Information was passed to Northwood and the Task Force by means of Operation Shutter, a US supplied SATCOM system installed at the Chilean Air Force headquarters in Santiago and operated by two soldiers of the Royal Corps of Signals.
On 30 April, the British government had brought into force a 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres; 230 miles) Total Exclusion Zone (TEZ) to replace the previous Maritime Exclusion Zone; aircraft as well as ships of any nation were liable to be attacked inside it, if they were aiding the Argentine occupation. Admiral Sandy Woodward's carrier battle group of twelve warships and three supply ships entered the TEZ on 1 May, shortly before the first Black Buck raid, intending to degrade Argentine air and sea forces before the arrival of the amphibious group two weeks later. In anticipation, Admiral Anaya had deployed all his available warships into three task groups. The first was centred around the aircraft carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo with two old but missile-armed destroyers, and a second comprised three modern frigates. Both these groups were intended to approach the TEZ from the north. A third group approaching from the south was led by the Second World War-vintage Argentine light cruiser ARA General Belgrano; although old, her large guns and heavy armour made her a serious threat, and she was escorted by two modern Type 42 guided-missile destroyers, armed with Exocet missiles.
On 1 May, the British nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror (one of three patrolling the TEZ) located the Belgrano group and followed it until the following day, when it was about 12 hours away from the Task Force and just outside the Total Exclusion Zone. Admiral Woodward was aware of the Argentine carrier group approaching from the other direction and ordered the cruiser to be attacked to avoid being caught in a pincer movement; he was unaware that the Veinticinco de Mayo had failed to gain enough headwind to launch her aircraft. The order to sink the cruiser was confirmed by the War Cabinet in London and the General Belgrano was hit by two torpedoes at 4 pm local time on 2 May, sinking an hour later. 321 members of General Belgrano's crew, along with two civilians on board the ship, died in the incident. More than 700 men were eventually rescued from the open ocean despite cold seas and stormy weather, enduring up to 30 hours in overcrowded life rafts. The loss of General Belgrano drew heavy criticism from Latin American countries and from opponents of the war in Britain; support for the British cause wavered amongst some European allies, but critically, the United States remained supportive.
Regardless of controversies over the sinking — including disagreement about the exact nature of the exclusion zone and whether General Belgrano had been returning to port at the time of the sinking — it had a crucial strategic effect: the elimination of the Argentine naval threat. After her loss, the entire Argentine fleet, with the exception of the diesel-powered submarine ARA San Luis, returned to port and did not leave again during the fighting. This had the secondary effect of allowing the British to redeploy their nuclear submarines to the coast of Argentina, where they were able to provide early warning of outgoing air attacks leaving mainland bases. However, settling the controversy in 2003, the ship's captain, Hector Bonzo, stated to a documentary crew that General Belgrano had actually been manoeuvering, not sailing away from the exclusion zone, and that he had orders to sink any British ship he could find.
In a separate incident later that night, British forces engaged an Argentine patrol gunboat, the ARA Alferez Sobral, that was searching for the crew of an Argentine Air Force Canberra light bomber shot down on 1 May. Two Royal Navy Lynx helicopters, from HMS Coventry and HMS Glasgow, fired four Sea Skua missiles at her. Badly damaged and with eight crew dead, Alferez Sobral managed to return to Puerto Deseado two days later. The Canberra's crew were never found.
On 4 May, two days after the sinking of General Belgrano, the British lost the Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield to fire following an Exocet missile strike from the Argentine 2nd Naval Air Fighter/Attack Squadron.
Sheffield had been ordered forward with two other Type 42s to provide a long-range radar and medium-high altitude missile picket far from the British carriers. She was struck amidships, with devastating effect, ultimately killing 20 crew members and severely injuring 24 others. The ship was abandoned several hours later, gutted and deformed by fires. For four days she was kept afloat for inspections and the hope that she might attract Argentine submarines which could be hunted by helicopter. The decision was then taken to tow her to Ascension, but while under tow by HMS Yarmouth, she finally sank east of the Falklands on 10 May.
The incident is described in detail by Admiral Woodward in his book One Hundred Days, in Chapter One. Woodward was a former commanding officer of Sheffield. The destruction of Sheffield, the first Royal Navy ship sunk in action since the Second World War, had a profound impact on the War Cabinet and the British public as a whole, bringing home the fact that the conflict was now an actual shooting war.
The tempo of operations increased throughout the first half of May as the United Nations' attempts to mediate a peace were rejected by the Argentines. The final British negotiating position was presented to Argentina by UN Secretary General Pérez de Cuéllar on 18 May 1982. In it, the British abandoned their previous "red-line" that British administration of the islands should be restored on the withdrawal of Argentine forces, as supported by United Nations Security Council Resolution 502.
Instead, it proposed a UN administrator should supervise the mutual withdrawal of both Argentine and British forces, then govern the islands in consultation with the representative institutions of the islands, including Argentines, although no Argentines lived there. Reference to "self-determination" of the islanders was dropped and the British proposed that future negotiations over the sovereignty of the islands should be conducted by the UN. However, the proposals were rejected by the Argentines on the same day.
Given the threat to the British fleet posed by the Étendard-Exocet combination, plans were made to use C-130s to fly in some SAS troops to attack the home base of the five Étendards at Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego. The operation was codenamed "Mikado". The operation was later scrapped, after acknowledging that its chances of success were limited, and replaced with a plan to use the submarine HMS Onyx to drop SAS operatives several miles offshore at night for them to make their way to the coast aboard rubber inflatables and proceed to destroy Argentina's remaining Exocet stockpile.
An SAS reconnaissance team was dispatched to carry out preparations for a seaborne infiltration. A Westland Sea King helicopter carrying the assigned team took off from HMS Invincible on the night of 17 May, but bad weather forced it to land 50 miles (80 km) from its target and the mission was aborted. The pilot flew to Chile, landed south of Punta Arenas, and dropped off the SAS team. The helicopter's crew of three then destroyed the aircraft, surrendered to Chilean police on 25 May, and were repatriated to the UK after interrogation. The discovery of the burnt-out helicopter attracted considerable international attention. Meanwhile, the SAS team crossed the border and penetrated into Argentina, but cancelled their mission after the Argentines suspected an SAS operation and deployed some 2,000 troops to search for them. The SAS men were able to return to Chile and took a civilian flight back to the UK.
On 14 May the SAS carried out a raid on Pebble Island on the Falklands, where the Argentine Navy had taken over a grass airstrip for FMA IA 58 Pucará light ground-attack aircraft and Beechcraft T-34 Mentors, which resulted in the destruction of several aircraft.
On 15 May, SBS teams were inserted by HMS Brilliant at Grantham Sound to reconnoitre and observe the landing beaches at San Carlos Bay. On the evening of 20 May, the day before the main landings, an SBS troop and artillery observers were landed by Wessex helicopters for an assault on an Argentine observation post at Fanning Head which overlooked the entrance of the bay; meanwhile, the SAS conducted a diversionary raid at Darwin.
In the landing zone, the limitations of the British ships' anti-aircraft defences were demonstrated in the sinking of HMS Ardent on 21 May which was hit by nine bombs, and HMS Antelope on 24 May when attempts to defuze unexploded bombs failed. Out at sea with the carrier battle group, MV Atlantic Conveyor was struck by an air-launched Exocet on 25 May, which caused the loss of three out of four Chinook and five Wessex helicopters as well as their maintenance equipment and facilities, together with runway-building equipment and tents. This was a severe blow from a logistical perspective. Twelve of her crew members were killed.
Also lost on 25 May was HMS Coventry, a sister to Sheffield, whilst in company with HMS Broadsword after being ordered to act as a decoy to draw away Argentine aircraft from other ships at San Carlos Bay. HMS Argonaut and HMS Brilliant were moderately damaged.
Many British ships escaped being sunk because of limitations imposed by circumstances on Argentine pilots. To avoid the highest concentration of British air defences, Argentine pilots released bombs at very low altitude, and hence those bomb fuzes did not have sufficient time to arm before impact. The low release of the retarded bombs (some of which the British had sold to the Argentines years earlier) meant that many never exploded, as there was insufficient time in the air for them to arm themselves. The pilots would have been aware of this—but due to the high concentration required to avoid surface-to-air missiles, anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA), and British Sea Harriers, many failed to climb to the necessary release point. The Argentine forces solved the problem by fitting improvised retarding devices, allowing the pilots to effectively employ low-level bombing attacks on 8 June.
Thirteen bombs hit British ships without detonating. Lord Craig, the retired Marshal of the Royal Air Force, is said to have remarked: "Six better fuzes and we would have lost" although Ardent and Antelope were both lost despite the failure of bombs to explode, and Argonaut was put out of action. The fuzes were functioning correctly, and the bombs were simply released from too low an altitude. The Argentines lost 22 aircraft in the attacks.
In his autobiographical account of the Falklands War, Admiral Woodward blamed the BBC World Service for disclosing information that led the Argentines to change the retarding devices on the bombs. The World Service reported the lack of detonations after receiving a briefing on the matter from a Ministry of Defence official. He describes the BBC as being more concerned with being "fearless seekers after truth" than with the lives of British servicemen. Colonel 'H'. Jones levelled similar accusations against the BBC after they disclosed the impending British attack on Goose Green by 2 Para.
On 30 May, two Super Étendards, one carrying Argentina's last remaining Exocet, escorted by four A-4C Skyhawks each with two 500 lb bombs, took off to attack Invincible. Argentine intelligence had sought to determine the position of the carriers from analysis of aircraft flight routes from the task force to the islands. However, the British had a standing order that all aircraft conduct a low level transit when leaving or returning to the carriers to disguise their position. This tactic compromised the Argentine attack, which focused on a group of escorts 40 miles (64 km) south of the carrier group. Two of the attacking Skyhawks were shot down by Sea Dart missiles fired by HMS Exeter, with HMS Avenger claiming to have shot down the Exocet missile with her 4.5" gun (although this claim is disputed). No damage was caused to any British vessels. During the war, Argentina claimed to have damaged Invincible and continues to do so, although no evidence of any such damage has been produced or uncovered.
During the night of 21 May, the British Amphibious Task Group under the command of Commodore Michael Clapp (Commodore, Amphibious Warfare – COMAW) mounted Operation Sutton, the amphibious landing on beaches around San Carlos Water, on the northwestern coast of East Falkland facing onto Falkland Sound. The bay, known as Bomb Alley by British forces, was the scene of repeated air attacks by low-flying Argentine jets.
The 4,000 men of 3 Commando Brigade were put ashore as follows: 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment (2 Para) from the RORO ferry Norland and 40 Commando Royal Marines from the amphibious ship HMS Fearless were landed at San Carlos (Blue Beach), 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment (3 Para) from the amphibious ship HMS Intrepid was landed at Port San Carlos (Green Beach) and 45 Commando from RFA Stromness was landed at Ajax Bay (Red Beach). Notably, the waves of eight LCUs and eight LCVPs were led by Major Ewen Southby-Tailyour, who had commanded the Falklands detachment NP8901 from March 1978 to 1979. 42 Commando on the ocean liner SS Canberra was a tactical reserve. Units from the Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, etc. and armoured reconnaissance vehicles were also put ashore with the landing craft, the Round Table-class LSL and mexeflote barges. Rapier missile launchers were carried as underslung loads of Sea Kings for rapid deployment.
By dawn the next day, they had established a secure beachhead from which to conduct offensive operations. Brigadier Julian Thompson established his brigade headquarters in dugouts near San Carlos Settlement.
From early on 27 May until 28 May, 2 Para approached and attacked Darwin and Goose Green, which was held by the Argentine 12th Infantry Regiment. 2 Para’s 500 men had naval gunfire support from HMS Arrow and artillery support from 8 Commando Battery and the Royal Artillery. After a tough struggle that lasted all night and into the next day, the British won the battle; in all, 18 British and 47 Argentine soldiers were killed. A total of 961 Argentine troops (including 202 Argentine Air Force personnel of the Condor airfield) were taken prisoner.
The BBC announced the taking of Goose Green on the BBC World Service before it had actually happened. During this attack Lieutenant Colonel H. Jones, the commanding officer of 2 Para, was killed at the head of his battalion while charging into the well-prepared Argentine positions. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
With the sizeable Argentine force at Goose Green out of the way, British forces were now able to break out of the San Carlos beachhead. On 27 May, men of 45 Cdo and 3 Para started a loaded march across East Falkland towards the coastal settlement of Teal Inlet.
Meanwhile, 42 Commando prepared to move by helicopter to Mount Kent. Unbeknownst to senior British officers, the Argentine generals were determined to tie down the British troops in the Mount Kent area, and on 27 and 28 May they sent transport aircraft loaded with Blowpipe surface-to-air missiles and commandos (602nd Commando Company and 601st National Gendarmerie Special Forces Squadron) to Stanley. This operation was known as Autoimpuesta ("Self-imposed").
For the next week, the SAS and the Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre (M&AWC) of 3 Commando Brigade waged intense patrol battles with patrols of the volunteers' 602nd Commando Company under Major Aldo Rico, normally second in Command of the 22nd Mountain Infantry Regiment. Throughout 30 May, Royal Air Force Harriers were active over Mount Kent. One of them, Harrier XZ963, flown by Squadron Leader Jerry Pook—in responding to a call for help from D Squadron, attacked Mount Kent's eastern lower slopes, which led to its loss through small-arms fire. Pook was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. On 31 May, the M&AWC defeated Argentine Special Forces at the skirmish at Top Malo House. A 13-strong Argentine Army Commando detachment (Captain José Vercesi's 1st Assault Section, 602nd Commando Company) found itself trapped in a small shepherd's house at Top Malo. The Argentine commandos fired from windows and doorways and then took refuge in a stream bed 200 metres (700 ft) from the burning house. Completely surrounded, they fought 19 M&AWC marines under Captain Rod Boswell for 45 minutes until, with their ammunition almost exhausted, they elected to surrender.
Three Cadre members were badly wounded. On the Argentine side, there were two dead, including Lieutenant Ernesto Espinoza and Sergeant Mateo Sbert (who were posthumously decorated for their bravery). Only five Argentines were left unscathed. As the British secured Top Malo House, Lieutenant Fraser Haddow's M&AWC patrol came down from Malo Hill, brandishing a large Union Flag. One wounded Argentine soldier, Lieutenant Horacio Losito, commented that their escape route would have taken them through Haddow's position.
601st Commando tried to move forward to rescue 602nd Commando Company on Estancia Mountain. Spotted by 42 Commando, they were engaged with L16 81mm mortars and forced to withdraw to Two Sisters mountain. The leader of 602nd Commando Company on Estancia Mountain realised his position had become untenable and after conferring with fellow officers ordered a withdrawal.
The Argentine operation also saw the extensive use of helicopter support to position and extract patrols; the 601st Combat Aviation Battalion also suffered casualties. At about 11:00 am on 30 May, an Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma helicopter was brought down by a shoulder-launched FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missile (SAM) fired by the SAS in the vicinity of Mount Kent. Six Argentine National Gendarmerie Special Forces were killed and eight more wounded in the crash.
As Brigadier Thompson commented:
It was fortunate that I had ignored the views expressed by Northwood HQ that reconnaissance of Mount Kent before insertion of 42 Commando was superfluous. Had D Squadron not been there, the Argentine Special Forces would have caught the Commando before de-planing and, in the darkness and confusion on a strange landing zone, inflicted heavy casualties on men and helicopters.
By 1 June, with the arrival of a further 5,000 British troops of the 5th Infantry Brigade, the new British divisional commander, Major General Jeremy Moore RM, had sufficient force to start planning an offensive against Stanley. During this build-up, the Argentine air assaults on the British naval forces continued, killing 56. Of the dead, 32 were from the Welsh Guards on RFA Sir Galahad and RFA Sir Tristram on 8 June. According to Surgeon-Commander Rick Jolly of the Falklands Field Hospital, more than 150 men suffered burns and injuries of some kind in the attack, including Simon Weston.
The Guards were sent to support an advance along the southern approach to Stanley. On 2 June, a small advance party of 2 Para moved to Swan Inlet house in a number of Army Westland Scout helicopters. Telephoning ahead to Fitzroy, they discovered that the area was clear of Argentines and (exceeding their authority) commandeered the one remaining RAF Chinook helicopter to frantically ferry another contingent of 2 Para ahead to Fitzroy (a settlement on Port Pleasant) and Bluff Cove (a settlement on Port Fitzroy).
This uncoordinated advance caused great difficulties in planning for the commanders of the combined operation, as they now found themselves with 30 miles (48 km) of indefensible positions, strung along their southern flank. Support could not be sent by air as the single remaining Chinook was already heavily oversubscribed. The soldiers could march, but their equipment and heavy supplies would need to be ferried by sea.
Plans were drawn up for half the Welsh Guards to march light on the night of 2 June, whilst the Scots Guards and the second half of the Welsh Guards were to be ferried from San Carlos Water in the Landing Ship Logistics (LSL) Sir Tristram and the landing platform dock (LPD) Intrepid on the night of 5 June. Intrepid was planned to stay one day and unload itself and as much of Sir Tristram as possible, leaving the next evening for the relative safety of San Carlos. Escorts would be provided for this day, after which Sir Tristram would be left to unload using a Mexeflote (a powered raft) for as long as it took to finish.
Political pressure from above to not risk the LPD forced Commodore Michael Clapp to alter this plan. Two lower-value LSLs would be sent, but with no suitable beaches to land on, Intrepid's landing craft would need to accompany them to unload. A complicated operation across several nights with Intrepid and her sister ship Fearless sailing half-way to dispatch their craft was devised.
The attempted overland march by half the Welsh Guards failed, possibly as they refused to march light and attempted to carry their equipment. They returned to San Carlos and landed directly at Bluff Cove when Fearless dispatched her landing craft. Sir Tristram sailed on the night of 6 June and was joined by Sir Galahad at dawn on 7 June. Anchored 1,200 feet (370 m) apart in Port Pleasant, the landing ships were near Fitzroy, the designated landing point. The landing craft should have been able to unload the ships to that point relatively quickly, but confusion over the ordered disembarkation point (the first half of the Guards going direct to Bluff Cove) resulted in the senior Welsh Guards infantry officer aboard insisting that his troops should be ferried the far longer distance directly to Port Fitzroy/Bluff Cove. The alternative was for the infantrymen to march via the recently repaired Bluff Cove bridge (destroyed by retreating Argentine combat engineers) to their destination, a journey of around seven miles (11 km).
On Sir Galahad's stern ramp there was an argument about what to do. The officers on board were told that they could not sail to Bluff Cove that day. They were told that they had to get their men off ship and onto the beach as soon as possible as the ships were vulnerable to enemy aircraft. It would take 20 minutes to transport the men to shore using the LCU and Mexeflote. They would then have the choice of walking the seven miles to Bluff Cove or wait until dark to sail there. The officers on board said that they would remain on board until dark and then sail. They refused to take their men off the ship. They possibly doubted that the bridge had been repaired due to the presence on board Sir Galahad of the Royal Engineer Troop whose job it was to repair the bridge. The Welsh Guards were keen to rejoin the rest of their Battalion, who were potentially facing the enemy without their support. They had also not seen any enemy aircraft since landing at San Carlos and may have been overconfident in the air defences. Ewen Southby-Tailyour gave a direct order for the men to leave the ship and go to the beach; the order was ignored.
The longer journey time of the landing craft taking the troops directly to Bluff Cove and the squabbling over how the landing was to be performed caused an enormous delay in unloading. This had disastrous consequences, since the ships were visible to Argentine troops on Mount Harriet, some ten miles (16 km) distant. Without escorts, having not yet established their air defence, and still almost fully laden, the two LSLs in Port Pleasant were sitting targets for eight Argentine A-4 Skyhawks. A coordinated sortie by six Daggers attacked HMS Plymouth, which had the effect of drawing off the patrolling Sea Harriers. At 17.00, the Skyhawks attacked from seaward, hitting Sir Galahad with three bombs; although none exploded, they caused fierce fires which quickly grew out of control. Two bombs hit Sir Tristram, also starting fires and causing the ship to be abandoned, but the damage was not as serious. Three Sea King and a Wessex helicopter ferried the wounded to an advanced dressing station which was set up on the shore.
British casualties were 48 killed and 115 wounded. Three Argentine pilots were also killed. The air strike delayed the scheduled British ground attack on Stanley by two days. The British casualties amounted to two infantry companies, but it was decided not to release detailed casualty figures because intelligence indicated that Argentine commanders believed that a much more severe reverse had been inflicted. However, the disaster at Port Pleasant (although often known as Bluff Cove) would provide the world with some of the most sobering images of the war as ITV News video showed helicopters hovering in thick smoke to winch survivors from the burning landing ships.
On the night of 11 June, after several days of painstaking reconnaissance and logistic build-up, British forces launched a brigade-sized night attack against the heavily defended ring of high ground surrounding Stanley. Units of 3 Commando Brigade, supported by naval gunfire from several Royal Navy ships, simultaneously attacked in the Battle of Mount Harriet, Battle of Two Sisters, and Battle of Mount Longdon. Mount Harriet was taken at a cost of 2 British and 18 Argentine soldiers. At Two Sisters, the British faced both enemy resistance and friendly fire but managed to capture their objectives. The toughest battle was at Mount Longdon. British forces were bogged down by rifle, mortar, machine gun, artillery and sniper fire, and ambushes. Despite this, the British continued their advance.
During this battle, 14 were killed when HMS Glamorgan, straying too close to shore while returning from the gun line, was struck by an improvised trailer-based Exocet MM38 launcher taken from the destroyer ARA Seguí by Argentine Navy technicians. On the same day, Sergeant Ian McKay of 4 Platoon, B Company, 3 Para died in a grenade attack on an Argentine bunker; he received a posthumous Victoria Cross for his actions. After a night of fierce fighting, all objectives were secured. Both sides suffered heavy losses.
The second phase of attacks began on the night of 13 June, and the momentum of the initial assault was maintained. 2 Para, with light armour support from the Blues and Royals, captured Wireless Ridge, with the loss of 3 British and 25 Argentine lives, and the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards captured Mount Tumbledown at the Battle of Mount Tumbledown, which cost 10 British and 30 Argentine lives. A simultaneous special forces raid by the SAS and SBS in fast boats to attack the oil tanks in Stanley Harbour was beaten off by anti-aircraft guns.
With the last natural defence line at Mount Tumbledown breached, the Argentine town defences of Stanley began to falter. In the morning gloom, one company commander got lost and his junior officers became despondent. Private Santiago Carrizo of the 3rd Regiment described how a platoon commander ordered them to take up positions in the houses and "if a Kelper resists, shoot him", but the entire company did nothing of the kind. A daylight attack on Mount William by the Gurkhas, delayed from the previous night by the fighting at Tumbledown, ended in anticlimax when the Argentine positions were found to be deserted.
A ceasefire was declared on 14 June and Thatcher announced the commencement of surrender negotiations. The commander of the Argentine garrison in Stanley, Brigade General Mario Menéndez, surrendered to Major General Jeremy Moore the same day.
On 20 June, the British retook the South Sandwich Islands, which involved accepting the surrender of the Southern Thule Garrison at the Corbeta Uruguay base and declared hostilities over. Argentina had established Corbeta Uruguay in 1976, but prior to 1982 the United Kingdom had contested the existence of the Argentine base only through diplomatic channels.
The UK received political support from member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations. Australia, Canada, and New Zealand withdrew their diplomats from Buenos Aires.
The New Zealand government expelled the Argentine ambassador following the invasion. The Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon, was in London when the war broke out and in an opinion piece published in The Times he said: "The military rulers of Argentina must not be appeased … New Zealand will back Britain all the way." Broadcasting on the BBC World Service, he told the Falkland Islanders: "This is Rob Muldoon. We are thinking of you and we are giving our full and total support to the British Government in its endeavours to rectify this situation and get rid of the people who have invaded your country." On 20 May 1982, he announced that New Zealand would make HMNZS Canterbury, a Leander-class frigate, available for use where the British thought fit to release a Royal Navy vessel for the Falklands. In the House of Commons afterwards, Margaret Thatcher said: "…the New Zealand Government and people have been absolutely magnificent in their support for this country [and] the Falkland Islanders, for the rule of liberty and of law".
Encouraged by the generous response of New Zealand, the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, was rushed into offering to cancel the intended purchase of HMS Invincible, which was quickly accepted by the British. However, this left the Royal Australian Navy without a replacement for their only aircraft carrier, HMAS Melbourne, which was in the process of decommissioning.
The French president, François Mitterrand, declared an embargo on French arms sales and assistance to Argentina. In addition, France allowed UK aircraft and warships use of its port and airfield facilities at Dakar in Senegal and France provided dissimilar aircraft training so that Harrier pilots could train against the French aircraft used by Argentina. French intelligence also cooperated with Britain to prevent Argentina from obtaining more Exocet missiles on the international market. In a 2002 interview, and in reference to this support, John Nott, the then British Defence Secretary, had described France as Britain's 'greatest ally'. In 2012, it came to light that while this support was taking place, a French technical team, employed by Dassault and already in Argentina, remained there throughout the war despite the presidential decree. The team had provided material support to the Argentines, identifying and fixing faults in Exocet missile launchers. John Nott said he had known the French team was there but said its work was thought not to be of any importance. An adviser to the then French government denied any knowledge at the time that the technical team was there. The French DGSE did know the team was there as they had an informant in the team but decried any assistance the team gave: "It's bordering on an act of treason, or disobedience to an embargo". John Nott, when asked if he felt let down by the French said "If you're asking me: 'Are the French duplicitous people?' the answer is: 'Of course they are, and they always have been". Four Exocet missiles that had been ordered by Peru were prevented by the French government from being delivered by air and, after pressure from Britain who suspected that they would be passed on to Argentina, delayed their release to a Peruvian ship until the conflict was over.
Declassified cables show the United States both felt that Thatcher had not considered diplomatic options and feared that a protracted conflict could draw the Soviet Union on Argentina's side. The US initially tried to mediate an end to the conflict through shuttle diplomacy, but when Argentina refused the American peace overtures, US Secretary of State Alexander Haig announced that the United States would prohibit arms sales to Argentina and provide material support for British operations. Both houses of the US Congress passed resolutions supporting the American action siding with the United Kingdom.
The US provided the United Kingdom with 200 Sidewinder missiles for use by the Harrier jets, eight Stinger surface-to-air missile systems, Harpoon anti-ship missiles and mortar bombs. On Ascension Island, the underground fuel tanks were empty when the British Task Force arrived in mid-April 1982 and the leading assault ship, HMS Fearless, did not have enough fuel to dock when it arrived off the island. The United States diverted a supertanker to replenish both the fuel tanks of ships at anchor there and the storage tanks on the island with approximately 2,000,000 US gallons (7,600,000 L; 1,700,000 imp gal) of fuel. The Pentagon further committed to providing additional support in the event that the war dragged on into the Southern Hemisphere's winter. In that scenario, the US committed tanker aircraft to support Royal Air Force missions in Europe, releasing RAF aircraft to support operations over the Falklands.
The United States allowed the United Kingdom to use American communication satellites to allow secure communications between submarines in the Southern Ocean and Naval HQ in Britain. The US also passed on satellite imagery (which it publicly denied) and weather forecast data to the British Fleet.
US President Ronald Reagan approved the Royal Navy's request to borrow a Sea Harrier-capable Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ship (the US Navy had earmarked USS Guam (LPH-9) for this) in the event a British aircraft carrier was lost. The US Navy developed a plan to help the British man the ship with American military contractors, who would likely be retired sailors with knowledge of the ship's systems.
Argentina itself was politically backed by a number of countries in Latin America (though, notably, not Chile). Several members of the Non-Aligned Movement also backed Argentina's position; notably, Cuba and Nicaragua led a diplomatic effort to rally non-aligned countries from Africa and Asia to Argentina's position. This initiative came as a surprise to Western observers, as Cuba had no diplomatic relations with Argentina's right-leaning military junta. British diplomats complained that Cuba had "cynically exploited" the crisis to pursue its normalization of relations with Latin American countries; Argentina eventually resumed relations with Cuba in 1983; Brazil did so in 1986.
Peru attempted to purchase 12 Exocet missiles from France, to be delivered to Argentina in a failed secret operation. Peru also openly sent "Mirages, pilots and missiles" to Argentina during the war. Peru had earlier transferred ten Hercules transport planes to Argentina soon after the British Task Force had set sail in April 1982. Nick van der Bijl records that, after the Argentine defeat at Goose Green, Venezuela and Guatemala offered to send paratroopers to the Falklands.
At the outbreak of the war, Chile was in negotiations with Argentina for control over the Beagle Channel and feared Argentina would use similar tactics to secure the channel. During this conflict, Argentina had already rejected two attempts at international mediation and tried to exert military pressure on Chile with an operation to occupy the disputed territory. Considering the situation, Chile refused to support the Argentine position during the war and gave support to the UK in the form of intelligence about the Argentine military and early warning intelligence on Argentine air movements. Throughout the war, Argentina was afraid of a Chilean military intervention in Patagonia and kept some of its best mountain regiments away from the Falklands near the Chilean border as a precaution. The Chilean government also allowed the United Kingdom to requisition the refuelling vessel RFA Tidepool, which Chile had recently purchased and which had arrived at Arica in Chile on 4 April. The ship left port soon afterwards, bound for Ascension Island through the Panama Canal and stopping at Curaçao en route.
At the end of May, Brazilian authorities allowed FAA Boeing 707s to refuel at Recife International Airport carrying arms shipments from Libya. When the British Embassy in Brasilia became aware of this, the British Secret Intelligence Service devised a plan to sabotage the next flight on the ground, but diplomatic pressure on the Brazilian government to observe their legal duties as a neutral country resulted in no further flights being accepted. On 3 June, an RAF Vulcan on returning from a Black Buck raid on the Falklands, was forced to make an emergency landing at Rio de Janeiro International Airport after damage to its refuelling probe prevented it returning to Ascension Island. The Vulcan and her crew were interned and released seven days later, although an unused Shrike missile that the aircraft had been carrying was retained.
The Soviet Union described the Falklands as "a disputed territory", recognising Argentina's ambitions over the islands, and called for restraint on all sides. Soviet media frequently criticised the UK and US during the war. Significantly, however, the Soviet Union refrained from vetoing and thus made possible UN Security Council Resolution 502 demanding the immediate withdrawal of all Argentine troops from the Falklands. However, the Soviet Union mounted some clandestine logistics operations to assist the Argentines. Days after the invasion by the Argentine forces, the Soviets launched additional intelligence satellites into low Earth orbit covering the southern Atlantic Ocean. Conflicting reports exist on whether Soviet ocean surveillance data might have played a role in the sinking of HMS Sheffield and HMS Coventry.
Spain's position was one of ambiguity, underpinning the basic dilemma of the Spanish foreign policy regarding the articulation of relationships with Latin America and European communities. On 2 April 1982, the Council of Ministers issued an official note defending principles of decolonisation and against the use of force. Spain abstained in the vote of UN Security Council Resolution 502, a position that Spanish UN representative Jaime de Piniés justified by pointing out that the resolution did not mention the underlying problem of decolonisation. The Spanish stance throughout the conflict contrasted with those of the countries in its immediate vicinity (EEC members and Portugal).
Spanish authorities also foiled a covert attack by the Argentine Naval Intelligence Service on a British warship at Gibraltar, code named Operation Algeciras. Three frogmen, recruited from a former anti-government insurgent group, were to plant mines on a ship's hull. The divers travelled to Spain through France, where French security services noted their military diving equipment and alerted their Spanish counterparts. They were covertly monitored as they moved from the Argentine embassy in Madrid to Algeciras, where they were arrested on 17 May by the Guardia Civil and deported.
Portugal supported its long-standing ally Britain and the facilities of the Azores were offered to the Royal Navy.
The European Economic Community provided economic support by imposing economic sanctions on Argentina. In a meeting on Good Friday, 9 April, at the Egmont Palace, the EEC Political Committee proposed a total import ban from Argentina. Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Luxembourg and Ireland agreed immediately; France, Germany and the Netherlands were persuaded before the meeting ended. Italy, which had close cultural ties with Argentina, consented on the next day.
Ireland's position altered during the war. As a rotating member of the United Nations Security Council, it supported Resolution 502. However, on 4 May, the Fianna Fáil government led by Charles Haughey decided to oppose EEC sanctions and called for a ceasefire. Haughey justified this as complying with Irish neutrality. Historians have suggested it was an opportunistic appeal to anti-British sentiment and reaction to Haughey's being sidelined during the 1981 republican hunger strike. The strain on British–Irish relations eased when Haughey's government fell in November 1982.
According to the book Operation Israel, advisers from Israel Aerospace Industries were already in Argentina and continued their work during the conflict. The book also claims that Israel sold weapons and drop tanks to Argentina in a secret operation via Peru.
The Government of Sierra Leone allowed British task force ships to refuel at Freetown.
VC10 transport aircraft landed at Banjul in The Gambia while flying between the UK and Ascension Island.
Through Libya, under Muammar Gaddafi, Argentina received 20 launchers and 60 SA-7 missiles (which Argentina later described as "not effective"), as well as machine guns, mortars and mines. To retrieve the weapons, four trips were made using two Argentine Air Force Boeing 707s which refuelled in Recife with the consent of the Brazilian government.
The UK had terminated the Simonstown Agreement in 1975, thereby effectively denying the Royal Navy access to ports in South Africa and forcing it to use Ascension Island as a staging post.
In total, 907 people were killed during the 74 days of the conflict. Additionally, there were 1,188 Argentine and 777 British injured or wounded.
A total of 649 Argentine servicemen were killed:
A total of 255 British servicemen were killed:
Of the 86 Royal Navy personnel, 22 were lost in HMS Ardent, 19 + 1 lost in HMS Sheffield, 19 + 1 lost in HMS Coventry and 13 lost in HMS Glamorgan. Fourteen naval cooks were among the dead, the largest number from any one branch in the Royal Navy.
Thirty-three of the British Army's dead came from the Welsh Guards (32 of whom died on the RFA Sir Galahad in the Bluff Cove Air Attacks), 21 from the 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, 18 from the 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, 19 from the Special Air Service, 3 each from Royal Signals and Royal Army Medical Corps and 8 from each of the Scots Guards and Royal Engineers. The 1st battalion/7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles lost one man.
Three civilians on the Falkland Islands were accidentally killed by British shelling during the night of 11/12 June. The military command identified those killed as Susan Whitley, 30, a British citizen, and Falkland Islands natives Doreen Bonner, 36 and Mary Goodwin, 82. It was also reported that HMS Brilliant, on an anti-submarine patrol, detected and torpedoed three whales by accident.
Before British offensive operations began, the British and Argentine governments agreed to establish an area on the high seas where both sides could station hospital ships without fear of attack by the other side. This area, a circle 20 nautical miles in diameter, was referred to as the Red Cross Box (48°30′S 53°45′W / 48.500°S 53.750°W / -48.500; -53.750) and located about 45 miles (72 km) north of Falkland Sound. Ultimately, the British stationed four ships (HMS Hydra, HMS Hecla and HMS Herald and the primary hospital ship SS Uganda) within the box, while the Argentines stationed three (ARA Almirante Irízar, ARA Bahía Paraíso and Puerto Deseado).
The hospital ships were non-warships converted to serve as hospital ships. The three British naval vessels were survey vessels and Uganda was a passenger liner. Almirante Irizar was an icebreaker, Bahia Paraiso was an Antarctic supply transport and Puerto Deseado was a survey ship. British and Argentine vessels operating within the Box were in radio contact and there was some transfer of patients between hospital ships. For example, the Uganda transferred patients to an Argentine hospital ship on four occasions. Hydra worked with Hecla and Herald to take casualties from Uganda to Montevideo, Uruguay, where a fleet of Uruguayan ambulances met them. RAF VC10 aircraft then flew the casualties to the UK for transfer to the Princess Alexandra Hospital at RAF Wroughton, near Swindon.
Throughout the conflict, officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) conducted inspections to verify that all concerned were abiding by the rules of the Geneva Conventions. Argentine naval officers also inspected the British casualty ferries in the estuary of the River Plate.
This brief war brought many consequences for all the parties involved, besides the considerable casualty rate and large materiel loss, especially of shipping and aircraft, relative to the deployed military strengths of the opposing sides.
In the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher's popularity increased. The success of the Falklands campaign was widely regarded as a factor in the turnaround in fortunes for the Conservative government, who had been trailing behind the SDP–Liberal Alliance in the opinion polls for months before the conflict began. Following the success in the Falklands, the Conservatives returned to the top of the opinion polls by a wide margin and went on to win the following year's general election by a landslide. Subsequently, Defence Secretary Nott's proposed cuts to the Royal Navy were abandoned.
The islanders had full British citizenship restored in 1983; their quality of life improved through investments made by the UK after the war and by economic liberalisation that had been stalled for fear of angering Argentina. In 1985, a new constitution was enacted, promoting self-government which has continued to devolve power to the islanders.
In Argentina, defeat in the Falklands War meant that a possible war with Chile was avoided. Further, Argentina returned to a democratic government in the 1983 general election, the first free general election since 1973. It also had a major social impact, destroying the military's image as the "moral reserve of the nation" that they had maintained through most of the 20th century.
A detailed study of 21,432 British veterans of the war commissioned by the UK Ministry of Defence found that between 1982 and 2012, only 95 had died from "intentional self-harm and events of undetermined intent (suicides and open verdict deaths)", a proportion lower than would be expected within the general population over the same period. However, a study of British combat veterans conducted five years after the conflict found that half of the sample group had suffered some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while 22% were assessed to have the complete syndrome.
In the immediate aftermath of the conflict, the British government embarked on a long-term policy of providing the islands with a viable military garrison, known informally as "Fortress Falklands". Initially, an aircraft carrier was kept in the area until the runway at Stanley Airport could be improved to take conventional RAF fighters. A permanent military complex with a runway designed to take long-haul airliners was constructed in the south of East Falkland, RAF Mount Pleasant, which opened in 1985; an associated deep-water port at Mare Harbour was also constructed. A small military outpost was established at King Edward Point on South Georgia, but it was closed in 2001.
Militarily, the Falklands conflict remains one of the largest air-naval combat operations between modern forces since the end of the Second World War. As such, it has been the subject of intense study by military analysts and historians. Significant takeaways include the vulnerability of surface ships to anti-ship missiles and submarines, the challenges of co-ordinating logistical support for long-distance projections of power, and reconfirmation of the importance of tactical air power, including helicopters.
In 1986, the BBC broadcast the Horizon programme In the Wake of HMS Sheffield, which discussed lessons learned from the conflict, and measures taken to implement them, such as incorporating greater stealth capabilities and providing better close-in weapon systems for the fleet. The principal British military responses to the Falklands War were the measures adopted in the December 1982 Defence White Paper.
There are several memorials on the Falkland Islands themselves, the most notable of which is the 1982 Liberation Memorial, unveiled in 1984 on the second anniversary of the end of the war. It lists the names of the 255 British military personnel who died during the war and is located in front of the Secretariat Building in Stanley, overlooking Stanley Harbour. The Memorial was funded entirely by the Islanders and is inscribed with the words "In Memory of Those Who Liberated Us".
During the war, British dead were put into plastic body bags and buried in mass graves. After the war, the bodies were recovered; 14 were reburied at Blue Beach Military Cemetery and 64 were returned to the United Kingdom. Many of the Argentine dead are buried in the Argentine Military Cemetery two kilometers northeast of the small settlement of Darwin, approximately 82 kilometers west of Stanley. The Argentine government declined an offer by the UK to have the bodies repatriated to Argentina.
In addition to memorials on the islands, there is a memorial in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, London to the British war dead. At the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, a Falklands War memorial was unveiled in May 2012 in a service attended by 600 veterans and their families; the names of the fallen were also inscribed on the Armed Forces Memorial at the arboretum, which commemorates all British servicemen killed in action since the end of the Second World War. A memorial to the seamen of the Merchant Navy who died in the war stands at the Tower Hill Memorial in Trinity Square Gardens, London. A memorial to the Royal Marines, known as "The Yomper" was unveiled by Margaret Thatcher in 1992 outside the former Eastney Barracks near Portsmouth. The Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel at Pangbourne College was opened in March 2000 as a commemoration of the lives and sacrifice of all those who served and died in the South Atlantic in 1982.
In Argentina, there is a memorial at Plaza San Martín in Buenos Aires, another one in Rosario, and a third one in Ushuaia.
In 2011 there were 113 uncleared minefields plus unexploded ordnance (UXOs) covering an area of 13 km (3,200 acres) on the Falkland Islands. Of this area, 5.5 km (1,400 acres) on the Murrell Peninsula were classified as being "suspected minefields"—the area had been heavily pastured for 25 years without incident. It was estimated that these minefields had 20,000 anti-personnel mines and 5,000 anti-tank mines.
The UK reported six military personnel injured by mines or UXO in 1982, then two more in 1983. Most military accidents took place in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, while clearing minefields or trying to establish the extent of minefield perimeters, particularly where no detailed records existed. No civilian mine casualties have ever occurred on the islands, and no human casualties from mines or UXO have been reported since 1984.
On 9 May 2008, the Falkland Islands Government asserted that the minefields, which represent 0.1% of the available farmland on the islands "present no long term social or economic difficulties for the Falklands", and that the impact of clearing the mines would cause more problems than containing them. However, the British Government, in accordance with its commitments under the Mine Ban Treaty had a commitment to clear the mines by the end of 2019.
In May 2012, it was announced that 3.7 km (1.4 sq mi) of Stanley Common (which lies between the Stanley – Mount Pleasant road and the shoreline) was made safe and had been opened to the public, opening up a 3 km (1.9 mi) stretch of coastline and a further two kilometres of shoreline along Mullet Creek.
In November 2020, it was declared that the Falkland Islands were now free of all landmines. A celebration of the event took place on the weekend of 14 November where the final landmine was detonated.
Selected war correspondents were regularly flown to Port Stanley in military aircraft to report on the war. Back in Buenos Aires, newspapers and magazines reported on "the heroic actions of the largely conscript army and its successes".
Officers from the intelligence services were attached to the newspapers and 'leaked' information corroborating the official communiqués from the government. The glossy magazines Gente and Siete Días swelled to 60 pages with colour photographs of British warships in flames—many of them faked—and bogus eyewitness reports of the Argentine commandos' guerrilla war on South Georgia (6 May) and an already dead Pucará pilot's attack on HMS Hermes (Lt. Daniel Antonio Jukic had been killed at Goose Green during a British air strike on 1 May). Most of the faked photos actually came from the tabloid press. One of the best remembered headlines was "Estamos ganando" ("We're winning") from the magazine Gente, that would later use variations of it.
The Argentine troops on the Falkland Islands could read Gaceta Argentina—a newspaper intended to boost morale among the servicemen. Some of its untruths could easily be unveiled by the soldiers who recovered corpses.
The Malvinas cause united the Argentines in a patriotic atmosphere that protected the junta from critics, and even opponents of the military government supported Galtieri; Ernesto Sabato said:
In Argentina, it is not a military dictatorship that is fighting. It is the whole people, her women, her children, her old people, regardless of their political persuasion. Opponents to the regime like myself are fighting for our dignity, fighting to extricate the last vestiges of colonialism. Don't be mistaken, Europe, it is not a dictatorship that is fighting for the Malvinas; it is the whole nation.
In the Argentine press, false reports that HMS Hermes was sunk and HMS Invincible had been damaged were circulated after the weekly magazines Gente and La Semana had received information of naval action from an air force officer in the president's office. On 30 April 1982 the Argentine magazine Tal Cual showed Prime Minister Thatcher with an eyepatch and the text: Pirate, witch and assassin. Guilty! Three British reporters sent to Argentina to cover the war from the Argentine perspective were jailed until the end of the war. The Madres de Plaza de Mayo were even exposed to death threats from ordinary people.
Seventeen newspaper reporters, two photographers, two radio reporters and three television reporters with five technicians sailed with the Task Force to the war. The Newspaper Publishers' Association selected them from among 160 applicants, excluding foreign media. The hasty selection resulted in the inclusion of two journalists among the war reporters who were interested only in Queen Elizabeth II's son Prince Andrew, who was serving in the conflict. The prince flew a helicopter on multiple missions, including Exocet missile decoy and casualty evacuation.
Merchant vessels had the civilian Inmarsat uplink, which enabled written telex and voice report transmissions via satellite. SS Canberra had a facsimile machine that was used to upload 202 pictures from the South Atlantic over the course of the war. The Royal Navy leased bandwidth on the U.S. Defense Satellite Communications System for worldwide communications. Television demands a thousand times the data rate of telephone, but the Ministry of Defence was unsuccessful in convincing the U.S. to allocate more bandwidth.
TV producers suspected that the enquiry was half-hearted, since the Vietnam War television pictures of casualties and traumatised soldiers were recognised as having negative propaganda value. However, the technology only allowed uploading a single frame per 20 minutes—and only if the military satellites were allocated 100% to television transmissions. Videotapes were shipped to Ascension Island, where a broadband satellite uplink was available, resulting in TV coverage being delayed by three weeks.
The press was very dependent on the Royal Navy and was censored on site. Many reporters in the UK knew more about the war than those with the Task Force. Ministry of Defence press briefings in London were characterised by the restrained dictation-speed delivery of its spokesman, Ian McDonald.
The Royal Navy expected Fleet Street to conduct a Second World War-style positive news campaign but the majority of the British media, especially the BBC, reported the war in a neutral fashion. These reporters referred to "the British troops" and "the Argentinian troops" instead of "our lads" and the "Argies". The two main tabloid papers presented opposing viewpoints: The Daily Mirror was decidedly anti-war, whilst The Sun became well known for headlines such as "Stick It Up Your Junta!", which, along with the reporting in other tabloids, led to accusations of xenophobia and jingoism. The Sun was criticised for its "Gotcha" headline following the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano.
The British Ministry of Defence operated a psychological warfare operation under the codename "Moonshine", which took the form of a spurious radio station purporting to be from a neutral South American country, but was actually in London, broadcasting to the Falklands and Argentina via a transmitter on Ascension which had been requisitioned from the BBC. Under the name of Radio Atlántico del Sur ("Radio South Atlantic" - Spanish Wikipedia article), the station was operated by a small team of civilians and Spanish-speaking military officers. The first three-hour broadcast was on 19 May and a total of 47 had been made by 15 June when the operation was cancelled. There is some evidence that the Argentines attempted to jam the broadcasts and that some civilian radio receivers were confiscated from soldiers, but the results overall were difficult to assess.
There were wide-ranging influences on popular culture in both the UK and Argentina, from the immediate postwar period to the present. The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges described the war as "a fight between two bald men over a comb." The words yomp and Exocet entered the British vernacular as a result of the war. The Falklands War also provided material for theatre, film and TV drama and influenced the output of musicians. In Argentina, the military government banned the broadcasting of music in the English language, giving way to the rise of local rock musicians, like the famous "Trova Rosarina" movement as well as solo musicians such as Charly García, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Fito Paez and Gustavo Santaolalla.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial dependency, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The conflict began on 2 April 1982, when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands, followed by the invasion of South Georgia the next day. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with an Argentine surrender on 14 June, returning the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders were killed during the hostilities.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The conflict was a major episode in the protracted dispute over the territories' sovereignty. Argentina asserted (and maintains) that the islands are Argentine territory, and the Argentine government thus characterised its military action as the reclamation of its own territory. The British government regarded the action as an invasion of a territory that had been a Crown colony since 1841. Falkland Islanders, who have inhabited the islands since the early 19th century, are predominantly descendants of British settlers, and strongly favour British sovereignty. Neither state officially declared war, although both governments declared the islands a war zone.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The conflict had a strong effect in both countries and has been the subject of various books, articles, films, and songs. Patriotic sentiment ran high in Argentina, but the unfavourable outcome prompted large protests against the ruling military government, hastening its downfall and the democratisation of the country. In the United Kingdom, the Conservative government, bolstered by the successful outcome, was re-elected with an increased majority the following year. The cultural and political effect of the conflict has been less in the UK than in Argentina, where it has remained a common topic for discussion.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Argentina were restored in 1989 following a meeting in Madrid, at which the two governments issued a joint statement. No change in either country's position regarding the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands was made explicit. In 1994, Argentina adopted a new constitution, which declared the Falkland Islands as part of one of its provinces by law. However, the islands continue to operate as a self-governing British Overseas Territory.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1965, the United Nations called upon Argentina and the United Kingdom to reach a settlement of the sovereignty dispute. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) regarded the islands as a nuisance and barrier to UK trade in South America. Therefore, while confident of British sovereignty, the FCO was prepared to cede the islands to Argentina. When news of a proposed transfer broke in 1968, elements sympathetic with the plight of the islanders were able to organise an effective parliamentary lobby to frustrate the FCO plans. Negotiations continued, but in general failed to make meaningful progress; the islanders steadfastly refused to consider Argentine sovereignty on one side, whilst Argentina would not compromise over sovereignty on the other. The FCO then sought to make the islands dependent on Argentina, hoping this would make the islanders more amenable to Argentine sovereignty. A Communications Agreement signed in 1971 created an airlink and later YPF, the Argentine oil company, was given a monopoly in the islands.",
"title": "Prelude"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1977, the British prime minister, James Callaghan, in response to heightened tensions in the region and the Argentine occupation of Southern Thule, secretly sent a force of two frigates and a nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Dreadnought, to the South Atlantic, codenamed Operation Journeyman. It is unclear whether the Argentines were aware of their presence, but British sources state that they were advised of it through informal channels. Nevertheless, talks with Argentina on Falklands sovereignty and economic cooperation opened in December of that year, though they proved inconclusive.",
"title": "Prelude"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1980, a new UK Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Nicholas Ridley, went to the Falklands trying to sell the islanders the benefits of a leaseback scheme, which met with strong opposition from the islanders. On his return to London in December 1980, he reported to parliament but was viciously attacked at what was seen as a sellout. (It was unlikely that leaseback could have succeeded since the British had sought a long-term lease of 99 years, whereas Argentina was pressing for a much shorter period of only ten years.) At a private committee meeting that evening, it was reported that Ridley said: \"If we don't do something, they will invade. And there is nothing we could do.\"",
"title": "Prelude"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In the period leading up to the war—and, in particular, following the transfer of power between the military dictators General Jorge Rafael Videla and General Roberto Eduardo Viola late in March 1981—Argentina had been in the midst of devastating economic stagnation and large-scale civil unrest against the National Reorganization Process, the military junta that had been governing the country since 1976.",
"title": "Prelude"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In December 1981, there was a further change in the Argentine military regime, bringing to office a new junta headed by General Leopoldo Galtieri (acting president), Air Brigadier Basilio Lami Dozo and Admiral Jorge Anaya. Anaya was the main architect and supporter of a military solution for the long-standing claim over the islands, expecting that the United Kingdom would never respond militarily.",
"title": "Prelude"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "By opting for military action, the Galtieri government hoped to mobilise the long-standing patriotic feelings of Argentines towards the islands, diverting public attention from the chronic economic problems and the ongoing human rights violations of its Dirty War, bolstering the junta's dwindling legitimacy. The newspaper La Prensa speculated on a step-by-step plan beginning with cutting off supplies to the islands, ending in direct actions late in 1982, if the UN talks were fruitless.",
"title": "Prelude"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The ongoing tension between the two countries over the islands increased on 19 March, when a group of Argentine scrap metal merchants (which had been infiltrated by Argentine Marines) raised the Argentine flag at South Georgia Island, an act that would later be seen as the first offensive action in the war. The Royal Navy ice patrol vessel HMS Endurance was dispatched from Stanley to South Georgia on the 25th in response. The Argentine military junta, suspecting that the UK would reinforce its South Atlantic Forces, ordered the invasion of the Falkland Islands to be brought forward to 2 April.",
"title": "Prelude"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The UK was initially taken by surprise by the Argentine attack on the South Atlantic islands, despite repeated warnings by Royal Navy captain Nicholas Barker (Commanding Officer of the Endurance) and others. Barker believed that Defence Secretary John Nott's 1981 Defence White Paper (in which Nott described plans to withdraw the Endurance, the UK's only naval presence in the South Atlantic) had sent a signal to the Argentines that the UK was unwilling, and would soon be unable, to defend its territories and subjects in the Falklands.",
"title": "Prelude"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "On 2 April 1982 Argentine forces mounted amphibious landings, known as Operation Rosario, on the Falkland Islands. The invasion was met with a fierce but brief defence organised by the Falkland Islands' Governor Sir Rex Hunt, giving command to Major Mike Norman of the Royal Marines. The garrison consisted of 68 marines and eleven naval hydrographers, assisted by 23 volunteers of the Falkland Islands Defence Force (FIDF), who had few weapons and were used as lookouts. The invasion started with the landing of Lieutenant Commander Guillermo Sanchez-Sabarots' Amphibious Commandos Group, who attacked the empty Moody Brook barracks and then moved on Government House in Stanley. When the 2nd Marine Infantry Battalion with Assault Amphibious Vehicles arrived, the governor ordered a ceasefire and surrendered. The governor, his family and the British military personnel were flown to Argentina that afternoon and later repatriated to the United Kingdom.",
"title": "Argentine invasion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The British had already taken action prior to the 2 April invasion. In response to events on South Georgia, on 29 March, Ministers decided to send the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Fort Austin south from the Mediterranean to support HMS Endurance, and the nuclear-powered fleet submarine HMS Spartan from Gibraltar, with HMS Splendid ordered south from Scotland the following day. Lord Carrington had wished to send a third submarine, but the decision was deferred due to concerns about the impact on operational commitments. Coincidentally, on 26 March, the submarine HMS Superb left Gibraltar and it was assumed in the press she was heading south. There has since been speculation that the effect of those reports was to panic the Argentine junta into invading the Falklands before submarines could be deployed; however, post-war research has established that the final decision to proceed was made at a junta meeting in Buenos Aires on 23 March.",
"title": "Argentine invasion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The following day, during a crisis meeting headed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sir Henry Leach, advised that \"Britain could and should send a task force if the islands are invaded\". On 1 April, Leach sent orders to a Royal Navy force carrying out exercises in the Mediterranean to prepare to sail south. Following the invasion on 2 April, after an emergency meeting of the cabinet, approval was given to form a task force to retake the islands. This was backed in an emergency sitting of the House of Commons the next day.",
"title": "Argentine invasion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Word of the invasion first reached the UK from Argentine sources. A Ministry of Defence operative in London had a short telex conversation with Governor Hunt's telex operator, who confirmed that Argentines were on the island and in control. Later that day, BBC journalist Laurie Margolis spoke with an islander at Goose Green via amateur radio, who confirmed the presence of a large Argentine fleet and that Argentine forces had taken control of the island. British military operations in the Falklands War were given the codename Operation Corporate, and the commander of the task force was Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse. Operations lasted from 1 April 1982 to 20 June 1982.",
"title": "Argentine invasion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "On 6 April, the British Government set up a War Cabinet to provide day-to-day political oversight of the campaign. This was the critical instrument of crisis management for the British with its remit being to \"keep under review political and military developments relating to the South Atlantic, and to report as necessary to the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee\". The War Cabinet met at least daily until it was dissolved on 12 August. Although Margaret Thatcher is described as dominating the War Cabinet, Lawrence Freedman notes in the Official History of the Falklands Campaign that she did not ignore opposition or fail to consult others. However, once a decision was reached, she \"did not look back\".",
"title": "Argentine invasion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "On 31 March 1982, the Argentine ambassador to the UN, Eduardo Roca, began attempting to garner support against a British military build-up designed to thwart earlier UN resolutions calling for both countries to resolve the Falklands dispute through discussion. On 2 April, the night of the invasion, a banquet was held at Roca's official residence for the US ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and several high-ranking officials of the United States Department of State and the United States Department of Defense. This led British diplomats to view Kirkpatrick, who had earlier called for closer relationships with South American dictatorships, with considerable suspicion.",
"title": "Argentine invasion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "On 1 April, London told the UK ambassador to the UN, Sir Anthony Parsons, that an invasion was imminent and he should call an urgent meeting of the Security Council to get a favourable resolution against Argentina. Parsons had to get nine affirmative votes from the 15 Council members (not a simple majority) and to avoid a blocking vote from any of the other four permanent members. The meeting took place at 11:00 am on 3 April, New York time (4:00 pm in London). United Nations Security Council Resolution 502 was adopted by 10 to 1 (with Panama voting against) and 4 abstentions. Significantly, the Soviet Union and China both abstained. The resolution stated that the UN Security Council was:",
"title": "Argentine invasion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Deeply disturbed at reports of an invasion on 2 April 1982 by armed forces of Argentina; Determining that there exists a breach of the peace in the region of the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), Demands an immediate cessation of hostilities; Demands an immediate withdrawal of all Argentine forces from the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) Calls on the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom to seek a diplomatic solution to their differences and to respect fully the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.",
"title": "Argentine invasion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "This was a significant win for the UK, giving it the upper hand diplomatically. The draft resolution Parsons submitted had avoided any reference to the sovereignty dispute (which might have worked against the UK): instead it focused on Argentina's breach of Chapter VII of the UN Charter which forbids the threat or use of force to settle disputes. The resolution called for the removal only of Argentine forces: this freed Britain to retake the islands militarily, if Argentina did not leave, by exercising its right to self-defence allowed under the UN Charter.",
"title": "Argentine invasion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The Argentine Army unit earmarked for the occupation was the 25th Infantry Regiment, a unit of about 681 men specially trained from all the regions of Argentina; it was flown into Port Stanley Airport as soon as the runway had been cleared. Once it became clear that the British were sending an amphibious task force, there was a general recall of reservists and two brigades of eight infantry regiments and their supporting units were dispatched to the islands. The total Argentine garrison numbered some 13,000 troops by the beginning of May. The conscripts born in 1963 had only recently been called-up, so they were supplemented by the recall of the previous year's intake. Brigadier General Mario Benjamín Menéndez was appointed Military Governor of the Malvinas.",
"title": "Argentine invasion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Argentine military police arrived with detailed files on many islanders, allowing intelligence officer Major Patricio Dowling to arrest and interrogate islanders who he suspected might lead opposition to the occupation. Initially, Islanders suspected of holding anti-Argentine views were expelled, including the Luxton family (who had lived in the islands since the 1840s) and David Colville, editor of the Falklands Times. This proved to be counter-productive, as those expelled gave interviews to the press. Subsequently, fourteen other community leaders, including the senior medical officer, were interned at Fox Bay on West Falkland. Concerned by Dowling's actions, senior Argentine officers had him removed from the islands. For almost a month, the civilian population of Goose Green was detained in the village hall in \"unpleasant conditions\". Less well known are similar detentions in other outlying settlements, including one islander who died after being denied access to his medication. As the war's end approached, some troops began to place booby traps in civilian homes, defiled homes with excrement, destroyed civilian property and committed arson against civilian properties.",
"title": "Argentine invasion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Argentine officers and NCOs have been accused of handing out rough Field punishment to their conscript soldiers. Ration packs from the Moody Brook depot were found to have foodstuff missing according to Private Alan Craig from the 7th Regiment, and troops garrisoning Port Howard were starved, and according to Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins in their book The Battle for the Falklands (Norton, 1984), \"Attempts to go absent without leave were punished by beatings or forcing the offender to sit for hours with his naked feet in the freezing water on the mountainside.\" Private Rito Portillo from the 1st Marine Anti-Aircraft Battalion and Private Remigio Fernández from the 5th Regiment were reported to have been executed or died because of mistreatment by their own officers. Soldiers were made to sign non-disclosure documents on their return from the Islands.",
"title": "Argentine invasion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "On 8 April, Alexander Haig, the United States Secretary of State, arrived in London on a shuttle diplomacy mission from President Ronald Reagan to broker a peace deal based on an interim authority taking control of the islands pending negotiations. After hearing from Thatcher that the task force would not be withdrawn unless the Argentines evacuated their troops, Haig headed for Buenos Aires. There he met the junta and Nicanor Costa Méndez, the foreign minister. Haig was treated coolly and told that Argentine sovereignty must be a pre-condition of any talks. Returning to London on 11 April, he found the British cabinet in no mood for compromise. Haig flew back to Washington before returning to Buenos Aires for a final protracted round of talks. These made little progress, but just as Haig and his mission were leaving, they were told that Galtieri would meet them at the airport VIP lounge to make an important concession; however, this was cancelled at the last minute. On 30 April, the Reagan administration announced that they would be publicly supporting the United Kingdom.",
"title": "Argentine invasion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The nuclear-powered submarine Conqueror set sail from Faslane, Scotland on 4 April. The two aircraft carriers Invincible and Hermes and their escort vessels left Portsmouth, England only a day later. On its return to Southampton from a world cruise on 7 April, the ocean liner SS Canberra was requisitioned and set sail two days later with the 3 Commando Brigade aboard. The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 was also requisitioned, and left Southampton on 12 May, with the 5th Infantry Brigade on board. The whole task force eventually comprised 127 ships: 43 Royal Navy vessels, 22 Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships, and 62 merchant ships.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The retaking of the Falkland Islands was considered extremely difficult. The chances of a British counter-invasion succeeding were assessed by the US Navy, according to historian Arthur L. Herman, as \"a military impossibility\". Firstly, the British were significantly constrained by the disparity in deployable air cover. The British had 42 aircraft (28 Sea Harriers and 14 Harrier GR.3s) available for air combat operations, against approximately 122 serviceable jet fighters, of which about 50 were used as air superiority fighters and the remainder as strike aircraft, in Argentina's air forces during the war. Crucially, the British lacked airborne early warning and control (AEW) aircraft. Planning also considered the Argentine surface fleet and the threat posed by Exocet-equipped vessels or the two Type 209 submarines.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "By mid-April, the Royal Air Force had set up an airbase on RAF Ascension Island, co-located with Wideawake Airfield, on the mid-Atlantic British overseas territory of Ascension Island. They included a sizeable force of Avro Vulcan B Mk 2 bombers, Handley Page Victor K Mk 2 refuelling aircraft, and McDonnell Douglas Phantom FGR Mk 2 fighters to protect them. Meanwhile, the main British naval task force arrived at Ascension to prepare for active service. A small force had already been sent south to recapture South Georgia.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Encounters began in April; the British Task Force was shadowed by Boeing 707 aircraft of the Argentine Air Force during their travel to the south. Several of these flights were intercepted by Sea Harriers outside the British-imposed Total Exclusion Zone; the unarmed 707s were not attacked because diplomatic moves were still in progress and the UK had not yet decided to commit itself to armed force. On 23 April, a Brazilian commercial Douglas DC-10 from VARIG Airlines en route to South Africa was intercepted by British Harriers who visually identified the civilian plane.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The South Georgia force, Operation Paraquet, under the command of Major Guy Sheridan RM, consisted of Marines from 42 Commando, a troop of the Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service (SBS) troops who were intended to land as reconnaissance forces for an invasion by the Royal Marines, a total of 240 men. All were embarked on RFA Tidespring. First to arrive was the Churchill-class submarine HMS Conqueror on 19 April, and the island was over-flown by a Handley Page Victor aircraft with radar-mapping equipment on 20 April, to establish that no Argentine ships were in the vicinity.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The first landings of SAS and SBS troops took place on 21 April, but a mission to establish an observation post on the Fortuna Glacier had to be withdrawn after two helicopters crashed in fog and high winds. On 23 April, a submarine alert was sounded and operations were halted, with Tidespring being withdrawn to deeper water to avoid interception. On 24 April, British forces regrouped and headed in to attack.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "On 25 April, after resupplying the Argentine garrison in South Georgia, the submarine ARA Santa Fe was spotted on the surface by a Westland Wessex HAS Mk 3 helicopter from HMS Antrim, which attacked the Argentine submarine with depth charges. HMS Plymouth launched a Westland Wasp HAS.Mk.1 helicopter, and HMS Brilliant launched a Westland Lynx HAS Mk 2. The Lynx launched a torpedo, and strafed the submarine with its pintle-mounted general purpose machine gun; the Wessex also fired on Santa Fe with its GPMG. The Wasp from HMS Plymouth as well as two other Wasps launched from HMS Endurance fired AS-12 ASM antiship missiles at the submarine, scoring hits. Santa Fe was damaged badly enough to prevent her from diving. The crew abandoned the submarine at the jetty at King Edward Point on South Georgia.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "With Tidespring now far out to sea and the Argentine forces augmented by the submarine's crew, Major Sheridan decided to gather the 76 men he had and make a direct assault that day. After a short forced march by the British troops and a naval bombardment demonstration by two Royal Navy vessels (Antrim and Plymouth), the Argentine forces, a total of 190 men, surrendered without resistance. The message sent from the naval force at South Georgia to London was, \"Be pleased to inform Her Majesty that the White Ensign flies alongside the Union Jack in South Georgia. God Save the Queen.\" The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, broke the news to the media, telling them to \"Just rejoice at that news, and congratulate our forces and the Marines!\"",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "On 1 May British operations on the Falklands opened with the \"Black Buck 1\" attack (of a series of five) on the airfield at Stanley. A Vulcan bomber from Ascension flew an 8,000-nautical-mile (15,000 km; 9,200 mi) round trip, dropping conventional bombs across the runway at Stanley. The mission required repeated aerial refuelling using several Victor K2 tanker aircraft operating in concert, including tanker-to-tanker refuelling. The overall effect of the raids on the war is difficult to determine. The runway was cratered by only one of the twenty one bombs, but as a result, the Argentines realised that their mainland was vulnerable and fighter aircraft were redeployed from the theatre to bases further north.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Historian Lawrence Freedman, who was given access to official sources, comments that the significance of the Vulcan raids remains a subject of controversy. Although they took pressure off the small Sea Harrier force, the raids were costly and used a great deal of resources. The single hit in the centre of the runway was probably the best that could have been expected, but it did reduce the capability of the runway to operate fast jets and caused the Argentine air force to deploy Mirage IIIs to defend the capital. Argentine sources confirm that the Vulcan raids influenced Argentina to shift some of its Mirage IIIs from southern Argentina to the Buenos Aires Defence Zone. This dissuasive effect was watered down when British officials made clear that there would not be strikes on air bases in Argentina. The raids were later dismissed as propaganda by Falklands veteran Commander Nigel Ward.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Of the five Black Buck raids, three were against Stanley Airfield, with the other two being anti-radar missions using Shrike anti-radiation missiles.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The Falklands had only three airfields. The longest and only paved runway was at the capital, Stanley, and even that was too short to support fast jets. Therefore, the Argentines were forced to launch their major strikes from the mainland, severely hampering their efforts at forward staging, combat air patrols, and close air support over the islands. The effective loiter time of incoming Argentine aircraft was low, limiting the ability of fighters to protect attack aircraft, which were often compelled to attack the first target of opportunity, rather than selecting the most lucrative target.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The first major Argentine strike force comprised 36 aircraft (A-4 Skyhawks, IAI Daggers, English Electric Canberras, and Mirage III escorts), and was sent on 1 May, in the belief that the British invasion was imminent or landings had already taken place. Only a section of Grupo 6 (flying IAI Dagger aircraft) found ships, which were firing at Argentine defences near the islands. The Daggers managed to attack the ships and return safely. This greatly boosted the morale of the Argentine pilots, who now knew they could survive an attack against modern warships, protected by radar ground clutter from the islands and by using a late pop up profile. Meanwhile, other Argentine aircraft were intercepted by BAE Sea Harriers operating from HMS Invincible. A Dagger and a Canberra were shot down.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Combat broke out between Sea Harrier FRS Mk 1 fighters of No. 801 Naval Air Squadron and Mirage III fighters of Grupo 8. Both sides refused to fight at the other's best altitude, until two Mirages finally descended to engage. One was shot down by an AIM-9L Sidewinder air-to-air missile (AAM), while the other escaped but was damaged and without enough fuel to return to its mainland airbase. The plane made for Stanley, where it fell victim to friendly fire from the Argentine defenders.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "As a result of this experience, Argentine Air Force staff decided to employ A-4 Skyhawks and Daggers only as strike units, the Canberras only during the night, and Mirage IIIs (without air refuelling capability or any capable AAM) as decoys to lure away the British Sea Harriers. The decoying would be later extended with the formation of the Escuadrón Fénix, a squadron of civilian jets flying 24 hours a day, simulating strike aircraft preparing to attack the fleet. On one of these flights on 7 June, an Air Force Learjet 35A was shot down by HMS Exeter, killing the squadron commander, Vice Commodore Rodolfo de la Colina, the highest-ranking Argentine officer to die in the war.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Stanley was used as an Argentine strongpoint throughout the conflict. Despite the Black Buck and Harrier raids on Stanley airfield (no fast jets were stationed there for air defence) and overnight shelling by detached ships, it was never out of action entirely. Stanley was defended by a mixture of surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems (Franco-German Roland and British Tigercat) and light anti-aircraft guns, including Swiss-built Oerlikon 35 mm twin cannons and 30 mm Hispano-Suiza cannon and German Rheinmetall 20 mm twin anti-aircraft cannons. More of the anti-aircraft guns were deployed to the airstrip at Goose Green. Lockheed Hercules transport night flights brought supplies, weapons, vehicles, and fuel, and airlifted out the wounded up until the end of the conflict.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The only Argentine Hercules shot down by the British was lost on 1 June when TC-63 was intercepted by a Sea Harrier in daylight as it was searching for the British fleet north-east of the islands, after the Argentine Navy retired its last SP-2H Neptune due to unreliability.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Various options to attack the home base of the five Argentine Étendards at Río Grande were examined and discounted (Operation Mikado); subsequently five Royal Navy submarines were lined up, submerged, on the edge of Argentina's 12-nautical-mile (22 km; 14 mi) territorial limit to provide early warning of bombing raids on the British task force.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Operation Folklore was a plan to deploy two Canberra PR.9 aircraft of No. 39 Squadron RAF, disguised in Chilean Air Force markings, to the Chilean air base at Punta Arenas, with the intention of undertaking high-level photo-reconnaissance flights over the Falklands; however the Canberras had reached Belize when the operation was abandoned after part of the plan had been reported in the British press. Operation Acme was the deployment of a single Nimrod R.1 surveillance aircraft of No. 51 Squadron RAF to the Chilean base at Isla San Félix to gather signals intelligence from Argentinian forces in the Falklands; three sorties were conducted, the last on 17 May narrowly avoided being shot down by the Chileans, leading to the cancellation of the operation. More successful was Operation Fingent, the placement of a Marconi S259 radar on high ground in Tierra del Fuego from where it could monitor movements at southern Argentinian air bases; the RAF crew wore civilian clothes in the guise of a sales team. Information was passed to Northwood and the Task Force by means of Operation Shutter, a US supplied SATCOM system installed at the Chilean Air Force headquarters in Santiago and operated by two soldiers of the Royal Corps of Signals.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "On 30 April, the British government had brought into force a 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres; 230 miles) Total Exclusion Zone (TEZ) to replace the previous Maritime Exclusion Zone; aircraft as well as ships of any nation were liable to be attacked inside it, if they were aiding the Argentine occupation. Admiral Sandy Woodward's carrier battle group of twelve warships and three supply ships entered the TEZ on 1 May, shortly before the first Black Buck raid, intending to degrade Argentine air and sea forces before the arrival of the amphibious group two weeks later. In anticipation, Admiral Anaya had deployed all his available warships into three task groups. The first was centred around the aircraft carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo with two old but missile-armed destroyers, and a second comprised three modern frigates. Both these groups were intended to approach the TEZ from the north. A third group approaching from the south was led by the Second World War-vintage Argentine light cruiser ARA General Belgrano; although old, her large guns and heavy armour made her a serious threat, and she was escorted by two modern Type 42 guided-missile destroyers, armed with Exocet missiles.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "On 1 May, the British nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror (one of three patrolling the TEZ) located the Belgrano group and followed it until the following day, when it was about 12 hours away from the Task Force and just outside the Total Exclusion Zone. Admiral Woodward was aware of the Argentine carrier group approaching from the other direction and ordered the cruiser to be attacked to avoid being caught in a pincer movement; he was unaware that the Veinticinco de Mayo had failed to gain enough headwind to launch her aircraft. The order to sink the cruiser was confirmed by the War Cabinet in London and the General Belgrano was hit by two torpedoes at 4 pm local time on 2 May, sinking an hour later. 321 members of General Belgrano's crew, along with two civilians on board the ship, died in the incident. More than 700 men were eventually rescued from the open ocean despite cold seas and stormy weather, enduring up to 30 hours in overcrowded life rafts. The loss of General Belgrano drew heavy criticism from Latin American countries and from opponents of the war in Britain; support for the British cause wavered amongst some European allies, but critically, the United States remained supportive.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Regardless of controversies over the sinking — including disagreement about the exact nature of the exclusion zone and whether General Belgrano had been returning to port at the time of the sinking — it had a crucial strategic effect: the elimination of the Argentine naval threat. After her loss, the entire Argentine fleet, with the exception of the diesel-powered submarine ARA San Luis, returned to port and did not leave again during the fighting. This had the secondary effect of allowing the British to redeploy their nuclear submarines to the coast of Argentina, where they were able to provide early warning of outgoing air attacks leaving mainland bases. However, settling the controversy in 2003, the ship's captain, Hector Bonzo, stated to a documentary crew that General Belgrano had actually been manoeuvering, not sailing away from the exclusion zone, and that he had orders to sink any British ship he could find.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In a separate incident later that night, British forces engaged an Argentine patrol gunboat, the ARA Alferez Sobral, that was searching for the crew of an Argentine Air Force Canberra light bomber shot down on 1 May. Two Royal Navy Lynx helicopters, from HMS Coventry and HMS Glasgow, fired four Sea Skua missiles at her. Badly damaged and with eight crew dead, Alferez Sobral managed to return to Puerto Deseado two days later. The Canberra's crew were never found.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "On 4 May, two days after the sinking of General Belgrano, the British lost the Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield to fire following an Exocet missile strike from the Argentine 2nd Naval Air Fighter/Attack Squadron.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Sheffield had been ordered forward with two other Type 42s to provide a long-range radar and medium-high altitude missile picket far from the British carriers. She was struck amidships, with devastating effect, ultimately killing 20 crew members and severely injuring 24 others. The ship was abandoned several hours later, gutted and deformed by fires. For four days she was kept afloat for inspections and the hope that she might attract Argentine submarines which could be hunted by helicopter. The decision was then taken to tow her to Ascension, but while under tow by HMS Yarmouth, she finally sank east of the Falklands on 10 May.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The incident is described in detail by Admiral Woodward in his book One Hundred Days, in Chapter One. Woodward was a former commanding officer of Sheffield. The destruction of Sheffield, the first Royal Navy ship sunk in action since the Second World War, had a profound impact on the War Cabinet and the British public as a whole, bringing home the fact that the conflict was now an actual shooting war.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The tempo of operations increased throughout the first half of May as the United Nations' attempts to mediate a peace were rejected by the Argentines. The final British negotiating position was presented to Argentina by UN Secretary General Pérez de Cuéllar on 18 May 1982. In it, the British abandoned their previous \"red-line\" that British administration of the islands should be restored on the withdrawal of Argentine forces, as supported by United Nations Security Council Resolution 502.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Instead, it proposed a UN administrator should supervise the mutual withdrawal of both Argentine and British forces, then govern the islands in consultation with the representative institutions of the islands, including Argentines, although no Argentines lived there. Reference to \"self-determination\" of the islanders was dropped and the British proposed that future negotiations over the sovereignty of the islands should be conducted by the UN. However, the proposals were rejected by the Argentines on the same day.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Given the threat to the British fleet posed by the Étendard-Exocet combination, plans were made to use C-130s to fly in some SAS troops to attack the home base of the five Étendards at Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego. The operation was codenamed \"Mikado\". The operation was later scrapped, after acknowledging that its chances of success were limited, and replaced with a plan to use the submarine HMS Onyx to drop SAS operatives several miles offshore at night for them to make their way to the coast aboard rubber inflatables and proceed to destroy Argentina's remaining Exocet stockpile.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "An SAS reconnaissance team was dispatched to carry out preparations for a seaborne infiltration. A Westland Sea King helicopter carrying the assigned team took off from HMS Invincible on the night of 17 May, but bad weather forced it to land 50 miles (80 km) from its target and the mission was aborted. The pilot flew to Chile, landed south of Punta Arenas, and dropped off the SAS team. The helicopter's crew of three then destroyed the aircraft, surrendered to Chilean police on 25 May, and were repatriated to the UK after interrogation. The discovery of the burnt-out helicopter attracted considerable international attention. Meanwhile, the SAS team crossed the border and penetrated into Argentina, but cancelled their mission after the Argentines suspected an SAS operation and deployed some 2,000 troops to search for them. The SAS men were able to return to Chile and took a civilian flight back to the UK.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "On 14 May the SAS carried out a raid on Pebble Island on the Falklands, where the Argentine Navy had taken over a grass airstrip for FMA IA 58 Pucará light ground-attack aircraft and Beechcraft T-34 Mentors, which resulted in the destruction of several aircraft.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "On 15 May, SBS teams were inserted by HMS Brilliant at Grantham Sound to reconnoitre and observe the landing beaches at San Carlos Bay. On the evening of 20 May, the day before the main landings, an SBS troop and artillery observers were landed by Wessex helicopters for an assault on an Argentine observation post at Fanning Head which overlooked the entrance of the bay; meanwhile, the SAS conducted a diversionary raid at Darwin.",
"title": "British task force"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In the landing zone, the limitations of the British ships' anti-aircraft defences were demonstrated in the sinking of HMS Ardent on 21 May which was hit by nine bombs, and HMS Antelope on 24 May when attempts to defuze unexploded bombs failed. Out at sea with the carrier battle group, MV Atlantic Conveyor was struck by an air-launched Exocet on 25 May, which caused the loss of three out of four Chinook and five Wessex helicopters as well as their maintenance equipment and facilities, together with runway-building equipment and tents. This was a severe blow from a logistical perspective. Twelve of her crew members were killed.",
"title": "Air attacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Also lost on 25 May was HMS Coventry, a sister to Sheffield, whilst in company with HMS Broadsword after being ordered to act as a decoy to draw away Argentine aircraft from other ships at San Carlos Bay. HMS Argonaut and HMS Brilliant were moderately damaged.",
"title": "Air attacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Many British ships escaped being sunk because of limitations imposed by circumstances on Argentine pilots. To avoid the highest concentration of British air defences, Argentine pilots released bombs at very low altitude, and hence those bomb fuzes did not have sufficient time to arm before impact. The low release of the retarded bombs (some of which the British had sold to the Argentines years earlier) meant that many never exploded, as there was insufficient time in the air for them to arm themselves. The pilots would have been aware of this—but due to the high concentration required to avoid surface-to-air missiles, anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA), and British Sea Harriers, many failed to climb to the necessary release point. The Argentine forces solved the problem by fitting improvised retarding devices, allowing the pilots to effectively employ low-level bombing attacks on 8 June.",
"title": "Air attacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Thirteen bombs hit British ships without detonating. Lord Craig, the retired Marshal of the Royal Air Force, is said to have remarked: \"Six better fuzes and we would have lost\" although Ardent and Antelope were both lost despite the failure of bombs to explode, and Argonaut was put out of action. The fuzes were functioning correctly, and the bombs were simply released from too low an altitude. The Argentines lost 22 aircraft in the attacks.",
"title": "Air attacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "In his autobiographical account of the Falklands War, Admiral Woodward blamed the BBC World Service for disclosing information that led the Argentines to change the retarding devices on the bombs. The World Service reported the lack of detonations after receiving a briefing on the matter from a Ministry of Defence official. He describes the BBC as being more concerned with being \"fearless seekers after truth\" than with the lives of British servicemen. Colonel 'H'. Jones levelled similar accusations against the BBC after they disclosed the impending British attack on Goose Green by 2 Para.",
"title": "Air attacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "On 30 May, two Super Étendards, one carrying Argentina's last remaining Exocet, escorted by four A-4C Skyhawks each with two 500 lb bombs, took off to attack Invincible. Argentine intelligence had sought to determine the position of the carriers from analysis of aircraft flight routes from the task force to the islands. However, the British had a standing order that all aircraft conduct a low level transit when leaving or returning to the carriers to disguise their position. This tactic compromised the Argentine attack, which focused on a group of escorts 40 miles (64 km) south of the carrier group. Two of the attacking Skyhawks were shot down by Sea Dart missiles fired by HMS Exeter, with HMS Avenger claiming to have shot down the Exocet missile with her 4.5\" gun (although this claim is disputed). No damage was caused to any British vessels. During the war, Argentina claimed to have damaged Invincible and continues to do so, although no evidence of any such damage has been produced or uncovered.",
"title": "Air attacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "During the night of 21 May, the British Amphibious Task Group under the command of Commodore Michael Clapp (Commodore, Amphibious Warfare – COMAW) mounted Operation Sutton, the amphibious landing on beaches around San Carlos Water, on the northwestern coast of East Falkland facing onto Falkland Sound. The bay, known as Bomb Alley by British forces, was the scene of repeated air attacks by low-flying Argentine jets.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "The 4,000 men of 3 Commando Brigade were put ashore as follows: 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment (2 Para) from the RORO ferry Norland and 40 Commando Royal Marines from the amphibious ship HMS Fearless were landed at San Carlos (Blue Beach), 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment (3 Para) from the amphibious ship HMS Intrepid was landed at Port San Carlos (Green Beach) and 45 Commando from RFA Stromness was landed at Ajax Bay (Red Beach). Notably, the waves of eight LCUs and eight LCVPs were led by Major Ewen Southby-Tailyour, who had commanded the Falklands detachment NP8901 from March 1978 to 1979. 42 Commando on the ocean liner SS Canberra was a tactical reserve. Units from the Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, etc. and armoured reconnaissance vehicles were also put ashore with the landing craft, the Round Table-class LSL and mexeflote barges. Rapier missile launchers were carried as underslung loads of Sea Kings for rapid deployment.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "By dawn the next day, they had established a secure beachhead from which to conduct offensive operations. Brigadier Julian Thompson established his brigade headquarters in dugouts near San Carlos Settlement.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "From early on 27 May until 28 May, 2 Para approached and attacked Darwin and Goose Green, which was held by the Argentine 12th Infantry Regiment. 2 Para’s 500 men had naval gunfire support from HMS Arrow and artillery support from 8 Commando Battery and the Royal Artillery. After a tough struggle that lasted all night and into the next day, the British won the battle; in all, 18 British and 47 Argentine soldiers were killed. A total of 961 Argentine troops (including 202 Argentine Air Force personnel of the Condor airfield) were taken prisoner.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "The BBC announced the taking of Goose Green on the BBC World Service before it had actually happened. During this attack Lieutenant Colonel H. Jones, the commanding officer of 2 Para, was killed at the head of his battalion while charging into the well-prepared Argentine positions. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "With the sizeable Argentine force at Goose Green out of the way, British forces were now able to break out of the San Carlos beachhead. On 27 May, men of 45 Cdo and 3 Para started a loaded march across East Falkland towards the coastal settlement of Teal Inlet.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Meanwhile, 42 Commando prepared to move by helicopter to Mount Kent. Unbeknownst to senior British officers, the Argentine generals were determined to tie down the British troops in the Mount Kent area, and on 27 and 28 May they sent transport aircraft loaded with Blowpipe surface-to-air missiles and commandos (602nd Commando Company and 601st National Gendarmerie Special Forces Squadron) to Stanley. This operation was known as Autoimpuesta (\"Self-imposed\").",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "For the next week, the SAS and the Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre (M&AWC) of 3 Commando Brigade waged intense patrol battles with patrols of the volunteers' 602nd Commando Company under Major Aldo Rico, normally second in Command of the 22nd Mountain Infantry Regiment. Throughout 30 May, Royal Air Force Harriers were active over Mount Kent. One of them, Harrier XZ963, flown by Squadron Leader Jerry Pook—in responding to a call for help from D Squadron, attacked Mount Kent's eastern lower slopes, which led to its loss through small-arms fire. Pook was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. On 31 May, the M&AWC defeated Argentine Special Forces at the skirmish at Top Malo House. A 13-strong Argentine Army Commando detachment (Captain José Vercesi's 1st Assault Section, 602nd Commando Company) found itself trapped in a small shepherd's house at Top Malo. The Argentine commandos fired from windows and doorways and then took refuge in a stream bed 200 metres (700 ft) from the burning house. Completely surrounded, they fought 19 M&AWC marines under Captain Rod Boswell for 45 minutes until, with their ammunition almost exhausted, they elected to surrender.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Three Cadre members were badly wounded. On the Argentine side, there were two dead, including Lieutenant Ernesto Espinoza and Sergeant Mateo Sbert (who were posthumously decorated for their bravery). Only five Argentines were left unscathed. As the British secured Top Malo House, Lieutenant Fraser Haddow's M&AWC patrol came down from Malo Hill, brandishing a large Union Flag. One wounded Argentine soldier, Lieutenant Horacio Losito, commented that their escape route would have taken them through Haddow's position.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "601st Commando tried to move forward to rescue 602nd Commando Company on Estancia Mountain. Spotted by 42 Commando, they were engaged with L16 81mm mortars and forced to withdraw to Two Sisters mountain. The leader of 602nd Commando Company on Estancia Mountain realised his position had become untenable and after conferring with fellow officers ordered a withdrawal.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "The Argentine operation also saw the extensive use of helicopter support to position and extract patrols; the 601st Combat Aviation Battalion also suffered casualties. At about 11:00 am on 30 May, an Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma helicopter was brought down by a shoulder-launched FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missile (SAM) fired by the SAS in the vicinity of Mount Kent. Six Argentine National Gendarmerie Special Forces were killed and eight more wounded in the crash.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "As Brigadier Thompson commented:",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "It was fortunate that I had ignored the views expressed by Northwood HQ that reconnaissance of Mount Kent before insertion of 42 Commando was superfluous. Had D Squadron not been there, the Argentine Special Forces would have caught the Commando before de-planing and, in the darkness and confusion on a strange landing zone, inflicted heavy casualties on men and helicopters.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "By 1 June, with the arrival of a further 5,000 British troops of the 5th Infantry Brigade, the new British divisional commander, Major General Jeremy Moore RM, had sufficient force to start planning an offensive against Stanley. During this build-up, the Argentine air assaults on the British naval forces continued, killing 56. Of the dead, 32 were from the Welsh Guards on RFA Sir Galahad and RFA Sir Tristram on 8 June. According to Surgeon-Commander Rick Jolly of the Falklands Field Hospital, more than 150 men suffered burns and injuries of some kind in the attack, including Simon Weston.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "The Guards were sent to support an advance along the southern approach to Stanley. On 2 June, a small advance party of 2 Para moved to Swan Inlet house in a number of Army Westland Scout helicopters. Telephoning ahead to Fitzroy, they discovered that the area was clear of Argentines and (exceeding their authority) commandeered the one remaining RAF Chinook helicopter to frantically ferry another contingent of 2 Para ahead to Fitzroy (a settlement on Port Pleasant) and Bluff Cove (a settlement on Port Fitzroy).",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "This uncoordinated advance caused great difficulties in planning for the commanders of the combined operation, as they now found themselves with 30 miles (48 km) of indefensible positions, strung along their southern flank. Support could not be sent by air as the single remaining Chinook was already heavily oversubscribed. The soldiers could march, but their equipment and heavy supplies would need to be ferried by sea.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Plans were drawn up for half the Welsh Guards to march light on the night of 2 June, whilst the Scots Guards and the second half of the Welsh Guards were to be ferried from San Carlos Water in the Landing Ship Logistics (LSL) Sir Tristram and the landing platform dock (LPD) Intrepid on the night of 5 June. Intrepid was planned to stay one day and unload itself and as much of Sir Tristram as possible, leaving the next evening for the relative safety of San Carlos. Escorts would be provided for this day, after which Sir Tristram would be left to unload using a Mexeflote (a powered raft) for as long as it took to finish.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Political pressure from above to not risk the LPD forced Commodore Michael Clapp to alter this plan. Two lower-value LSLs would be sent, but with no suitable beaches to land on, Intrepid's landing craft would need to accompany them to unload. A complicated operation across several nights with Intrepid and her sister ship Fearless sailing half-way to dispatch their craft was devised.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "The attempted overland march by half the Welsh Guards failed, possibly as they refused to march light and attempted to carry their equipment. They returned to San Carlos and landed directly at Bluff Cove when Fearless dispatched her landing craft. Sir Tristram sailed on the night of 6 June and was joined by Sir Galahad at dawn on 7 June. Anchored 1,200 feet (370 m) apart in Port Pleasant, the landing ships were near Fitzroy, the designated landing point. The landing craft should have been able to unload the ships to that point relatively quickly, but confusion over the ordered disembarkation point (the first half of the Guards going direct to Bluff Cove) resulted in the senior Welsh Guards infantry officer aboard insisting that his troops should be ferried the far longer distance directly to Port Fitzroy/Bluff Cove. The alternative was for the infantrymen to march via the recently repaired Bluff Cove bridge (destroyed by retreating Argentine combat engineers) to their destination, a journey of around seven miles (11 km).",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "On Sir Galahad's stern ramp there was an argument about what to do. The officers on board were told that they could not sail to Bluff Cove that day. They were told that they had to get their men off ship and onto the beach as soon as possible as the ships were vulnerable to enemy aircraft. It would take 20 minutes to transport the men to shore using the LCU and Mexeflote. They would then have the choice of walking the seven miles to Bluff Cove or wait until dark to sail there. The officers on board said that they would remain on board until dark and then sail. They refused to take their men off the ship. They possibly doubted that the bridge had been repaired due to the presence on board Sir Galahad of the Royal Engineer Troop whose job it was to repair the bridge. The Welsh Guards were keen to rejoin the rest of their Battalion, who were potentially facing the enemy without their support. They had also not seen any enemy aircraft since landing at San Carlos and may have been overconfident in the air defences. Ewen Southby-Tailyour gave a direct order for the men to leave the ship and go to the beach; the order was ignored.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "The longer journey time of the landing craft taking the troops directly to Bluff Cove and the squabbling over how the landing was to be performed caused an enormous delay in unloading. This had disastrous consequences, since the ships were visible to Argentine troops on Mount Harriet, some ten miles (16 km) distant. Without escorts, having not yet established their air defence, and still almost fully laden, the two LSLs in Port Pleasant were sitting targets for eight Argentine A-4 Skyhawks. A coordinated sortie by six Daggers attacked HMS Plymouth, which had the effect of drawing off the patrolling Sea Harriers. At 17.00, the Skyhawks attacked from seaward, hitting Sir Galahad with three bombs; although none exploded, they caused fierce fires which quickly grew out of control. Two bombs hit Sir Tristram, also starting fires and causing the ship to be abandoned, but the damage was not as serious. Three Sea King and a Wessex helicopter ferried the wounded to an advanced dressing station which was set up on the shore.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "British casualties were 48 killed and 115 wounded. Three Argentine pilots were also killed. The air strike delayed the scheduled British ground attack on Stanley by two days. The British casualties amounted to two infantry companies, but it was decided not to release detailed casualty figures because intelligence indicated that Argentine commanders believed that a much more severe reverse had been inflicted. However, the disaster at Port Pleasant (although often known as Bluff Cove) would provide the world with some of the most sobering images of the war as ITV News video showed helicopters hovering in thick smoke to winch survivors from the burning landing ships.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "On the night of 11 June, after several days of painstaking reconnaissance and logistic build-up, British forces launched a brigade-sized night attack against the heavily defended ring of high ground surrounding Stanley. Units of 3 Commando Brigade, supported by naval gunfire from several Royal Navy ships, simultaneously attacked in the Battle of Mount Harriet, Battle of Two Sisters, and Battle of Mount Longdon. Mount Harriet was taken at a cost of 2 British and 18 Argentine soldiers. At Two Sisters, the British faced both enemy resistance and friendly fire but managed to capture their objectives. The toughest battle was at Mount Longdon. British forces were bogged down by rifle, mortar, machine gun, artillery and sniper fire, and ambushes. Despite this, the British continued their advance.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "During this battle, 14 were killed when HMS Glamorgan, straying too close to shore while returning from the gun line, was struck by an improvised trailer-based Exocet MM38 launcher taken from the destroyer ARA Seguí by Argentine Navy technicians. On the same day, Sergeant Ian McKay of 4 Platoon, B Company, 3 Para died in a grenade attack on an Argentine bunker; he received a posthumous Victoria Cross for his actions. After a night of fierce fighting, all objectives were secured. Both sides suffered heavy losses.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "The second phase of attacks began on the night of 13 June, and the momentum of the initial assault was maintained. 2 Para, with light armour support from the Blues and Royals, captured Wireless Ridge, with the loss of 3 British and 25 Argentine lives, and the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards captured Mount Tumbledown at the Battle of Mount Tumbledown, which cost 10 British and 30 Argentine lives. A simultaneous special forces raid by the SAS and SBS in fast boats to attack the oil tanks in Stanley Harbour was beaten off by anti-aircraft guns.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "With the last natural defence line at Mount Tumbledown breached, the Argentine town defences of Stanley began to falter. In the morning gloom, one company commander got lost and his junior officers became despondent. Private Santiago Carrizo of the 3rd Regiment described how a platoon commander ordered them to take up positions in the houses and \"if a Kelper resists, shoot him\", but the entire company did nothing of the kind. A daylight attack on Mount William by the Gurkhas, delayed from the previous night by the fighting at Tumbledown, ended in anticlimax when the Argentine positions were found to be deserted.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "A ceasefire was declared on 14 June and Thatcher announced the commencement of surrender negotiations. The commander of the Argentine garrison in Stanley, Brigade General Mario Menéndez, surrendered to Major General Jeremy Moore the same day.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "On 20 June, the British retook the South Sandwich Islands, which involved accepting the surrender of the Southern Thule Garrison at the Corbeta Uruguay base and declared hostilities over. Argentina had established Corbeta Uruguay in 1976, but prior to 1982 the United Kingdom had contested the existence of the Argentine base only through diplomatic channels.",
"title": "Land battles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "The UK received political support from member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations. Australia, Canada, and New Zealand withdrew their diplomats from Buenos Aires.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "The New Zealand government expelled the Argentine ambassador following the invasion. The Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon, was in London when the war broke out and in an opinion piece published in The Times he said: \"The military rulers of Argentina must not be appeased … New Zealand will back Britain all the way.\" Broadcasting on the BBC World Service, he told the Falkland Islanders: \"This is Rob Muldoon. We are thinking of you and we are giving our full and total support to the British Government in its endeavours to rectify this situation and get rid of the people who have invaded your country.\" On 20 May 1982, he announced that New Zealand would make HMNZS Canterbury, a Leander-class frigate, available for use where the British thought fit to release a Royal Navy vessel for the Falklands. In the House of Commons afterwards, Margaret Thatcher said: \"…the New Zealand Government and people have been absolutely magnificent in their support for this country [and] the Falkland Islanders, for the rule of liberty and of law\".",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "Encouraged by the generous response of New Zealand, the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, was rushed into offering to cancel the intended purchase of HMS Invincible, which was quickly accepted by the British. However, this left the Royal Australian Navy without a replacement for their only aircraft carrier, HMAS Melbourne, which was in the process of decommissioning.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "The French president, François Mitterrand, declared an embargo on French arms sales and assistance to Argentina. In addition, France allowed UK aircraft and warships use of its port and airfield facilities at Dakar in Senegal and France provided dissimilar aircraft training so that Harrier pilots could train against the French aircraft used by Argentina. French intelligence also cooperated with Britain to prevent Argentina from obtaining more Exocet missiles on the international market. In a 2002 interview, and in reference to this support, John Nott, the then British Defence Secretary, had described France as Britain's 'greatest ally'. In 2012, it came to light that while this support was taking place, a French technical team, employed by Dassault and already in Argentina, remained there throughout the war despite the presidential decree. The team had provided material support to the Argentines, identifying and fixing faults in Exocet missile launchers. John Nott said he had known the French team was there but said its work was thought not to be of any importance. An adviser to the then French government denied any knowledge at the time that the technical team was there. The French DGSE did know the team was there as they had an informant in the team but decried any assistance the team gave: \"It's bordering on an act of treason, or disobedience to an embargo\". John Nott, when asked if he felt let down by the French said \"If you're asking me: 'Are the French duplicitous people?' the answer is: 'Of course they are, and they always have been\". Four Exocet missiles that had been ordered by Peru were prevented by the French government from being delivered by air and, after pressure from Britain who suspected that they would be passed on to Argentina, delayed their release to a Peruvian ship until the conflict was over.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "Declassified cables show the United States both felt that Thatcher had not considered diplomatic options and feared that a protracted conflict could draw the Soviet Union on Argentina's side. The US initially tried to mediate an end to the conflict through shuttle diplomacy, but when Argentina refused the American peace overtures, US Secretary of State Alexander Haig announced that the United States would prohibit arms sales to Argentina and provide material support for British operations. Both houses of the US Congress passed resolutions supporting the American action siding with the United Kingdom.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "The US provided the United Kingdom with 200 Sidewinder missiles for use by the Harrier jets, eight Stinger surface-to-air missile systems, Harpoon anti-ship missiles and mortar bombs. On Ascension Island, the underground fuel tanks were empty when the British Task Force arrived in mid-April 1982 and the leading assault ship, HMS Fearless, did not have enough fuel to dock when it arrived off the island. The United States diverted a supertanker to replenish both the fuel tanks of ships at anchor there and the storage tanks on the island with approximately 2,000,000 US gallons (7,600,000 L; 1,700,000 imp gal) of fuel. The Pentagon further committed to providing additional support in the event that the war dragged on into the Southern Hemisphere's winter. In that scenario, the US committed tanker aircraft to support Royal Air Force missions in Europe, releasing RAF aircraft to support operations over the Falklands.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "The United States allowed the United Kingdom to use American communication satellites to allow secure communications between submarines in the Southern Ocean and Naval HQ in Britain. The US also passed on satellite imagery (which it publicly denied) and weather forecast data to the British Fleet.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "US President Ronald Reagan approved the Royal Navy's request to borrow a Sea Harrier-capable Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ship (the US Navy had earmarked USS Guam (LPH-9) for this) in the event a British aircraft carrier was lost. The US Navy developed a plan to help the British man the ship with American military contractors, who would likely be retired sailors with knowledge of the ship's systems.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "Argentina itself was politically backed by a number of countries in Latin America (though, notably, not Chile). Several members of the Non-Aligned Movement also backed Argentina's position; notably, Cuba and Nicaragua led a diplomatic effort to rally non-aligned countries from Africa and Asia to Argentina's position. This initiative came as a surprise to Western observers, as Cuba had no diplomatic relations with Argentina's right-leaning military junta. British diplomats complained that Cuba had \"cynically exploited\" the crisis to pursue its normalization of relations with Latin American countries; Argentina eventually resumed relations with Cuba in 1983; Brazil did so in 1986.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "Peru attempted to purchase 12 Exocet missiles from France, to be delivered to Argentina in a failed secret operation. Peru also openly sent \"Mirages, pilots and missiles\" to Argentina during the war. Peru had earlier transferred ten Hercules transport planes to Argentina soon after the British Task Force had set sail in April 1982. Nick van der Bijl records that, after the Argentine defeat at Goose Green, Venezuela and Guatemala offered to send paratroopers to the Falklands.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "At the outbreak of the war, Chile was in negotiations with Argentina for control over the Beagle Channel and feared Argentina would use similar tactics to secure the channel. During this conflict, Argentina had already rejected two attempts at international mediation and tried to exert military pressure on Chile with an operation to occupy the disputed territory. Considering the situation, Chile refused to support the Argentine position during the war and gave support to the UK in the form of intelligence about the Argentine military and early warning intelligence on Argentine air movements. Throughout the war, Argentina was afraid of a Chilean military intervention in Patagonia and kept some of its best mountain regiments away from the Falklands near the Chilean border as a precaution. The Chilean government also allowed the United Kingdom to requisition the refuelling vessel RFA Tidepool, which Chile had recently purchased and which had arrived at Arica in Chile on 4 April. The ship left port soon afterwards, bound for Ascension Island through the Panama Canal and stopping at Curaçao en route.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "At the end of May, Brazilian authorities allowed FAA Boeing 707s to refuel at Recife International Airport carrying arms shipments from Libya. When the British Embassy in Brasilia became aware of this, the British Secret Intelligence Service devised a plan to sabotage the next flight on the ground, but diplomatic pressure on the Brazilian government to observe their legal duties as a neutral country resulted in no further flights being accepted. On 3 June, an RAF Vulcan on returning from a Black Buck raid on the Falklands, was forced to make an emergency landing at Rio de Janeiro International Airport after damage to its refuelling probe prevented it returning to Ascension Island. The Vulcan and her crew were interned and released seven days later, although an unused Shrike missile that the aircraft had been carrying was retained.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "The Soviet Union described the Falklands as \"a disputed territory\", recognising Argentina's ambitions over the islands, and called for restraint on all sides. Soviet media frequently criticised the UK and US during the war. Significantly, however, the Soviet Union refrained from vetoing and thus made possible UN Security Council Resolution 502 demanding the immediate withdrawal of all Argentine troops from the Falklands. However, the Soviet Union mounted some clandestine logistics operations to assist the Argentines. Days after the invasion by the Argentine forces, the Soviets launched additional intelligence satellites into low Earth orbit covering the southern Atlantic Ocean. Conflicting reports exist on whether Soviet ocean surveillance data might have played a role in the sinking of HMS Sheffield and HMS Coventry.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "Spain's position was one of ambiguity, underpinning the basic dilemma of the Spanish foreign policy regarding the articulation of relationships with Latin America and European communities. On 2 April 1982, the Council of Ministers issued an official note defending principles of decolonisation and against the use of force. Spain abstained in the vote of UN Security Council Resolution 502, a position that Spanish UN representative Jaime de Piniés justified by pointing out that the resolution did not mention the underlying problem of decolonisation. The Spanish stance throughout the conflict contrasted with those of the countries in its immediate vicinity (EEC members and Portugal).",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "Spanish authorities also foiled a covert attack by the Argentine Naval Intelligence Service on a British warship at Gibraltar, code named Operation Algeciras. Three frogmen, recruited from a former anti-government insurgent group, were to plant mines on a ship's hull. The divers travelled to Spain through France, where French security services noted their military diving equipment and alerted their Spanish counterparts. They were covertly monitored as they moved from the Argentine embassy in Madrid to Algeciras, where they were arrested on 17 May by the Guardia Civil and deported.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "Portugal supported its long-standing ally Britain and the facilities of the Azores were offered to the Royal Navy.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "The European Economic Community provided economic support by imposing economic sanctions on Argentina. In a meeting on Good Friday, 9 April, at the Egmont Palace, the EEC Political Committee proposed a total import ban from Argentina. Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Luxembourg and Ireland agreed immediately; France, Germany and the Netherlands were persuaded before the meeting ended. Italy, which had close cultural ties with Argentina, consented on the next day.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "Ireland's position altered during the war. As a rotating member of the United Nations Security Council, it supported Resolution 502. However, on 4 May, the Fianna Fáil government led by Charles Haughey decided to oppose EEC sanctions and called for a ceasefire. Haughey justified this as complying with Irish neutrality. Historians have suggested it was an opportunistic appeal to anti-British sentiment and reaction to Haughey's being sidelined during the 1981 republican hunger strike. The strain on British–Irish relations eased when Haughey's government fell in November 1982.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "According to the book Operation Israel, advisers from Israel Aerospace Industries were already in Argentina and continued their work during the conflict. The book also claims that Israel sold weapons and drop tanks to Argentina in a secret operation via Peru.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "The Government of Sierra Leone allowed British task force ships to refuel at Freetown.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "VC10 transport aircraft landed at Banjul in The Gambia while flying between the UK and Ascension Island.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "Through Libya, under Muammar Gaddafi, Argentina received 20 launchers and 60 SA-7 missiles (which Argentina later described as \"not effective\"), as well as machine guns, mortars and mines. To retrieve the weapons, four trips were made using two Argentine Air Force Boeing 707s which refuelled in Recife with the consent of the Brazilian government.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "The UK had terminated the Simonstown Agreement in 1975, thereby effectively denying the Royal Navy access to ports in South Africa and forcing it to use Ascension Island as a staging post.",
"title": "Foreign involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "In total, 907 people were killed during the 74 days of the conflict. Additionally, there were 1,188 Argentine and 777 British injured or wounded.",
"title": "Casualties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "A total of 649 Argentine servicemen were killed:",
"title": "Casualties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "A total of 255 British servicemen were killed:",
"title": "Casualties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "Of the 86 Royal Navy personnel, 22 were lost in HMS Ardent, 19 + 1 lost in HMS Sheffield, 19 + 1 lost in HMS Coventry and 13 lost in HMS Glamorgan. Fourteen naval cooks were among the dead, the largest number from any one branch in the Royal Navy.",
"title": "Casualties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "Thirty-three of the British Army's dead came from the Welsh Guards (32 of whom died on the RFA Sir Galahad in the Bluff Cove Air Attacks), 21 from the 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, 18 from the 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, 19 from the Special Air Service, 3 each from Royal Signals and Royal Army Medical Corps and 8 from each of the Scots Guards and Royal Engineers. The 1st battalion/7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles lost one man.",
"title": "Casualties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "Three civilians on the Falkland Islands were accidentally killed by British shelling during the night of 11/12 June. The military command identified those killed as Susan Whitley, 30, a British citizen, and Falkland Islands natives Doreen Bonner, 36 and Mary Goodwin, 82. It was also reported that HMS Brilliant, on an anti-submarine patrol, detected and torpedoed three whales by accident.",
"title": "Casualties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "Before British offensive operations began, the British and Argentine governments agreed to establish an area on the high seas where both sides could station hospital ships without fear of attack by the other side. This area, a circle 20 nautical miles in diameter, was referred to as the Red Cross Box (48°30′S 53°45′W / 48.500°S 53.750°W / -48.500; -53.750) and located about 45 miles (72 km) north of Falkland Sound. Ultimately, the British stationed four ships (HMS Hydra, HMS Hecla and HMS Herald and the primary hospital ship SS Uganda) within the box, while the Argentines stationed three (ARA Almirante Irízar, ARA Bahía Paraíso and Puerto Deseado).",
"title": "Casualties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "The hospital ships were non-warships converted to serve as hospital ships. The three British naval vessels were survey vessels and Uganda was a passenger liner. Almirante Irizar was an icebreaker, Bahia Paraiso was an Antarctic supply transport and Puerto Deseado was a survey ship. British and Argentine vessels operating within the Box were in radio contact and there was some transfer of patients between hospital ships. For example, the Uganda transferred patients to an Argentine hospital ship on four occasions. Hydra worked with Hecla and Herald to take casualties from Uganda to Montevideo, Uruguay, where a fleet of Uruguayan ambulances met them. RAF VC10 aircraft then flew the casualties to the UK for transfer to the Princess Alexandra Hospital at RAF Wroughton, near Swindon.",
"title": "Casualties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "Throughout the conflict, officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) conducted inspections to verify that all concerned were abiding by the rules of the Geneva Conventions. Argentine naval officers also inspected the British casualty ferries in the estuary of the River Plate.",
"title": "Casualties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "This brief war brought many consequences for all the parties involved, besides the considerable casualty rate and large materiel loss, especially of shipping and aircraft, relative to the deployed military strengths of the opposing sides.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "In the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher's popularity increased. The success of the Falklands campaign was widely regarded as a factor in the turnaround in fortunes for the Conservative government, who had been trailing behind the SDP–Liberal Alliance in the opinion polls for months before the conflict began. Following the success in the Falklands, the Conservatives returned to the top of the opinion polls by a wide margin and went on to win the following year's general election by a landslide. Subsequently, Defence Secretary Nott's proposed cuts to the Royal Navy were abandoned.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "The islanders had full British citizenship restored in 1983; their quality of life improved through investments made by the UK after the war and by economic liberalisation that had been stalled for fear of angering Argentina. In 1985, a new constitution was enacted, promoting self-government which has continued to devolve power to the islanders.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "In Argentina, defeat in the Falklands War meant that a possible war with Chile was avoided. Further, Argentina returned to a democratic government in the 1983 general election, the first free general election since 1973. It also had a major social impact, destroying the military's image as the \"moral reserve of the nation\" that they had maintained through most of the 20th century.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "A detailed study of 21,432 British veterans of the war commissioned by the UK Ministry of Defence found that between 1982 and 2012, only 95 had died from \"intentional self-harm and events of undetermined intent (suicides and open verdict deaths)\", a proportion lower than would be expected within the general population over the same period. However, a study of British combat veterans conducted five years after the conflict found that half of the sample group had suffered some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while 22% were assessed to have the complete syndrome.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 128,
"text": "In the immediate aftermath of the conflict, the British government embarked on a long-term policy of providing the islands with a viable military garrison, known informally as \"Fortress Falklands\". Initially, an aircraft carrier was kept in the area until the runway at Stanley Airport could be improved to take conventional RAF fighters. A permanent military complex with a runway designed to take long-haul airliners was constructed in the south of East Falkland, RAF Mount Pleasant, which opened in 1985; an associated deep-water port at Mare Harbour was also constructed. A small military outpost was established at King Edward Point on South Georgia, but it was closed in 2001.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 129,
"text": "Militarily, the Falklands conflict remains one of the largest air-naval combat operations between modern forces since the end of the Second World War. As such, it has been the subject of intense study by military analysts and historians. Significant takeaways include the vulnerability of surface ships to anti-ship missiles and submarines, the challenges of co-ordinating logistical support for long-distance projections of power, and reconfirmation of the importance of tactical air power, including helicopters.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 130,
"text": "In 1986, the BBC broadcast the Horizon programme In the Wake of HMS Sheffield, which discussed lessons learned from the conflict, and measures taken to implement them, such as incorporating greater stealth capabilities and providing better close-in weapon systems for the fleet. The principal British military responses to the Falklands War were the measures adopted in the December 1982 Defence White Paper.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 131,
"text": "There are several memorials on the Falkland Islands themselves, the most notable of which is the 1982 Liberation Memorial, unveiled in 1984 on the second anniversary of the end of the war. It lists the names of the 255 British military personnel who died during the war and is located in front of the Secretariat Building in Stanley, overlooking Stanley Harbour. The Memorial was funded entirely by the Islanders and is inscribed with the words \"In Memory of Those Who Liberated Us\".",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 132,
"text": "During the war, British dead were put into plastic body bags and buried in mass graves. After the war, the bodies were recovered; 14 were reburied at Blue Beach Military Cemetery and 64 were returned to the United Kingdom. Many of the Argentine dead are buried in the Argentine Military Cemetery two kilometers northeast of the small settlement of Darwin, approximately 82 kilometers west of Stanley. The Argentine government declined an offer by the UK to have the bodies repatriated to Argentina.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 133,
"text": "In addition to memorials on the islands, there is a memorial in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, London to the British war dead. At the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, a Falklands War memorial was unveiled in May 2012 in a service attended by 600 veterans and their families; the names of the fallen were also inscribed on the Armed Forces Memorial at the arboretum, which commemorates all British servicemen killed in action since the end of the Second World War. A memorial to the seamen of the Merchant Navy who died in the war stands at the Tower Hill Memorial in Trinity Square Gardens, London. A memorial to the Royal Marines, known as \"The Yomper\" was unveiled by Margaret Thatcher in 1992 outside the former Eastney Barracks near Portsmouth. The Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel at Pangbourne College was opened in March 2000 as a commemoration of the lives and sacrifice of all those who served and died in the South Atlantic in 1982.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 134,
"text": "In Argentina, there is a memorial at Plaza San Martín in Buenos Aires, another one in Rosario, and a third one in Ushuaia.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 135,
"text": "In 2011 there were 113 uncleared minefields plus unexploded ordnance (UXOs) covering an area of 13 km (3,200 acres) on the Falkland Islands. Of this area, 5.5 km (1,400 acres) on the Murrell Peninsula were classified as being \"suspected minefields\"—the area had been heavily pastured for 25 years without incident. It was estimated that these minefields had 20,000 anti-personnel mines and 5,000 anti-tank mines.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 136,
"text": "The UK reported six military personnel injured by mines or UXO in 1982, then two more in 1983. Most military accidents took place in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, while clearing minefields or trying to establish the extent of minefield perimeters, particularly where no detailed records existed. No civilian mine casualties have ever occurred on the islands, and no human casualties from mines or UXO have been reported since 1984.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 137,
"text": "On 9 May 2008, the Falkland Islands Government asserted that the minefields, which represent 0.1% of the available farmland on the islands \"present no long term social or economic difficulties for the Falklands\", and that the impact of clearing the mines would cause more problems than containing them. However, the British Government, in accordance with its commitments under the Mine Ban Treaty had a commitment to clear the mines by the end of 2019.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 138,
"text": "In May 2012, it was announced that 3.7 km (1.4 sq mi) of Stanley Common (which lies between the Stanley – Mount Pleasant road and the shoreline) was made safe and had been opened to the public, opening up a 3 km (1.9 mi) stretch of coastline and a further two kilometres of shoreline along Mullet Creek.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 139,
"text": "In November 2020, it was declared that the Falkland Islands were now free of all landmines. A celebration of the event took place on the weekend of 14 November where the final landmine was detonated.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 140,
"text": "Selected war correspondents were regularly flown to Port Stanley in military aircraft to report on the war. Back in Buenos Aires, newspapers and magazines reported on \"the heroic actions of the largely conscript army and its successes\".",
"title": "Press and publicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 141,
"text": "Officers from the intelligence services were attached to the newspapers and 'leaked' information corroborating the official communiqués from the government. The glossy magazines Gente and Siete Días swelled to 60 pages with colour photographs of British warships in flames—many of them faked—and bogus eyewitness reports of the Argentine commandos' guerrilla war on South Georgia (6 May) and an already dead Pucará pilot's attack on HMS Hermes (Lt. Daniel Antonio Jukic had been killed at Goose Green during a British air strike on 1 May). Most of the faked photos actually came from the tabloid press. One of the best remembered headlines was \"Estamos ganando\" (\"We're winning\") from the magazine Gente, that would later use variations of it.",
"title": "Press and publicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 142,
"text": "The Argentine troops on the Falkland Islands could read Gaceta Argentina—a newspaper intended to boost morale among the servicemen. Some of its untruths could easily be unveiled by the soldiers who recovered corpses.",
"title": "Press and publicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 143,
"text": "The Malvinas cause united the Argentines in a patriotic atmosphere that protected the junta from critics, and even opponents of the military government supported Galtieri; Ernesto Sabato said:",
"title": "Press and publicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 144,
"text": "In Argentina, it is not a military dictatorship that is fighting. It is the whole people, her women, her children, her old people, regardless of their political persuasion. Opponents to the regime like myself are fighting for our dignity, fighting to extricate the last vestiges of colonialism. Don't be mistaken, Europe, it is not a dictatorship that is fighting for the Malvinas; it is the whole nation.",
"title": "Press and publicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 145,
"text": "In the Argentine press, false reports that HMS Hermes was sunk and HMS Invincible had been damaged were circulated after the weekly magazines Gente and La Semana had received information of naval action from an air force officer in the president's office. On 30 April 1982 the Argentine magazine Tal Cual showed Prime Minister Thatcher with an eyepatch and the text: Pirate, witch and assassin. Guilty! Three British reporters sent to Argentina to cover the war from the Argentine perspective were jailed until the end of the war. The Madres de Plaza de Mayo were even exposed to death threats from ordinary people.",
"title": "Press and publicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 146,
"text": "Seventeen newspaper reporters, two photographers, two radio reporters and three television reporters with five technicians sailed with the Task Force to the war. The Newspaper Publishers' Association selected them from among 160 applicants, excluding foreign media. The hasty selection resulted in the inclusion of two journalists among the war reporters who were interested only in Queen Elizabeth II's son Prince Andrew, who was serving in the conflict. The prince flew a helicopter on multiple missions, including Exocet missile decoy and casualty evacuation.",
"title": "Press and publicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 147,
"text": "Merchant vessels had the civilian Inmarsat uplink, which enabled written telex and voice report transmissions via satellite. SS Canberra had a facsimile machine that was used to upload 202 pictures from the South Atlantic over the course of the war. The Royal Navy leased bandwidth on the U.S. Defense Satellite Communications System for worldwide communications. Television demands a thousand times the data rate of telephone, but the Ministry of Defence was unsuccessful in convincing the U.S. to allocate more bandwidth.",
"title": "Press and publicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 148,
"text": "TV producers suspected that the enquiry was half-hearted, since the Vietnam War television pictures of casualties and traumatised soldiers were recognised as having negative propaganda value. However, the technology only allowed uploading a single frame per 20 minutes—and only if the military satellites were allocated 100% to television transmissions. Videotapes were shipped to Ascension Island, where a broadband satellite uplink was available, resulting in TV coverage being delayed by three weeks.",
"title": "Press and publicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 149,
"text": "The press was very dependent on the Royal Navy and was censored on site. Many reporters in the UK knew more about the war than those with the Task Force. Ministry of Defence press briefings in London were characterised by the restrained dictation-speed delivery of its spokesman, Ian McDonald.",
"title": "Press and publicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 150,
"text": "The Royal Navy expected Fleet Street to conduct a Second World War-style positive news campaign but the majority of the British media, especially the BBC, reported the war in a neutral fashion. These reporters referred to \"the British troops\" and \"the Argentinian troops\" instead of \"our lads\" and the \"Argies\". The two main tabloid papers presented opposing viewpoints: The Daily Mirror was decidedly anti-war, whilst The Sun became well known for headlines such as \"Stick It Up Your Junta!\", which, along with the reporting in other tabloids, led to accusations of xenophobia and jingoism. The Sun was criticised for its \"Gotcha\" headline following the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano.",
"title": "Press and publicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 151,
"text": "The British Ministry of Defence operated a psychological warfare operation under the codename \"Moonshine\", which took the form of a spurious radio station purporting to be from a neutral South American country, but was actually in London, broadcasting to the Falklands and Argentina via a transmitter on Ascension which had been requisitioned from the BBC. Under the name of Radio Atlántico del Sur (\"Radio South Atlantic\" - Spanish Wikipedia article), the station was operated by a small team of civilians and Spanish-speaking military officers. The first three-hour broadcast was on 19 May and a total of 47 had been made by 15 June when the operation was cancelled. There is some evidence that the Argentines attempted to jam the broadcasts and that some civilian radio receivers were confiscated from soldiers, but the results overall were difficult to assess.",
"title": "Press and publicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 152,
"text": "There were wide-ranging influences on popular culture in both the UK and Argentina, from the immediate postwar period to the present. The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges described the war as \"a fight between two bald men over a comb.\" The words yomp and Exocet entered the British vernacular as a result of the war. The Falklands War also provided material for theatre, film and TV drama and influenced the output of musicians. In Argentina, the military government banned the broadcasting of music in the English language, giving way to the rise of local rock musicians, like the famous \"Trova Rosarina\" movement as well as solo musicians such as Charly García, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Fito Paez and Gustavo Santaolalla.",
"title": "Cultural impact"
}
] |
The Falklands War was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial dependency, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The conflict began on 2 April 1982, when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands, followed by the invasion of South Georgia the next day. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with an Argentine surrender on 14 June, returning the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders were killed during the hostilities. The conflict was a major episode in the protracted dispute over the territories' sovereignty. Argentina asserted that the islands are Argentine territory, and the Argentine government thus characterised its military action as the reclamation of its own territory. The British government regarded the action as an invasion of a territory that had been a Crown colony since 1841. Falkland Islanders, who have inhabited the islands since the early 19th century, are predominantly descendants of British settlers, and strongly favour British sovereignty. Neither state officially declared war, although both governments declared the islands a war zone. The conflict had a strong effect in both countries and has been the subject of various books, articles, films, and songs. Patriotic sentiment ran high in Argentina, but the unfavourable outcome prompted large protests against the ruling military government, hastening its downfall and the democratisation of the country. In the United Kingdom, the Conservative government, bolstered by the successful outcome, was re-elected with an increased majority the following year. The cultural and political effect of the conflict has been less in the UK than in Argentina, where it has remained a common topic for discussion. Diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Argentina were restored in 1989 following a meeting in Madrid, at which the two governments issued a joint statement. No change in either country's position regarding the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands was made explicit. In 1994, Argentina adopted a new constitution, which declared the Falkland Islands as part of one of its provinces by law. However, the islands continue to operate as a self-governing British Overseas Territory.
|
2001-11-19T11:35:15Z
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2023-12-12T13:17:31Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War
|
11,524 |
Fahrenheit
|
The Fahrenheit scale (/ˈfærənˌhaɪt, ˈfɑːr-/) is a temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the European physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736). It uses the degree Fahrenheit (symbol: °F) as the unit. Several accounts of how he originally defined his scale exist, but the original paper suggests the lower defining point, 0 °F, was established as the freezing temperature of a solution of brine made from a mixture of water, ice, and ammonium chloride (a salt). The other limit established was his best estimate of the average human body temperature, originally set at 90 °F, then 96 °F (about 2.6 °F less than the modern value due to a later redefinition of the scale).
For much of the 20th century, the Fahrenheit scale was defined by two fixed points with a 180 °F separation: the temperature at which pure water freezes was defined as 32 °F and the boiling point of water was defined to be 212 °F, both at sea level and under standard atmospheric pressure. It is now formally defined using the Kelvin scale and hence ultimately by the Boltzmann constant, the Planck constant, and the second (defined as a specific number of cycles of the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the caesium-133 atom.)
It continues to be officially used in the United States (including its unincorporated territories), its freely associated states in the Western Pacific (Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands), the Cayman Islands, and the former American colony of Liberia.
Fahrenheit is commonly still used alongside the Celsius scale in other countries that use the U.S. metrological service, such as Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, the Bahamas, and Belize. A handful of British Overseas Territories, including the Virgin Islands, Montserrat, Anguilla, and Bermuda, also still use both scales. All other countries now use Celsius ("centigrade" until 1948), which was invented 18 years after the Fahrenheit scale.
Though the United Kingdom changed from Fahrenheit to Celsius in metrology, Fahrenheit is sometimes still used in newspaper headlines to sensationalise heatwaves.
Historically, on the Fahrenheit scale the freezing point of water was 32 °F, and the boiling point was 212 °F (at standard atmospheric pressure). This put the boiling and freezing points of water 180 degrees apart. Therefore, a degree on the Fahrenheit scale was 1⁄180 of the interval between the freezing point and the boiling point. On the Celsius scale, the freezing and boiling points of water were originally defined to be 100 degrees apart. A temperature interval of 1 °F was equal to an interval of 5⁄9 degrees Celsius. With the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales now both defined by the kelvin, this relationship was preserved, a temperature interval of 1 °F being equal to an interval of 5⁄9 K and of 5⁄9 °C. The Fahrenheit and Celsius scales intersect numerically at −40 in the respective unit (i.e, −40 °F ≘ −40 °C).
Absolute zero is 0 K, −273.15 °C, or −459.67 °F. The Rankine temperature scale uses degree intervals of the same size as those of the Fahrenheit scale, except that absolute zero is 0 °R – the same way that the Kelvin temperature scale matches the Celsius scale, except that absolute zero is 0 K.
The combination of degree symbol (°) followed by an uppercase letter F is the conventional symbol for the Fahrenheit temperature scale. A number followed by this symbol (and separated from it with a space) denotes a specific temperature point (e.g., "Gallium melts at 85.5763 °F"). A difference between temperatures or an uncertainty in temperature is also conventionally written the same way as well, e.g., "The output of the heat exchanger experiences an increase of 72 °F" or "Our standard uncertainty is ±5 °F". However, some authors instead use the notation "An increase of 50 F°" (reversing the symbol order) to indicate temperature differences. Similar conventions exist for the Celsius scale, see Celsius § Temperatures and intervals.
For an exact conversion between degrees Fahrenheit and Celsius, and kelvins of a specific temperature point, the following formulas can be applied. Here, f is the value in degrees Fahrenheit, c the value in degrees Celsius, and k the value in kelvins:
There is also an exact conversion between Celsius and Fahrenheit scales making use of the correspondence −40 °F ≘ −40 °C. Again, f is the numeric value in degrees Fahrenheit, and c the numeric value in degrees Celsius:
When converting a temperature interval between the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales, only the ratio is used, without any constant (in this case, the interval has the same numeric value in kelvins as in degrees Celsius):
Fahrenheit proposed his temperature scale in 1724, basing it on two reference points of temperature. In his initial scale (which is not the final Fahrenheit scale), the zero point was determined by placing the thermometer in "a mixture of ice, water, and salis Armoniaci [transl. ammonium chloride] or even sea salt". This combination forms a eutectic system, which stabilizes its temperature automatically: 0 °F was defined to be that stable temperature. A second point, 96 degrees, was approximately the human body's temperature. A third point, 32 degrees, was marked as being the temperature of ice and water "without the aforementioned salts".
According to a German story, Fahrenheit actually chose the lowest air temperature measured in his hometown Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland) in winter 1708–09 as 0 °F, and only later had the need to be able to make this value reproducible using brine.
According to a letter Fahrenheit wrote to his friend Herman Boerhaave, his scale was built on the work of Ole Rømer, whom he had met earlier. In Rømer scale, brine freezes at zero, water freezes and melts at 7.5 degrees, body temperature is 22.5, and water boils at 60 degrees. Fahrenheit multiplied each value by 4 in order to eliminate fractions and make the scale more fine-grained. He then re-calibrated his scale using the melting point of ice and normal human body temperature (which were at 30 and 90 degrees); he adjusted the scale so that the melting point of ice would be 32 degrees, and body temperature 96 degrees, so that 64 intervals would separate the two, allowing him to mark degree lines on his instruments by simply bisecting the interval 6 times (since 64 = 2).
Fahrenheit soon after observed that water boils at about 212 degrees using this scale. The use of the freezing and boiling points of water as thermometer fixed reference points became popular following the work of Anders Celsius, and these fixed points were adopted by a committee of the Royal Society led by Henry Cavendish in 1776–77. Under this system, the Fahrenheit scale is redefined slightly so that the freezing point of water was exactly 32 °F, and the boiling point was exactly 212 °F, or 180 degrees higher. It is for this reason that normal human body temperature is approximately 98.6 °F (oral temperature) on the revised scale (whereas it was 90° on Fahrenheit's multiplication of Rømer, and 96° on his original scale).
In the present-day Fahrenheit scale, 0 °F no longer corresponds to the eutectic temperature of ammonium chloride brine as described above. Instead, that eutectic is at approximately 4 °F on the final Fahrenheit scale.
The Rankine temperature scale was based upon the Fahrenheit temperature scale, with its zero representing absolute zero instead.
The Fahrenheit scale was the primary temperature standard for climatic, industrial and medical purposes in Anglophone countries until the 1960s. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the Celsius scale replaced Fahrenheit in almost all of those countries—with the notable exception of the United States and in certain cases, the United Kingdom—typically during their general metrication process.
Fahrenheit is used in the United States, its territories and associated states (all served by the U.S. National Weather Service), as well as the (British) Cayman Islands and Liberia for everyday applications. For example, U.S. weather forecasts, food cooking, and freezing temperatures are typically given in degrees Fahrenheit. Scientists, including meteorologists, use degrees Celsius or kelvin in all countries.
Early in the 20th century, Halsey and Dale suggested that reasons for resistance to use the centigrade (now Celsius) system in the U.S. included the larger size of each degree Celsius and the lower zero point in the Fahrenheit system; put another way, the Fahrenheit scale is more intuitive than Celsius for describing outdoor temperatures in temperate latitudes, with 100 °F being a hot summer day and 0 °F a cold winter day.
Canada has passed legislation favoring the International System of Units, while also maintaining legal definitions for traditional Canadian imperial units. Canadian weather reports are conveyed using degrees Celsius with occasional reference to Fahrenheit especially for cross-border broadcasts. Fahrenheit is still used on virtually all Canadian ovens. Thermometers, both digital and analog, sold in Canada usually employ both the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales.
In the European Union, it is mandatory to use kelvins or degrees Celsius when quoting temperature for "economic, public health, public safety and administrative" purposes, though degrees Fahrenheit may be used alongside degrees Celsius as a supplementary unit. For example, the laundry symbols used in the United Kingdom follow the recommendations of ISO 3758:2005 showing the temperature of the washing machine water in degrees Celsius only. The equivalent label in North America uses one to six dots to denote temperature with an optional temperature in degrees Celsius.
Although Fahrenheit was the most popular scale in the United Kingdom, for many years Celsius has been the primary scale used, and it has been taught in schools since the 1970s. Within unregulated sectors, such as journalism, the use of Fahrenheit in the United Kingdom follows no fixed pattern, with degrees Fahrenheit sometimes appearing alongside degrees Celsius. The Daily Telegraph does not mention Fahrenheit on its daily weather page, while The Times also has an all-metric daily weather page but has a Celsius-to-Fahrenheit conversion table. When publishing news stories, some UK tabloids have adopted a tendency of using degrees Celsius in headlines and discussion relating to low temperatures and Fahrenheit for mid to high temperatures. In February 2006, the writer of an article in The Times suggested that the rationale was one of emphasis: "−6 °C" sounds colder than "21 °F", and "94 °F" sounds more impressive than "34 °C".
Unicode provides the Fahrenheit symbol at code point U+2109 ℉ DEGREE FAHRENHEIT. However, this is a compatibility character encoded for roundtrip compatibility with legacy encodings. The Unicode standard explicitly discourages the use of this character: "The sequence U+00B0 ° DEGREE SIGN + U+0046 F LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F is preferred over U+2109 ℉ DEGREE FAHRENHEIT, and those two sequences should be treated as identical for searching."
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Fahrenheit scale (/ˈfærənˌhaɪt, ˈfɑːr-/) is a temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the European physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736). It uses the degree Fahrenheit (symbol: °F) as the unit. Several accounts of how he originally defined his scale exist, but the original paper suggests the lower defining point, 0 °F, was established as the freezing temperature of a solution of brine made from a mixture of water, ice, and ammonium chloride (a salt). The other limit established was his best estimate of the average human body temperature, originally set at 90 °F, then 96 °F (about 2.6 °F less than the modern value due to a later redefinition of the scale).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "For much of the 20th century, the Fahrenheit scale was defined by two fixed points with a 180 °F separation: the temperature at which pure water freezes was defined as 32 °F and the boiling point of water was defined to be 212 °F, both at sea level and under standard atmospheric pressure. It is now formally defined using the Kelvin scale and hence ultimately by the Boltzmann constant, the Planck constant, and the second (defined as a specific number of cycles of the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the caesium-133 atom.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "It continues to be officially used in the United States (including its unincorporated territories), its freely associated states in the Western Pacific (Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands), the Cayman Islands, and the former American colony of Liberia.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Fahrenheit is commonly still used alongside the Celsius scale in other countries that use the U.S. metrological service, such as Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, the Bahamas, and Belize. A handful of British Overseas Territories, including the Virgin Islands, Montserrat, Anguilla, and Bermuda, also still use both scales. All other countries now use Celsius (\"centigrade\" until 1948), which was invented 18 years after the Fahrenheit scale.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Though the United Kingdom changed from Fahrenheit to Celsius in metrology, Fahrenheit is sometimes still used in newspaper headlines to sensationalise heatwaves.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Historically, on the Fahrenheit scale the freezing point of water was 32 °F, and the boiling point was 212 °F (at standard atmospheric pressure). This put the boiling and freezing points of water 180 degrees apart. Therefore, a degree on the Fahrenheit scale was 1⁄180 of the interval between the freezing point and the boiling point. On the Celsius scale, the freezing and boiling points of water were originally defined to be 100 degrees apart. A temperature interval of 1 °F was equal to an interval of 5⁄9 degrees Celsius. With the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales now both defined by the kelvin, this relationship was preserved, a temperature interval of 1 °F being equal to an interval of 5⁄9 K and of 5⁄9 °C. The Fahrenheit and Celsius scales intersect numerically at −40 in the respective unit (i.e, −40 °F ≘ −40 °C).",
"title": "Definition and conversion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Absolute zero is 0 K, −273.15 °C, or −459.67 °F. The Rankine temperature scale uses degree intervals of the same size as those of the Fahrenheit scale, except that absolute zero is 0 °R – the same way that the Kelvin temperature scale matches the Celsius scale, except that absolute zero is 0 K.",
"title": "Definition and conversion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The combination of degree symbol (°) followed by an uppercase letter F is the conventional symbol for the Fahrenheit temperature scale. A number followed by this symbol (and separated from it with a space) denotes a specific temperature point (e.g., \"Gallium melts at 85.5763 °F\"). A difference between temperatures or an uncertainty in temperature is also conventionally written the same way as well, e.g., \"The output of the heat exchanger experiences an increase of 72 °F\" or \"Our standard uncertainty is ±5 °F\". However, some authors instead use the notation \"An increase of 50 F°\" (reversing the symbol order) to indicate temperature differences. Similar conventions exist for the Celsius scale, see Celsius § Temperatures and intervals.",
"title": "Definition and conversion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "For an exact conversion between degrees Fahrenheit and Celsius, and kelvins of a specific temperature point, the following formulas can be applied. Here, f is the value in degrees Fahrenheit, c the value in degrees Celsius, and k the value in kelvins:",
"title": "Definition and conversion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "There is also an exact conversion between Celsius and Fahrenheit scales making use of the correspondence −40 °F ≘ −40 °C. Again, f is the numeric value in degrees Fahrenheit, and c the numeric value in degrees Celsius:",
"title": "Definition and conversion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "When converting a temperature interval between the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales, only the ratio is used, without any constant (in this case, the interval has the same numeric value in kelvins as in degrees Celsius):",
"title": "Definition and conversion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Fahrenheit proposed his temperature scale in 1724, basing it on two reference points of temperature. In his initial scale (which is not the final Fahrenheit scale), the zero point was determined by placing the thermometer in \"a mixture of ice, water, and salis Armoniaci [transl. ammonium chloride] or even sea salt\". This combination forms a eutectic system, which stabilizes its temperature automatically: 0 °F was defined to be that stable temperature. A second point, 96 degrees, was approximately the human body's temperature. A third point, 32 degrees, was marked as being the temperature of ice and water \"without the aforementioned salts\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "According to a German story, Fahrenheit actually chose the lowest air temperature measured in his hometown Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland) in winter 1708–09 as 0 °F, and only later had the need to be able to make this value reproducible using brine.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "According to a letter Fahrenheit wrote to his friend Herman Boerhaave, his scale was built on the work of Ole Rømer, whom he had met earlier. In Rømer scale, brine freezes at zero, water freezes and melts at 7.5 degrees, body temperature is 22.5, and water boils at 60 degrees. Fahrenheit multiplied each value by 4 in order to eliminate fractions and make the scale more fine-grained. He then re-calibrated his scale using the melting point of ice and normal human body temperature (which were at 30 and 90 degrees); he adjusted the scale so that the melting point of ice would be 32 degrees, and body temperature 96 degrees, so that 64 intervals would separate the two, allowing him to mark degree lines on his instruments by simply bisecting the interval 6 times (since 64 = 2).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Fahrenheit soon after observed that water boils at about 212 degrees using this scale. The use of the freezing and boiling points of water as thermometer fixed reference points became popular following the work of Anders Celsius, and these fixed points were adopted by a committee of the Royal Society led by Henry Cavendish in 1776–77. Under this system, the Fahrenheit scale is redefined slightly so that the freezing point of water was exactly 32 °F, and the boiling point was exactly 212 °F, or 180 degrees higher. It is for this reason that normal human body temperature is approximately 98.6 °F (oral temperature) on the revised scale (whereas it was 90° on Fahrenheit's multiplication of Rømer, and 96° on his original scale).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In the present-day Fahrenheit scale, 0 °F no longer corresponds to the eutectic temperature of ammonium chloride brine as described above. Instead, that eutectic is at approximately 4 °F on the final Fahrenheit scale.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The Rankine temperature scale was based upon the Fahrenheit temperature scale, with its zero representing absolute zero instead.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Fahrenheit scale was the primary temperature standard for climatic, industrial and medical purposes in Anglophone countries until the 1960s. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the Celsius scale replaced Fahrenheit in almost all of those countries—with the notable exception of the United States and in certain cases, the United Kingdom—typically during their general metrication process.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Fahrenheit is used in the United States, its territories and associated states (all served by the U.S. National Weather Service), as well as the (British) Cayman Islands and Liberia for everyday applications. For example, U.S. weather forecasts, food cooking, and freezing temperatures are typically given in degrees Fahrenheit. Scientists, including meteorologists, use degrees Celsius or kelvin in all countries.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Early in the 20th century, Halsey and Dale suggested that reasons for resistance to use the centigrade (now Celsius) system in the U.S. included the larger size of each degree Celsius and the lower zero point in the Fahrenheit system; put another way, the Fahrenheit scale is more intuitive than Celsius for describing outdoor temperatures in temperate latitudes, with 100 °F being a hot summer day and 0 °F a cold winter day.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Canada has passed legislation favoring the International System of Units, while also maintaining legal definitions for traditional Canadian imperial units. Canadian weather reports are conveyed using degrees Celsius with occasional reference to Fahrenheit especially for cross-border broadcasts. Fahrenheit is still used on virtually all Canadian ovens. Thermometers, both digital and analog, sold in Canada usually employ both the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In the European Union, it is mandatory to use kelvins or degrees Celsius when quoting temperature for \"economic, public health, public safety and administrative\" purposes, though degrees Fahrenheit may be used alongside degrees Celsius as a supplementary unit. For example, the laundry symbols used in the United Kingdom follow the recommendations of ISO 3758:2005 showing the temperature of the washing machine water in degrees Celsius only. The equivalent label in North America uses one to six dots to denote temperature with an optional temperature in degrees Celsius.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Although Fahrenheit was the most popular scale in the United Kingdom, for many years Celsius has been the primary scale used, and it has been taught in schools since the 1970s. Within unregulated sectors, such as journalism, the use of Fahrenheit in the United Kingdom follows no fixed pattern, with degrees Fahrenheit sometimes appearing alongside degrees Celsius. The Daily Telegraph does not mention Fahrenheit on its daily weather page, while The Times also has an all-metric daily weather page but has a Celsius-to-Fahrenheit conversion table. When publishing news stories, some UK tabloids have adopted a tendency of using degrees Celsius in headlines and discussion relating to low temperatures and Fahrenheit for mid to high temperatures. In February 2006, the writer of an article in The Times suggested that the rationale was one of emphasis: \"−6 °C\" sounds colder than \"21 °F\", and \"94 °F\" sounds more impressive than \"34 °C\".",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Unicode provides the Fahrenheit symbol at code point U+2109 ℉ DEGREE FAHRENHEIT. However, this is a compatibility character encoded for roundtrip compatibility with legacy encodings. The Unicode standard explicitly discourages the use of this character: \"The sequence U+00B0 ° DEGREE SIGN + U+0046 F LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F is preferred over U+2109 ℉ DEGREE FAHRENHEIT, and those two sequences should be treated as identical for searching.\"",
"title": "Unicode representation of symbol"
}
] |
The Fahrenheit scale is a temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the European physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736). It uses the degree Fahrenheit as the unit. Several accounts of how he originally defined his scale exist, but the original paper suggests the lower defining point, 0 °F, was established as the freezing temperature of a solution of brine made from a mixture of water, ice, and ammonium chloride. The other limit established was his best estimate of the average human body temperature, originally set at 90 °F, then 96 °F. For much of the 20th century, the Fahrenheit scale was defined by two fixed points with a 180 °F separation: the temperature at which pure water freezes was defined as 32 °F and the boiling point of water was defined to be 212 °F, both at sea level and under standard atmospheric pressure. It is now formally defined using the Kelvin scale and hence ultimately by the Boltzmann constant, the Planck constant, and the second It continues to be officially used in the United States, its freely associated states in the Western Pacific, the Cayman Islands, and the former American colony of Liberia. Fahrenheit is commonly still used alongside the Celsius scale in other countries that use the U.S. metrological service, such as Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, the Bahamas, and Belize. A handful of British Overseas Territories, including the Virgin Islands, Montserrat, Anguilla, and Bermuda, also still use both scales. All other countries now use Celsius, which was invented 18 years after the Fahrenheit scale. Though the United Kingdom changed from Fahrenheit to Celsius in metrology, Fahrenheit is sometimes still used in newspaper headlines to sensationalise heatwaves.
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2001-11-18T22:52:35Z
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2023-12-31T15:35:31Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit
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Florence
|
Florence (/ˈflɒrəns/ FLORR-ənss; Italian: Firenze [fiˈrɛntse] ) is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 360,930 inhabitants in 2023, and 984,991 in its metropolitan area.
Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. The Florentine dialect forms the base of standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini.
The city attracts millions of tourists each year, and UNESCO declared the Historic Centre of Florence a World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture and monuments. The city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, Forbes ranked it as one of the most beautiful cities in the world in 2010.
Florence plays an important role in Italian fashion, and is ranked in the top 15 fashion capitals of the world by Global Language Monitor; furthermore, it is a major national economic centre, as well as a tourist and industrial hub.
There are several theories as to the origin of the Latin name Florentia from which the name of Florence and Firenze derived:
Roman Republic, 59–27 BC Roman Empire, 27 BC–AD 285 Western Roman Empire, 285–476 Kingdom of Odoacer, 476–493 Ostrogothic Kingdom, 493–553 Eastern Roman Empire, 553–568 Lombard Kingdom, 570–773 Carolingian Empire, 774–797 Regnum Italiae, 797–1001 March of Tuscany, 1002–1115 Republic of Florence, 1115–1532 Duchy of Florence, 1532–1569 Grand Duchy of Tuscany, 1569–1801 Kingdom of Etruria, 1801–1807 First French Empire, 1807–1815 Grand Duchy of Tuscany, 1815–1859 United Provinces of Central Italy, 1859–1860 Kingdom of Italy, 1861–1943 Italian Social Republic, 1943–1945 Italy, 1946–present
Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a long period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune, it was the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. It was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe and the world from the 14th to 16th centuries.
The language spoken in the city during the 14th century came to be accepted as the model for what would become the Italian language. Thanks especially to the works of the Tuscans Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, the Florentine dialect, above all the local dialects, was adopted as the basis for a national literary language.
Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of industry all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon and Hungary. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years' War. They similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome.
Florence was home to the Medici, one of European history's most important noble families. Lorenzo de' Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century: Leo X and Clement VII. Catherine de Medici married King Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de' Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future King Louis XIII. The Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de' Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici in 1737.
The Kingdom of Italy, which was established in 1861, moved its capital from Turin to Florence in 1865, although the capital was moved to Rome in 1871.
Florence was established by the Romans in 59 BC as a colony for veteran soldiers and was built in the style of an army camp. Situated along the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre and in AD 285 became the capital of the Tuscia region.
In centuries to come, the city experienced turbulent alternate periods of Ostrogoth and Byzantine rule, during which the city was fought over, helping to cause the population to fall to as low as 1,000 people. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century and Florence was in turn conquered by Charlemagne in 774 becoming part of the March of Tuscany centred on Lucca. The population began to grow again and commerce prospered.
Margrave Hugo chose Florence as his residency instead of Lucca around 1000 AD. The Golden Age of Florentine art began around this time. In 1100, Florence was a "commune", meaning a city-state. The city's primary resource was the Arno river, providing power and access for the industry (mainly textile industry), and access to the Mediterranean sea for international trade, helping the growth of an industrious merchant community. The Florentine merchant banking skills became recognised in Europe after they brought decisive financial innovation (e.g. bills of exchange, double-entry bookkeeping system) to medieval fairs. This period also saw the eclipse of Florence's formerly powerful rival Pisa. The growing power of the merchant elite culminated in an anti-aristocratic uprising, led by Giano della Bella, resulting in the Ordinances of Justice which entrenched the power of the elite guilds until the end of the Republic.
At the height of demographic expansion around 1325, the urban population may have been as great as 120,000, and the rural population around the city was probably close to 300,000. The Black Death of 1348 reduced it by over half, about 25,000 are said to have been supported by the city's wool industry: in 1345 Florence was the scene of an attempted strike by wool combers (ciompi), who in 1378 rose up in a brief revolt against oligarchic rule in the Revolt of the Ciompi. After their suppression, Florence came under the sway (1382–1434) of the Albizzi family, who became bitter rivals of the Medici.
In the 15th century, Florence was among the largest cities in Europe, with a population of 60,000, and was considered rich and economically successful. Cosimo de' Medici was the first Medici family member to essentially control the city from behind the scenes. Although the city was technically a democracy of sorts, his power came from a vast patronage network along with his alliance to the new immigrants, the gente nuova (new people). The fact that the Medici were bankers to the pope also contributed to their ascendancy. Cosimo was succeeded by his son Piero, who was, soon after, succeeded by Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo in 1469. Lorenzo was a great patron of the arts, commissioning works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. Lorenzo was an accomplished poet and musician and brought composers and singers to Florence, including Alexander Agricola, Johannes Ghiselin, and Heinrich Isaac. By contemporary Florentines (and since), he was known as "Lorenzo the Magnificent" (Lorenzo il Magnifico).
Following Lorenzo de' Medici's death in 1492, he was succeeded by his son Piero II. When the French king Charles VIII invaded northern Italy, Piero II chose to resist his army. But when he realised the size of the French army at the gates of Pisa, he had to accept the humiliating conditions of the French king. These made the Florentines rebel, and they expelled Piero II. With his exile in 1494, the first period of Medici rule ended with the restoration of a republican government.
During this period, the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola had become prior of the San Marco monastery in 1490. He was famed for his penitential sermons, lambasting what he viewed as widespread immorality and attachment to material riches. He praised the exile of the Medici as the work of God, punishing them for their decadence. He seized the opportunity to carry through political reforms leading to a more democratic rule. But when Savonarola publicly accused Pope Alexander VI of corruption, he was banned from speaking in public. When he broke this ban, he was excommunicated. The Florentines, tired of his teachings, turned against him and arrested him. He was convicted as a heretic, hanged and burned at the stake on the Piazza della Signoria on 23 May 1498. His ashes were dispersed in the Arno river.
Another Florentine of this period was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimization of political expediency and even malpractice. Machiavelli was a political thinker, renowned for his political handbook The Prince, which is about ruling and exercising power. Commissioned by the Medici, Machiavelli also wrote the Florentine Histories, the history of the city.
In 1512, the Medici retook control of Florence with the help of Spanish and Papal troops. They were led by two cousins, Giovanni and Giulio de' Medici, both of whom would later become Popes of the Catholic Church, (Leo X and Clement VII, respectively). Both were generous patrons of the arts, commissioning works like Michelangelo's Laurentian Library and Medici Chapel in Florence, to name just two. Their reigns coincided with political upheaval in Italy, and thus in 1527, Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and re-established a theocratic republic on 16 May 1527, (Jesus Christ was named King of Florence). The Medici returned to power in Florence in 1530, with the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the blessings of Pope Clement VII (Giulio de' Medici).
Florence officially became a monarchy in 1531, when Emperor Charles and Pope Clement named Alessandro de Medici as Duke of the Florentine Republic. The Medici's monarchy would last over two centuries. Alessandro's successor, Cosimo I de Medici, was named Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1569; in all Tuscany, only the Republic of Lucca (later a Duchy) and the Principality of Piombino were independent from Florence. Italian opera was first written in Florence in 1597 with the premiere of Jacopo Peri's Dafne.
The extinction of the Medici dynasty and the accession in 1737 of Francis Stephen, duke of Lorraine and husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, led to Tuscany's temporary inclusion in the territories of the Austrian crown. It became a secundogeniture of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, who were deposed for the House of Bourbon-Parma in 1801. From 1801 to 1807 Florence was the capital of the Napoleonic client state Kingdom of Etruria. The Bourbon-Parma were deposed in December 1807 when Tuscany was annexed by France. Florence was the prefecture of the French département of Arno from 1808 to the fall of Napoleon in 1814. The Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty was restored on the throne of Tuscany at the Congress of Vienna but finally deposed in 1859. Tuscany became a region of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.
Florence replaced Turin as Italy's capital in 1865 and, in an effort to modernise the city, the old market in the Piazza del Mercato Vecchio and many medieval houses were pulled down and replaced by a more formal street plan with newer houses. The Piazza (first renamed Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, then Piazza della Repubblica, the present name) was significantly widened and a large triumphal arch was constructed at the west end. This development was unpopular and was prevented from continuing by the efforts of several British and American people living in the city. A museum recording the destruction stands nearby today.
The country's second capital city was superseded by Rome six years later, after the withdrawal of the French troops allowed the capture of Rome.
During World War II the city experienced a year-long German occupation (1943–1944) being part of the Italian Social Republic. Hitler declared it an open city on 3 July 1944 as troops of the British 8th Army closed in. In early August, the retreating Germans decided to demolish all the bridges along the Arno linking the district of Oltrarno to the rest of the city, making it difficult for troops of the 8th Army to cross. At the last moment, Charles Steinhauslin, at the time consul of 26 countries in Florence, convinced the German general in Italy that the Ponte Vecchio was not to be destroyed due to its historical value. Instead, an equally historic area of streets directly to the south of the bridge, including part of the Corridoio Vasariano, was destroyed using mines. Since then the bridges have been restored to their original forms using as many of the remaining materials as possible, but the buildings surrounding the Ponte Vecchio have been rebuilt in a style combining the old with modern design. Shortly before leaving Florence, as they knew that they would soon have to retreat, the Germans executed many freedom fighters and political opponents publicly, in streets and squares including the Piazza Santo Spirito.
Florence was liberated by New Zealand, South African and British troops on 4 August 1944 alongside partisans from the Tuscan Committee of National Liberation (CTLN). The Allied soldiers who died driving the Germans from Tuscany are buried in cemeteries outside the city (Americans about nine kilometres or 5+1⁄2 miles south of the city, British and Commonwealth soldiers a few kilometres east of the centre on the right bank of the Arno).
At the end of World War II in May 1945, the US Army's Information and Educational Branch was ordered to establish an overseas university campus for demobilised American service men and women in Florence. The first American university for service personnel was established in June 1945 at the School of Aeronautics. Some 7,500 soldier-students were to pass through the university during its four one-month sessions (see G. I. American Universities).
In November 1966, the Arno flooded parts of the centre, damaging many art treasures. Around the city there are tiny placards on the walls noting where the flood waters reached at their highest point.
Florence lies in a basin formed by the hills of Careggi, Fiesole, Settignano, Arcetri, Poggio Imperiale and Bellosguardo (Florence). The Arno river, three other minor rivers (Mugnone, Ema and Greve) and some streams flow through it.
Florence has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), tending to Mediterranean (Csa). It has hot summers with moderate or light rainfall and cool, damp winters. As Florence lacks a prevailing wind, summer temperatures are higher than along the coast. Rainfall in summer is convectional, while relief rainfall dominates in the winter. Snow flurries occur almost every year, but often result in no accumulation. The highest officially recorded temperature was 42.6 °C (108.7 °F) on 26 July 1983 and the lowest was −23.2 °C (−9.8 °F) on 12 January 1985.
In 1200 the city was home to 50,000 people. By 1300 the population of the city proper was 120,000, with an additional 300,000 living in the Contado. Between 1500 and 1650 the population was around 70,000.
As of 31 October 2010, the population of the city proper is 370,702, while Eurostat estimates that 696,767 people live in the urban area of Florence. The Metropolitan Area of Florence, Prato and Pistoia, constituted in 2000 over an area of roughly 4,800 square kilometres (1,850 sq mi), is home to 1.5 million people. Within Florence proper, 46.8% of the population was male in 2007 and 53.2% were female. Minors (children aged 18 and less) totalled 14.10% of the population compared to pensioners, who numbered 25.95 percent. This compares with the Italian average of 18.06 percent (minors) and 19.94 percent (pensioners). The average age of Florence resident is 49 compared to the Italian average of 42. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the population of Florence grew by 3.22 percent, while Italy as a whole grew by 3.56 percent. The birth rate of Florence is 7.66 births per 1,000 inhabitants compared to the Italian average of 9.45 births.
As of 2009, 87.46% of the population was Italian. An estimated 6,000 Chinese live in the city. The largest immigrant group came from other European countries (mostly Romanians and Albanians): 3.52%, East Asia (mostly Chinese and Filipino): 2.17%, the Americas: 1.41%, and North Africa (mostly Moroccan): 0.9%.
Much like the rest of Italy most of the people in Florence are Roman Catholic, with more than 90% of the population belonging to the Archdiocese of Florence.
As of 2016, an estimated 30,000 people, or 8% of the population, identified as Muslim.
Tourism is, by far, the most important of all industries and most of the Florentine economy relies on the money generated by international arrivals and students studying in the city. The value tourism to the city totalled some €2.5 billion in 2015 and the number of visitors had increased by 5.5% from the previous year.
In 2013, Florence was listed as the second best world city by Condé Nast Traveler.
Manufacturing and commerce remain highly important. Florence is Italy's 17th richest city in terms of average workers' earnings, with the figure being €23,265 (the overall city's income is €6,531,204,473), coming after Mantua, yet surpassing Bolzano.
Florence is a major production and commercial centre in Italy, where the Florentine industrial complexes in the suburbs produce all sorts of goods, from furniture, rubber goods, chemicals, and food. Traditional and local products, such as antiques, handicrafts, glassware, leatherwork, art reproductions, jewellery, souvenirs, elaborate metal and iron-work, shoes, accessories and high fashion clothes also occupy a fair sector of Florence's economy. The city's income relies partially on services and commercial and cultural interests, such as annual fairs, theatrical and lyrical productions, art exhibitions, festivals and fashion shows, such as the Calcio Fiorentino. Heavy industry and machinery also take their part in providing an income. In Nuovo Pignone, numerous factories are still present, and small-to medium industrial businesses are dominant. The Florence-Prato-Pistoia industrial districts and areas were known as the 'Third Italy' in the 1990s, due to the exports of high-quality goods and automobile (especially the Vespa) and the prosperity and productivity of the Florentine entrepreneurs. Some of these industries even rivalled the traditional industrial districts in Emilia-Romagna and Veneto due to high profits and productivity.
In the fourth quarter of 2015, manufacturing increased by 2.4% and exports increased by 7.2%. Leading sectors included mechanical engineering, fashion, pharmaceutics, food and wine. During 2015, permanent employment contracts increased by 48.8 percent, boosted by nationwide tax break.
Tourism is the most significant industry in central Florence. From April to October, tourists outnumber local population. Tickets to the Uffizi and Accademia museums are regularly sold out and large groups regularly fill the basilicas of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella, both of which charge for entry. Tickets for The Uffizi and Accademia can be purchased online prior to visiting. In 2010, readers of Travel + Leisure magazine ranked the city as their third favourite tourist destination. In 2015, Condé Nast Travel readers voted Florence as the best city in Europe.
Studies by Euromonitor International have concluded that cultural and history-oriented tourism is generating significantly increased spending throughout Europe.
Florence is believed to have the greatest concentration of art (in proportion to its size) in the world. Thus, cultural tourism is particularly strong, with world-renowned museums such as the Uffizi selling over 1.93 million tickets in 2014. The city's convention centre facilities were restructured during the 1990s and host exhibitions, conferences, meetings, social forums, concerts and other events all year.
In 2016, Florence had 20,588 hotel rooms in 570 facilities. International visitors use 75% of the rooms; some 18% of those were from the U.S. In 2014, the city had 8.5 million overnight stays. A Euromonitor report indicates that in 2015 the city ranked as the world's 36th most visited in the world, with over 4.95 million arrivals for the year.
Tourism brings revenue to Florence, but also creates certain problems. The Ponte Vecchio, The San Lorenzo Market and Santa Maria Novella are plagued by pickpockets. The province of Florence receives roughly 13 million visitors per year and in peak seasons, popular locations may become overcrowded as a result. In 2015, Mayor Dario Nardella expressed concern over visitors who arrive on buses, stay only a few hours, spend little money but contribute significantly to overcrowding. "No museum visit, just a photo from the square, the bus back and then on to Venice ... We don't want tourists like that", he said.
Some tourists are less than respectful of the city's cultural heritage, according to Nardella. In June 2017, he instituted a programme of spraying church steps with water to prevent tourists from using such areas as picnic spots. While he values the benefits of tourism, he claims that there has been "an increase among those who sit down on church steps, eat their food and leave rubbish strewn on them", he explained. To boost the sale of traditional foods, the mayor had introduced legislation (enacted in 2016) that requires restaurants to use typical Tuscan products and rejected McDonald's application to open a location in the Piazza del Duomo.
In October 2021, Florence was shortlisted for the European Commission's 2022 European Capital of Smart Tourism award along with Bordeaux, Copenhagen, Dublin, Ljubljana, Palma de Mallorca and Valencia.
Food and wine have long been an important staple of the economy. The Chianti region is just south of the city, and its Sangiovese grapes figure prominently not only in its Chianti Classico wines but also in many of the more recently developed Supertuscan blends. Within 32 km (20 mi) to the west is the Carmignano area, also home to flavourful sangiovese-based reds. The celebrated Chianti Rufina district, geographically and historically separated from the main Chianti region, is also few kilometres east of Florence. More recently, the Bolgheri region (about 150 km or 93 mi southwest of Florence) has become celebrated for its "Super Tuscan" reds such as Sassicaia and Ornellaia.
The legislative body of the municipality is the City Council (Consiglio Comunale), which is composed of 36 councillors elected every five years with a proportional system, at the same time as the mayoral elections. The executive body is the City Committee (Giunta Comunale), composed of 7 assessors, nominated and presided over by a directly elected Mayor. The current mayor of Florence is Dario Nardella.
The municipality of Florence is subdivided into five administrative Boroughs (Quartieri). Each borough is governed by a Council (Consiglio) and a President, elected at the same time as the city mayor. The urban organisation is governed by the Italian Constitution (art. 114). The boroughs have the power to advise the Mayor with nonbinding opinions on a large spectrum of topics (environment, construction, public health, local markets) and exercise the functions delegated to them by the City Council; in addition they are supplied with an autonomous funding in order to finance local activities. The boroughs are:
All of the five boroughs are governed by the Democratic Party.
The former Italian Prime Minister (2014–2016), Matteo Renzi, served as mayor from 2009 to 2014.
Florence was the birthplace of High Renaissance art, which lasted from about 1500 to 1527. Renaissance art put a larger emphasis on naturalism and human emotion. Medieval art was often formulaic and symbolic; the surviving works are mostly religious, their subjects were chosen by clerics. By contrast, Renaissance art became more rational, mathematical, individualistic, and produced by known artists such as Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael, who started to sign their works. Religion was important, but with this new age came the humanization of religious figures in art, such as Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Ecce Homo, and Madonna Della Seggiola; People of this age began to understand themselves as human beings, which reflected in art. The Renaissance marked the rebirth of classical values in art and society as people studied the ancient masters of the Greco-Roman world; Art became focused on realism as opposed to idealism.
Cimabue and Giotto, the fathers of Italian painting, lived in Florence as well as Arnolfo and Andrea Pisano, renewers of architecture and sculpture; Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio, forefathers of the Renaissance, Ghiberti and the Della Robbias, Filippo Lippi and Angelico; Botticelli, Paolo Uccello and the universal genius of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.
Their works, together with those of many other generations of artists, are gathered in the several museums of the town: the Uffizi Gallery, the Palatina gallery with the paintings of the "Golden Ages", the Bargello with the sculptures of the Renaissance, the museum of San Marco with Fra Angelico's works, the Academy, the chapels of the Medicis Buonarroti's house with the sculptures of Michelangelo, the following museums: Bardini, Horne, Stibbert, Romano, Corsini, The Gallery of Modern Art, the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, the museum of Silverware and the museum of Precious Stones. Several monuments are located in Florence: the Florence Baptistery with its mosaics; the cathedral with its sculptures, the medieval churches with bands of frescoes; public as well as private palaces: Palazzo Vecchio, Palazzo Pitti, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Palazzo Davanzati; monasteries, cloisters, refectories; the "Certosa". In the archaeological museum includes documents of Etruscan civilisation. The city is so rich in art that some first time visitors experience the Stendhal syndrome as they encounter its art for the first time.
Florentine architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1466) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) were among the fathers of both Renaissance and Neoclassical architecture.
The cathedral, topped by Brunelleschi's dome, dominates the Florentine skyline. The Florentines decided to start building it late in the 13th century, without a design for the dome. The project proposed by Brunelleschi in the 14th century was the largest ever built at the time, and the first major dome built in Europe since the two great domes of Roman times – the Pantheon in Rome, and Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The dome of Santa Maria del Fiore remains the largest brick construction of its kind in the world. In front of it is the medieval Baptistery. The two buildings incorporate in their decoration the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. In recent years, most of the important works of art from the two buildings – and from the nearby Giotto's Campanile, have been removed and replaced by copies. The originals are now housed in the Museum dell'Opera del Duomo, just to the east of the cathedral.
Florence has large numbers of art-filled churches, such as San Miniato al Monte, San Lorenzo, Santa Maria Novella, Santa Trinita, Santa Maria del Carmine, Santa Croce, Santo Spirito, the Annunziata, Ognissanti and numerous others.
Artists associated with Florence range from Arnolfo di Cambio and Cimabue to Giotto, Nanni di Banco, and Paolo Uccello; through Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Donatello and Massaccio and the della Robbia family; through Fra Angelico and Botticelli and Piero della Francesca, and on to Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Others include Benvenuto Cellini, Andrea del Sarto, Benozzo Gozzoli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Filippo Lippi, Bernardo Buontalenti, Orcagna, Pollaiuolo, Filippino Lippi, Verrocchio, Bronzino, Desiderio da Settignano, Michelozzo, the Rossellis, the Sangallos, and Pontormo. Artists from other regions who worked in Florence include Raphael, Andrea Pisano, Giambologna, Il Sodoma and Peter Paul Rubens.
Picture galleries in Florence include the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace. Two superb collections of sculpture are in the Bargello and the Museum of the Works of the Duomo. They are filled with the creations of Donatello, Verrochio, Desiderio da Settignano, Michelangelo and others. The Galleria dell'Accademia has Michelangelo's David, which was created between 1501 and 1504 and is perhaps the best-known work of art anywhere, plus the unfinished statues of the slaves Michelangelo created for the tomb of Pope Julius II. Other sights include the medieval city hall, the Palazzo della Signoria (also known as the Palazzo Vecchio), the Archeological Museum, the Museum of the History of Science, the Palazzo Davanzatti, the Stibbert Museum, St. Marks, the Medici Chapels, the Museum of the Works of Santa Croce, the Museum of the Cloister of Santa Maria Novella, the Zoological Museum ("La Specola"), the Bardini, and the Museo Horne. There is also a collection of works by the modern sculptor, Marino Marini, in a museum named after him. The Strozzi Palace is the site of special exhibits.
Florentine (fiorentino), spoken by inhabitants of Florence and its environs, is a Tuscan dialect and the immediate parent language to modern Italian.
Although its vocabulary and pronunciation are largely identical to standard Italian, differences do exist. The Vocabolario del fiorentino contemporaneo (Dictionary of Modern Florentine) reveals lexical distinctions from all walks of life. Florentines have a highly recognisable accent in phonetic terms due to the so-called gorgia toscana: "hard c" /k/ between two vowels is pronounced as a fricative [h] similar to an English h, so that dico 'I say' is phonetically [ˈdiːho], i cani 'the dogs' is [iˈhaːni]. Similarly, t between vowels is pronounced [θ] as in English thin, and p in the same position is the bilabial fricative [ɸ]. Other traits include using a form of the subjunctive mood last commonly used in medieval times, a frequent usage in everyday speech of the modern subjunctive, and a shortened pronunciation of the definite article, [i] instead of "il", causing doubling of the consonant that follows, so that il cane 'the dog', for example, is pronounced [ikˈkaːne].
Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio pioneered the use of the vernacular instead of the Latin used for most literary works at the time.
Despite Latin being the main language of the courts and the Church in the Middle Ages, writers such as Dante Alighieri and many others used their own language, the Florentine vernacular descended from Latin, in composing their greatest works. The oldest literary pieces written in Florentine go as far back as the 13th century. Florence's literature fully blossomed in the 14th century, when not only Dante with his Divine Comedy (1306–1321) and Petrarch, but also poets such as Guido Cavalcanti and Lapo Gianni composed their most important works. Dante's masterpiece is the Divine Comedy, which mainly deals with the poet himself taking an allegoric and moral tour of Hell, Purgatory and finally Heaven, during which he meets numerous mythological or real characters of his age or before. He is first guided by the Roman poet Virgil, whose non-Christian beliefs damned him to Hell. Later on he is joined by Beatrice, who guides him through Heaven.
In the 14th century, Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio led the literary scene in Florence after Dante's death in 1321. Petrarch was an all-rounder writer, author and poet, but was particularly known for his Canzoniere, or the Book of Songs, where he conveyed his unremitting love for Laura. His style of writing has since become known as Petrarchism. Boccaccio was better known for his Decameron, a slightly grim story of Florence during the 1350s bubonic plague, known as the Black Death, when some people fled the ravaged city to an isolated country mansion, and spent their time there recounting stories and novellas taken from the medieval and contemporary tradition. All of this is written in a series of 100 distinct novellas.
In the 16th century, during the Renaissance, Florence was the home town of political writer and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, whose ideas on how rulers should govern the land, detailed in The Prince, spread across European courts and enjoyed enduring popularity for centuries. These principles became known as Machiavellianism.
Florence became a musical centre during the Middle Ages and music and the performing arts remain an important part of its culture. The growth of Northern Italian Cities in the 1500s likely contributed to its increased prominence. During the Renaissance, there were four kinds of musical patronage in the city with respect to both sacred and secular music: state, corporate, church, and private. It was here that the Florentine Camerata convened in the mid-16th century and experimented with setting tales of Greek mythology to music and staging the result—in other words, the first operas, setting the wheels in motion not just for the further development of the operatic form, but for later developments of separate "classical" forms such as the symphony and concerto. After the year 1600, Italian trends prevailed across Europe, by 1750 it was the primary musical language. The genre of the Madrigal, born in Italy, gained popularity in Britain and elsewhere. Several Italian cities were "larger on the musical map than their real-size for power suggested. Florence, was once such city which experienced a fantastic period in the early seventeenth Century of musico-theatrical innovation, including the beginning and flourishing of opera.
Opera was invented in Florence in the late 16th century when Jacopo Peri's Dafne an opera in the style of monody, was premiered. Opera spread from Florence throughout Italy and eventually Europe. Vocal Music in the choir setting was also taking new identity at this time. At the beginning of the 17th century, two practices for writing music were devised, one the first practice or Stile Antico/Prima Prattica the other the Stile Moderno/Seconda Prattica. The Stile Antico was more prevalent in Northern Europe and Stile Moderno was practiced more by the Italian Composers of the time. The piano was invented in Florence in 1709 by Bartolomeo Cristofori. Composers and musicians who have lived in Florence include Piero Strozzi (1550 – after 1608), Giulio Caccini (1551–1618) and Mike Francis (1961–2009). Giulio Caccini's book Le Nuove Musiche was significant in performance practice technique instruction at the time. The book specified a new term, in use by the 1630s, called monody which indicated the combination of voice and basso continuo and connoted a practice of stating text in a free, lyrical, yet speech-like manner. This would occur while an instrument, usually a keyboard type such as harpsichord, played and held chords while the singer sang/spoke the monodic line.
Florence has been a setting for numerous works of fiction and movies, including the novels and associated films, such as Light in the Piazza, The Girl Who Couldn't Say No, Calmi Cuori Appassionati, Hannibal, A Room with a View, Tea with Mussolini, Virgin Territory and Inferno. The city is home to renowned Italian actors and actresses, such as Roberto Benigni, Leonardo Pieraccioni and Vittoria Puccini.
Florence has appeared as a location in video games such as Assassin's Creed II. The Republic of Florence also appears as a playable nation in Paradox Interactive's grand strategy game Europa Universalis IV.
16th century Florence is the setting of the Japanese manga and anime series Arte.
Florentine food grows out of a tradition of peasant fare rather than rarefied high cuisine. The majority of dishes are based on meat. The whole animal was traditionally eaten; tripe (trippa) and stomach (lampredotto) were once regularly on the menu at restaurants and still are sold at the food carts stationed throughout the city. Antipasti include crostini toscani, sliced bread rounds topped with a chicken liver-based pâté, and sliced meats (mainly prosciutto and salame, often served with melon when in season). The typically saltless Tuscan bread, obtained with natural levain frequently features in Florentine courses, especially in its soups, ribollita and pappa al pomodoro, or in the salad of bread and fresh vegetables called panzanella that is served in summer. The bistecca alla fiorentina is a large (the customary size should weigh around 1.2 to 1.5 kg or 2 lb 10 oz to 3 lb 5 oz) – the "date" steak – T-bone steak of Chianina beef cooked over hot charcoal and served very rare with its more recently derived version, the tagliata, sliced rare beef served on a bed of arugula, often with slices of Parmesan cheese on top. Most of these courses are generally served with local olive oil, also a prime product enjoying a worldwide reputation. Among the desserts, schiacciata alla fiorentina, a white flatbread cake, is one of the most popular; it is a very soft cake, prepared with extremely simple ingredients, typical of Florentine cuisine, and is especially eaten at Carnival.
Research institutes and university departments are located within the Florence area and within two campuses at Polo di Novoli and Polo Scientifico di Sesto Fiorentino as well as in the Research Area of Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche.
Florence has been an important scientific centre for centuries, notably during the Renaissance with scientists such as Leonardo da Vinci.
Florentines were one of the driving forces behind the Age of Discovery. Florentine bankers financed Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese explorers who pioneered the route around Africa to India and the Far East. It was a map drawn by the Florentine Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, a student of Brunelleschi, that Christopher Columbus used to sell his "enterprise" to the Spanish monarchs, and which he used on his first voyage. Mercator's "Projection" is a refined version of Toscanelli's, taking the Americas into account.
Galileo and other scientists pioneered the study of optics, ballistics, astronomy, anatomy, and other scientific disciplines. Pico della Mirandola, Leonardo Bruni, Machiavelli, and many others laid the groundwork for modern scientific understanding.
By the year 1300 Florence had become a centre of textile production in Europe. Many of the rich families in Renaissance Florence were major purchasers of locally produced fine clothing, and the specialists of fashion in the economy and culture of Florence during that period is often underestimated. Florence is regarded by some as the birthplace and earliest centre of the modern (post World War Two) fashion industry in Italy. The Florentine "soirées" of the early 1950s organised by Giovanni Battista Giorgini were events where several Italian designers participated in group shows and first garnered international attention. Florence has served as the home of the Italian fashion company Salvatore Ferragamo since 1928. Gucci, Roberto Cavalli, and Emilio Pucci are also headquartered in Florence. Other major players in the fashion industry such as Prada and Chanel have large offices and stores in Florence or its outskirts. Florence's main upscale shopping street is Via de' Tornabuoni, where major luxury fashion houses and jewellery labels, such as Armani and Bulgari, have boutiques. Via del Parione and Via Roma are other streets that are also well known for their high-end fashion stores.
The Scoppio del Carro ("Explosion of the Cart") is a celebration of the First Crusade. During the day of Easter, a cart, which the Florentines call the Brindellone and which is led by four white oxen, is taken to the Piazza del Duomo between the Baptistery of St. John the Baptist (Battistero di San Giovanni) and the Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore). The cart is connected by a rope to the interior of the church. Near the cart there is a model of a dove, which, according to legend, is a symbol of good luck for the city: at the end of the Easter mass, the dove emerges from the nave of the Duomo and ignites the fireworks on the cart.
Calcio Storico Fiorentino ("Historic Florentine Football"), sometimes called Calcio in costume, is a traditional sport, regarded as a forerunner of soccer, though the actual gameplay most closely resembles rugby. The event originates from the Middle Ages, when the most important Florentine nobles amused themselves playing while wearing bright costumes. The most important match was played on 17 February 1530, during the siege of Florence. That day Papal troops besieged the city while the Florentines, with contempt of the enemies, decided to play the game notwithstanding the situation. The game is played in the Piazza di Santa Croce. A temporary arena is constructed, with bleachers and a sand-covered playing field. A series of matches are held between four teams representing each quartiere (quarter) of Florence during late June and early July. There are four teams: Azzurri (light blue), Bianchi (white), Rossi (red) and Verdi (green). The Azzurri are from the quarter of Santa Croce, Bianchi from the quarter of Santo Spirito, Verdi are from San Giovanni and Rossi from Santa Maria Novella.
Florence is known as the "cradle of the Renaissance" (la culla del Rinascimento) for its monuments, churches, and buildings. The best-known site of Florence is the domed cathedral of the city, Santa Maria del Fiore, known as The Duomo, whose dome was built by Filippo Brunelleschi. The nearby Campanile (partly designed by Giotto) and the Baptistery buildings are also highlights. The dome, 600 years after its completion, is still the largest dome built in brick and mortar in the world. In 1982, the historic centre of Florence (Italian: centro storico di Firenze) was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO. The centre of the city is contained in medieval walls that were built in the 14th century to defend the city. At the heart of the city, in Piazza della Signoria, is Bartolomeo Ammannati's Fountain of Neptune (1563–1565), which is a masterpiece of marble sculpture at the terminus of a still functioning Roman aqueduct.
The layout and structure of Florence in many ways harkens back to the Roman era, where it was designed as a garrison settlement. Nevertheless, the majority of the city was built during the Renaissance. Despite the strong presence of Renaissance architecture within the city, traces of medieval, Baroque, Neoclassical and modern architecture can be found. The Palazzo Vecchio as well as the Duomo, or the city's Cathedral, are the two buildings which dominate Florence's skyline.
The river Arno, which cuts through the old part of the city, is as much a character in Florentine history as many of the people who lived there. Historically, the locals have had a love-hate relationship with the Arno – which alternated between nourishing the city with commerce, and destroying it by flood.
One of the bridges in particular stands out – the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge), whose most striking feature is the multitude of shops built upon its edges, held up by stilts. The bridge also carries Vasari's elevated corridor linking the Uffizi to the Medici residence (Palazzo Pitti). Although the original bridge was constructed by the Etruscans, the current bridge was rebuilt in the 14th century. It is the only bridge in the city to have survived World War II intact. It is the first example in the western world of a bridge built using segmental arches, that is, arches less than a semicircle, to reduce both span-to-rise ratio and the numbers of pillars to allow lesser encumbrance in the riverbed (being in this much more successful than the Roman Alconétar Bridge).
The church of San Lorenzo contains the Medici Chapel, the mausoleum of the Medici family—the most powerful family in Florence from the 15th to the 18th century. Nearby is the Uffizi Gallery, one of the finest art museums in the world – founded on a large bequest from the last member of the Medici family.
The Uffizi is located at the corner of Piazza della Signoria, a site important for being the centre of Florence's civil life and government for centuries. The Palazzo della Signoria facing it is still home of the municipal government. Many significant episodes in the history of art and political changes were staged here, such as:
The Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria is the location of a number of statues by other sculptors such as Donatello, Giambologna, Ammannati and Cellini, although some have been replaced with copies to preserve the originals.
Florence contains several palaces and buildings from various eras. The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence and also an art museum. This large Romanesque crenellated fortress-palace overlooks the Piazza della Signoria with its copy of Michelangelo's David statue as well as the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi. Originally called the Palazzo della Signoria, after the Signoria of Florence, the ruling body of the Republic of Florence, it was also given several other names: Palazzo del Popolo, Palazzo dei Priori, and Palazzo Ducale, in accordance with the varying use of the palace during its long history. The building acquired its current name when the Medici duke's residence was moved across the Arno to the Palazzo Pitti. It is linked to the Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti through the Corridoio Vasariano.
Palazzo Medici Riccardi, designed by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo for Cosimo il Vecchio, of the Medici family, is another major edifice, and was built between 1445 and 1460. It was well known for its stone masonry that includes rustication and ashlar. Today it is the head office of the Metropolitan City of Florence and hosts museums and the Riccardiana Library. The Palazzo Strozzi, an example of civil architecture with its rusticated stone, was inspired by the Palazzo Medici, but with more harmonious proportions. Today the palace is used for international expositions like the annual antique show (founded as the Biennale dell'Antiquariato in 1959), fashion shows and other cultural and artistic events. Here also is the seat of the Istituto Nazionale del Rinascimento and the noted Gabinetto Vieusseux, with the library and reading room. There are several other notable places, including the Palazzo Rucellai, designed by Leon Battista Alberti between 1446 and 1451 and executed, at least in part, by Bernardo Rossellino; the Palazzo Davanzati, which houses the museum of the Old Florentine House; the Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali, designed in the Neo-Renaissance style in 1871; the Palazzo Spini Feroni, in Piazza Santa Trinita, a historic 13th-century private palace, owned since the 1920s by shoe-designer Salvatore Ferragamo; as well as various others, including the Palazzo Borghese, the Palazzo di Bianca Cappello, the Palazzo Antinori, and the Royal building of Santa Maria Novella.
Florence contains numerous museums and art galleries where some of the world's most important works of art are held. The city is one of the best preserved Renaissance centres of art and architecture in the world and has a high concentration of art, architecture and culture. In the ranking list of the 15 most visited Italian art museums, ⅔ are represented by Florentine museums. The Uffizi is one of these, having a very large collection of international and Florentine art. The gallery is articulated in many halls, catalogued by schools and chronological order. Engendered by the Medici family's artistic collections through the centuries, it houses works of art by various painters and artists. The Vasari Corridor is another gallery, built connecting the Palazzo Vecchio with the Pitti Palace passing by the Uffizi and over the Ponte Vecchio. The Galleria dell'Accademia houses a Michelangelo collection, including the David. It has a collection of Russian icons and works by various artists and painters. Other museums and galleries include the Bargello, which concentrates on sculpture works by artists including Donatello, Giambologna and Michelangelo; the Palazzo Pitti, containing part of the Medici family's former private collection. In addition to the Medici collection, the palace's galleries contain many Renaissance works, including several by Raphael and Titian, large collections of costumes, ceremonial carriages, silver, porcelain and a gallery of modern art dating from the 18th century. Adjoining the palace are the Boboli Gardens, elaborately landscaped and with numerous sculptures.
There are several different churches and religious buildings in Florence. The cathedral is Santa Maria del Fiore. The San Giovanni Baptistery located in front of the cathedral, is decorated by numerous artists, notably by Lorenzo Ghiberti with the Gates of Paradise. Other churches in Florence include the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, located in Santa Maria Novella square (near the Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station) which contains works by Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Filippino Lippi and Domenico Ghirlandaio; the Basilica of Santa Croce, the principal Franciscan church in the city, which is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce, about 800 metres (2,600 feet) southeast of the Duomo, and is the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Foscolo, Rossini, thus it is known also as the Temple of the Italian Glories (Tempio dell'Itale Glorie); the Basilica of San Lorenzo, which is one of the largest churches in the city, situated at the centre of Florence's main market district, and the burial place of all the principal members of the Medici family from Cosimo il Vecchio to Cosimo III; Santo Spirito, in the Oltrarno quarter, facing the square with the same name; Orsanmichele, whose building was constructed on the site of the kitchen garden of the monastery of San Michele, now demolished; Santissima Annunziata, a Roman Catholic basilica and the mother church of the Servite order; Ognissanti, which was founded by the lay order of the Umiliati, and is among the first examples of Baroque architecture built in the city; the Santa Maria del Carmine, in the Oltrarno district of Florence, which is the location of the Brancacci Chapel, housing outstanding Renaissance frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino da Panicale, later finished by Filippino Lippi; the Medici Chapel with statues by Michelangelo, in the San Lorenzo; as well as several others, including Santa Trinita, San Marco, Santa Felicita, Badia Fiorentina, San Gaetano, San Miniato al Monte, Florence Charterhouse, and Santa Maria del Carmine. The city additionally contains the Orthodox Russian church of Nativity, and the Great Synagogue of Florence, built in the 19th century.
Florence contains various theatres and cinemas. The Odeon Cinema of the Palazzo dello Strozzino is one of the oldest cinemas in the city. Established from 1920 to 1922 in a wing of the Palazzo dello Strozzino, it used to be called the Cinema Teatro Savoia (Savoy Cinema-Theatre), yet was later called Odeon. The Teatro della Pergola, located in the centre of the city on the eponymous street, is an opera house built in the 17th century. Another theatre is the Teatro Comunale (or Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), originally built as the open-air amphitheatre, the Politeama Fiorentino Vittorio Emanuele, which was inaugurated on 17 May 1862 with a production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and which seated 6,000 people. There are several other theatres, such as the Saloncino Castinelli, the Teatro Puccini, the Teatro Verdi, the Teatro Goldoni and the Teatro Niccolini.
Florence Cathedral, formally the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, is the cathedral of Florence, Italy. It was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to a design of Arnolfo di Cambio and was structurally completed by 1436, with the dome designed by Filippo Brunelleschi.
Aside from such monuments, Florence contains numerous major squares (piazze) and streets. The Piazza della Repubblica is a square in the city centre, location of the cultural cafés and bourgeois palaces. Among the square's cafés (like Caffè Gilli, Paszkowski or the Hard Rock Cafè), the Giubbe Rosse café has long been a meeting place for artists and writers, notably those of Futurism. The Piazza Santa Croce is another; dominated by the Basilica of Santa Croce, it is a rectangular square in the centre of the city where the Calcio Fiorentino is played every year. Furthermore, there is the Piazza Santa Trinita, a square near the Arno that mark the end of the Via de' Tornabuoni street.
Other squares include the Piazza San Marco, the Piazza Santa Maria Novella, the Piazza Beccaria and the Piazza della Libertà. The centre additionally contains several streets. Such include the Via Camillo Cavour, one of the main roads of the northern area of the historic centre; the Via Ghibellina, one of central Florence's longest streets; the Via dei Calzaiuoli, one of the most central streets of the historic centre which links Piazza del Duomo to Piazza della Signoria, winding parallel to via Roma and Piazza della Repubblica; the Via de' Tornabuoni, a luxurious street in the city centre that goes from Antinori square to ponte Santa Trinita, across Piazza Santa Trinita, characterised by the presence of fashion boutiques; the Viali di Circonvallazione, 6-lane boulevards surrounding the northern part of the historic centre; as well as others, such as Via Roma, Via degli Speziali, Via de' Cerretani, and the Viale dei Colli.
Florence also contains various parks and gardens. Such include the Boboli Gardens, the Parco delle Cascine, the Giardino Bardini and the Giardino dei Semplici, amongst others.
In association football, Florence is represented by ACF Fiorentina, which plays in Serie A, the top league of Italian league system. ACF Fiorentina has won two Italian Championships, in 1956 and 1969, and 6 Italian cups, since their formation in 1926. They play their games at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, which holds 47,282. The women's team, ACF Fiorentina Femminile, have won the women's association football Italian Championship of the 2016–17 season.
The city is home of the Centro Tecnico Federale di Coverciano, in Coverciano, Florence, the main training ground of the Italian national team, and the technical department of the Italian Football Federation.
Florence was one of the host cities for cycling's 2013 UCI Road World Championships. The city has also hosted stages of the Giro d'Italia, most recently in 2017.
Since 2017 Florence is also represented in Eccellenza, the top tier of rugby union league system in Italy, by I Medicei, which is a club established in 2015 by the merging of the senior squads of I Cavalieri (of Prato) and Firenze Rugby 1931. I Medicei won the Serie A Championship in 2016–17 and were promoted to Eccellenza for the 2017–18 season.
Rari Nantes Florentia is a successful water polo club based in Florence; both its male and female squads have won several Italian championships and the female squad has also European titles in their palmarès.
The centre of Florence is closed to through-traffic, although buses, taxis and residents with appropriate permits are allowed in. This area is commonly referred to as the ZTL (Zona Traffico Limitato), which is divided into several subsections. Residents of one section, therefore, will only be able to drive in their district and perhaps some surrounding ones. Cars without permits are allowed to enter after 7.30 pm, or before 7.30 am. The rules shift during the tourist-filled summers, putting more restrictions on where one can get in and out.
ATAF&Li-nea was the bus company who run the principal public transit network in the city; it was one the companies of the consortium ONE Scarl to accomplish the contract stipulated with the Regione Toscana for the public transport in the 2018–2019 period. Individual tickets, or a pass called Carta Agile with multiple rides, are purchased in advance and must be validated once on board. These tickets may be used on ATAF&Li-nea buses, Tramvia and second-class local trains only within city railway stations. The bus fleet consisted of 446 urban, 5 suburban, 20 intercity and 15 tourism buses.
Intercity bus transit is run by the SITA, COPIT, and CAP Autolinee companies. The transit companies also accommodate travellers from the Amerigo Vespucci Airport, which is 5 km (3 mi) west of the city centre, and which has scheduled services run by major European carriers.
Since 1 November 2021, the public local transport is operated by Autolinee Toscane.
In an effort to reduce air pollution and car traffic in the city, a multi-line tram network called Tramvia is under construction. The first line began operation on 14 February 2010 and connects Florence's primary intercity railway station (Santa Maria Novella) with the southwestern suburb of Scandicci. This line is 7.4 km (4+5⁄8 mi) long and has 14 stops. The construction of a second line began on 5 November 2011, construction was stopped due to contractors' difficulties and restarted in 2014 with the new line opening on 11 February 2019. This second line connects Florence's airport with the city centre. A third line (from Santa Maria Novella to the Careggi area, where the most important hospitals of Florence are located) is also under construction.
The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Florence, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 59 min. 13% of public transit riders ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 14 min, while 22% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 4.1 km, while 3% travel for over 12 km in a single direction.
The Florence Airport, Peretola, is one of two main airports in the Tuscany region though it is not widely used by popular airlines. The other airport in the Tuscany region is the Galileo Galilei International Airport in Pisa.
Mobike, a Chinese dockless bike sharing company, has been operating in Florence since July 2017. As of 2019, the company operates 4,000 bikes in Florence. The users scan the QR code on the bike using the Mobike app, and end the ride by parking curbside. The bikes have a fixed rate of €1 every 20 minutes. Since Mobike is a dock-less bike-sharing system, it does not provide stations, therefore the bikes can be left almost anywhere.
Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station is the main national and international railway station in Florence and is used by 59 million people every year. The building, designed by Giovanni Michelucci, was built in the Italian Rationalism style and it is one of the major rationalist buildings in Italy. It is located in Piazza della Stazione, near the Fortezza da Basso, a masterpiece of the military Renaissance architecture, and the Viali di Circonvallazione, and in front of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella's apse from which it takes its name. As well as numerous high speed trains to major Italian cities Florence is served by international overnight sleeper services to Munich and Vienna operated by Austrian railways ÖBB.
Train tickets must be validated before boarding. The main bus station is next to Santa Maria Novella railway station. Trenitalia runs trains between the railway stations within the city, and to other destinations around Italy and Europe. The central railway station, Santa Maria Novella, is about 500 m (1,600 ft) northwest of the Piazza del Duomo. There are two other important stations: Campo di Marte and Rifredi. Most bundled routes are Firenze–Pisa, Firenze–Viareggio and Firenze–Arezzo (along the main line to Rome). Other local railways connect Florence with Borgo San Lorenzo in the Mugello area (Faentina railway) and Siena.
A new high-speed rail station is under construction and is contracted to be operational by 2015. It is planned to be connected to Vespucci airport, Santa Maria Novella railway station, and to the city centre by the second line of Tramvia. The architectural firms Foster + Partners and Lancietti Passaleva Giordo and Associates designed this new rail station.
The University of Florence was first founded in 1321, and was recognized by Pope Clement VI in 1349. In 2019, over 50,000 students were enrolled at the university. The European University Institute has been based in the suburb of Fiesole since 1976. Several American universities host a campus in Florence. Including New York University, Marist College, Pepperdine, Stanford, Florida State, Kent State, and James Madison. The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies is based in Villa I Tatti. The center for arts and humanities advanced research has been located on the border of Florence, Fiesole and Settignano since 1961. Over 8,000 American students are enrolled for study in Florence, although mostly while studying in US based degree programs.
The private school, Centro Machiavelli which teaches Italian language and culture to foreigners, is located in Piazza Santo Spirito in Florence.
Florence is twinned with:
Florence has friendly relations with:
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[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Florence (/ˈflɒrəns/ FLORR-ənss; Italian: Firenze [fiˈrɛntse] ) is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 360,930 inhabitants in 2023, and 984,991 in its metropolitan area.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. The Florentine dialect forms the base of standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The city attracts millions of tourists each year, and UNESCO declared the Historic Centre of Florence a World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture and monuments. The city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, Forbes ranked it as one of the most beautiful cities in the world in 2010.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Florence plays an important role in Italian fashion, and is ranked in the top 15 fashion capitals of the world by Global Language Monitor; furthermore, it is a major national economic centre, as well as a tourist and industrial hub.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "There are several theories as to the origin of the Latin name Florentia from which the name of Florence and Firenze derived:",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Roman Republic, 59–27 BC Roman Empire, 27 BC–AD 285 Western Roman Empire, 285–476 Kingdom of Odoacer, 476–493 Ostrogothic Kingdom, 493–553 Eastern Roman Empire, 553–568 Lombard Kingdom, 570–773 Carolingian Empire, 774–797 Regnum Italiae, 797–1001 March of Tuscany, 1002–1115 Republic of Florence, 1115–1532 Duchy of Florence, 1532–1569 Grand Duchy of Tuscany, 1569–1801 Kingdom of Etruria, 1801–1807 First French Empire, 1807–1815 Grand Duchy of Tuscany, 1815–1859 United Provinces of Central Italy, 1859–1860 Kingdom of Italy, 1861–1943 Italian Social Republic, 1943–1945 Italy, 1946–present",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a long period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune, it was the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. It was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe and the world from the 14th to 16th centuries.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The language spoken in the city during the 14th century came to be accepted as the model for what would become the Italian language. Thanks especially to the works of the Tuscans Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, the Florentine dialect, above all the local dialects, was adopted as the basis for a national literary language.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of industry all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon and Hungary. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years' War. They similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Florence was home to the Medici, one of European history's most important noble families. Lorenzo de' Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century: Leo X and Clement VII. Catherine de Medici married King Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de' Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future King Louis XIII. The Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de' Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici in 1737.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Kingdom of Italy, which was established in 1861, moved its capital from Turin to Florence in 1865, although the capital was moved to Rome in 1871.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Florence was established by the Romans in 59 BC as a colony for veteran soldiers and was built in the style of an army camp. Situated along the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre and in AD 285 became the capital of the Tuscia region.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In centuries to come, the city experienced turbulent alternate periods of Ostrogoth and Byzantine rule, during which the city was fought over, helping to cause the population to fall to as low as 1,000 people. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century and Florence was in turn conquered by Charlemagne in 774 becoming part of the March of Tuscany centred on Lucca. The population began to grow again and commerce prospered.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Margrave Hugo chose Florence as his residency instead of Lucca around 1000 AD. The Golden Age of Florentine art began around this time. In 1100, Florence was a \"commune\", meaning a city-state. The city's primary resource was the Arno river, providing power and access for the industry (mainly textile industry), and access to the Mediterranean sea for international trade, helping the growth of an industrious merchant community. The Florentine merchant banking skills became recognised in Europe after they brought decisive financial innovation (e.g. bills of exchange, double-entry bookkeeping system) to medieval fairs. This period also saw the eclipse of Florence's formerly powerful rival Pisa. The growing power of the merchant elite culminated in an anti-aristocratic uprising, led by Giano della Bella, resulting in the Ordinances of Justice which entrenched the power of the elite guilds until the end of the Republic.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "At the height of demographic expansion around 1325, the urban population may have been as great as 120,000, and the rural population around the city was probably close to 300,000. The Black Death of 1348 reduced it by over half, about 25,000 are said to have been supported by the city's wool industry: in 1345 Florence was the scene of an attempted strike by wool combers (ciompi), who in 1378 rose up in a brief revolt against oligarchic rule in the Revolt of the Ciompi. After their suppression, Florence came under the sway (1382–1434) of the Albizzi family, who became bitter rivals of the Medici.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In the 15th century, Florence was among the largest cities in Europe, with a population of 60,000, and was considered rich and economically successful. Cosimo de' Medici was the first Medici family member to essentially control the city from behind the scenes. Although the city was technically a democracy of sorts, his power came from a vast patronage network along with his alliance to the new immigrants, the gente nuova (new people). The fact that the Medici were bankers to the pope also contributed to their ascendancy. Cosimo was succeeded by his son Piero, who was, soon after, succeeded by Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo in 1469. Lorenzo was a great patron of the arts, commissioning works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. Lorenzo was an accomplished poet and musician and brought composers and singers to Florence, including Alexander Agricola, Johannes Ghiselin, and Heinrich Isaac. By contemporary Florentines (and since), he was known as \"Lorenzo the Magnificent\" (Lorenzo il Magnifico).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Following Lorenzo de' Medici's death in 1492, he was succeeded by his son Piero II. When the French king Charles VIII invaded northern Italy, Piero II chose to resist his army. But when he realised the size of the French army at the gates of Pisa, he had to accept the humiliating conditions of the French king. These made the Florentines rebel, and they expelled Piero II. With his exile in 1494, the first period of Medici rule ended with the restoration of a republican government.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "During this period, the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola had become prior of the San Marco monastery in 1490. He was famed for his penitential sermons, lambasting what he viewed as widespread immorality and attachment to material riches. He praised the exile of the Medici as the work of God, punishing them for their decadence. He seized the opportunity to carry through political reforms leading to a more democratic rule. But when Savonarola publicly accused Pope Alexander VI of corruption, he was banned from speaking in public. When he broke this ban, he was excommunicated. The Florentines, tired of his teachings, turned against him and arrested him. He was convicted as a heretic, hanged and burned at the stake on the Piazza della Signoria on 23 May 1498. His ashes were dispersed in the Arno river.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Another Florentine of this period was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimization of political expediency and even malpractice. Machiavelli was a political thinker, renowned for his political handbook The Prince, which is about ruling and exercising power. Commissioned by the Medici, Machiavelli also wrote the Florentine Histories, the history of the city.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In 1512, the Medici retook control of Florence with the help of Spanish and Papal troops. They were led by two cousins, Giovanni and Giulio de' Medici, both of whom would later become Popes of the Catholic Church, (Leo X and Clement VII, respectively). Both were generous patrons of the arts, commissioning works like Michelangelo's Laurentian Library and Medici Chapel in Florence, to name just two. Their reigns coincided with political upheaval in Italy, and thus in 1527, Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and re-established a theocratic republic on 16 May 1527, (Jesus Christ was named King of Florence). The Medici returned to power in Florence in 1530, with the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the blessings of Pope Clement VII (Giulio de' Medici).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Florence officially became a monarchy in 1531, when Emperor Charles and Pope Clement named Alessandro de Medici as Duke of the Florentine Republic. The Medici's monarchy would last over two centuries. Alessandro's successor, Cosimo I de Medici, was named Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1569; in all Tuscany, only the Republic of Lucca (later a Duchy) and the Principality of Piombino were independent from Florence. Italian opera was first written in Florence in 1597 with the premiere of Jacopo Peri's Dafne.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The extinction of the Medici dynasty and the accession in 1737 of Francis Stephen, duke of Lorraine and husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, led to Tuscany's temporary inclusion in the territories of the Austrian crown. It became a secundogeniture of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, who were deposed for the House of Bourbon-Parma in 1801. From 1801 to 1807 Florence was the capital of the Napoleonic client state Kingdom of Etruria. The Bourbon-Parma were deposed in December 1807 when Tuscany was annexed by France. Florence was the prefecture of the French département of Arno from 1808 to the fall of Napoleon in 1814. The Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty was restored on the throne of Tuscany at the Congress of Vienna but finally deposed in 1859. Tuscany became a region of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Florence replaced Turin as Italy's capital in 1865 and, in an effort to modernise the city, the old market in the Piazza del Mercato Vecchio and many medieval houses were pulled down and replaced by a more formal street plan with newer houses. The Piazza (first renamed Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, then Piazza della Repubblica, the present name) was significantly widened and a large triumphal arch was constructed at the west end. This development was unpopular and was prevented from continuing by the efforts of several British and American people living in the city. A museum recording the destruction stands nearby today.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The country's second capital city was superseded by Rome six years later, after the withdrawal of the French troops allowed the capture of Rome.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "During World War II the city experienced a year-long German occupation (1943–1944) being part of the Italian Social Republic. Hitler declared it an open city on 3 July 1944 as troops of the British 8th Army closed in. In early August, the retreating Germans decided to demolish all the bridges along the Arno linking the district of Oltrarno to the rest of the city, making it difficult for troops of the 8th Army to cross. At the last moment, Charles Steinhauslin, at the time consul of 26 countries in Florence, convinced the German general in Italy that the Ponte Vecchio was not to be destroyed due to its historical value. Instead, an equally historic area of streets directly to the south of the bridge, including part of the Corridoio Vasariano, was destroyed using mines. Since then the bridges have been restored to their original forms using as many of the remaining materials as possible, but the buildings surrounding the Ponte Vecchio have been rebuilt in a style combining the old with modern design. Shortly before leaving Florence, as they knew that they would soon have to retreat, the Germans executed many freedom fighters and political opponents publicly, in streets and squares including the Piazza Santo Spirito.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Florence was liberated by New Zealand, South African and British troops on 4 August 1944 alongside partisans from the Tuscan Committee of National Liberation (CTLN). The Allied soldiers who died driving the Germans from Tuscany are buried in cemeteries outside the city (Americans about nine kilometres or 5+1⁄2 miles south of the city, British and Commonwealth soldiers a few kilometres east of the centre on the right bank of the Arno).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "At the end of World War II in May 1945, the US Army's Information and Educational Branch was ordered to establish an overseas university campus for demobilised American service men and women in Florence. The first American university for service personnel was established in June 1945 at the School of Aeronautics. Some 7,500 soldier-students were to pass through the university during its four one-month sessions (see G. I. American Universities).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In November 1966, the Arno flooded parts of the centre, damaging many art treasures. Around the city there are tiny placards on the walls noting where the flood waters reached at their highest point.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Florence lies in a basin formed by the hills of Careggi, Fiesole, Settignano, Arcetri, Poggio Imperiale and Bellosguardo (Florence). The Arno river, three other minor rivers (Mugnone, Ema and Greve) and some streams flow through it.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Florence has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), tending to Mediterranean (Csa). It has hot summers with moderate or light rainfall and cool, damp winters. As Florence lacks a prevailing wind, summer temperatures are higher than along the coast. Rainfall in summer is convectional, while relief rainfall dominates in the winter. Snow flurries occur almost every year, but often result in no accumulation. The highest officially recorded temperature was 42.6 °C (108.7 °F) on 26 July 1983 and the lowest was −23.2 °C (−9.8 °F) on 12 January 1985.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In 1200 the city was home to 50,000 people. By 1300 the population of the city proper was 120,000, with an additional 300,000 living in the Contado. Between 1500 and 1650 the population was around 70,000.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "As of 31 October 2010, the population of the city proper is 370,702, while Eurostat estimates that 696,767 people live in the urban area of Florence. The Metropolitan Area of Florence, Prato and Pistoia, constituted in 2000 over an area of roughly 4,800 square kilometres (1,850 sq mi), is home to 1.5 million people. Within Florence proper, 46.8% of the population was male in 2007 and 53.2% were female. Minors (children aged 18 and less) totalled 14.10% of the population compared to pensioners, who numbered 25.95 percent. This compares with the Italian average of 18.06 percent (minors) and 19.94 percent (pensioners). The average age of Florence resident is 49 compared to the Italian average of 42. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the population of Florence grew by 3.22 percent, while Italy as a whole grew by 3.56 percent. The birth rate of Florence is 7.66 births per 1,000 inhabitants compared to the Italian average of 9.45 births.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "As of 2009, 87.46% of the population was Italian. An estimated 6,000 Chinese live in the city. The largest immigrant group came from other European countries (mostly Romanians and Albanians): 3.52%, East Asia (mostly Chinese and Filipino): 2.17%, the Americas: 1.41%, and North Africa (mostly Moroccan): 0.9%.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Much like the rest of Italy most of the people in Florence are Roman Catholic, with more than 90% of the population belonging to the Archdiocese of Florence.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "As of 2016, an estimated 30,000 people, or 8% of the population, identified as Muslim.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Tourism is, by far, the most important of all industries and most of the Florentine economy relies on the money generated by international arrivals and students studying in the city. The value tourism to the city totalled some €2.5 billion in 2015 and the number of visitors had increased by 5.5% from the previous year.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In 2013, Florence was listed as the second best world city by Condé Nast Traveler.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Manufacturing and commerce remain highly important. Florence is Italy's 17th richest city in terms of average workers' earnings, with the figure being €23,265 (the overall city's income is €6,531,204,473), coming after Mantua, yet surpassing Bolzano.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Florence is a major production and commercial centre in Italy, where the Florentine industrial complexes in the suburbs produce all sorts of goods, from furniture, rubber goods, chemicals, and food. Traditional and local products, such as antiques, handicrafts, glassware, leatherwork, art reproductions, jewellery, souvenirs, elaborate metal and iron-work, shoes, accessories and high fashion clothes also occupy a fair sector of Florence's economy. The city's income relies partially on services and commercial and cultural interests, such as annual fairs, theatrical and lyrical productions, art exhibitions, festivals and fashion shows, such as the Calcio Fiorentino. Heavy industry and machinery also take their part in providing an income. In Nuovo Pignone, numerous factories are still present, and small-to medium industrial businesses are dominant. The Florence-Prato-Pistoia industrial districts and areas were known as the 'Third Italy' in the 1990s, due to the exports of high-quality goods and automobile (especially the Vespa) and the prosperity and productivity of the Florentine entrepreneurs. Some of these industries even rivalled the traditional industrial districts in Emilia-Romagna and Veneto due to high profits and productivity.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In the fourth quarter of 2015, manufacturing increased by 2.4% and exports increased by 7.2%. Leading sectors included mechanical engineering, fashion, pharmaceutics, food and wine. During 2015, permanent employment contracts increased by 48.8 percent, boosted by nationwide tax break.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Tourism is the most significant industry in central Florence. From April to October, tourists outnumber local population. Tickets to the Uffizi and Accademia museums are regularly sold out and large groups regularly fill the basilicas of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella, both of which charge for entry. Tickets for The Uffizi and Accademia can be purchased online prior to visiting. In 2010, readers of Travel + Leisure magazine ranked the city as their third favourite tourist destination. In 2015, Condé Nast Travel readers voted Florence as the best city in Europe.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Studies by Euromonitor International have concluded that cultural and history-oriented tourism is generating significantly increased spending throughout Europe.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Florence is believed to have the greatest concentration of art (in proportion to its size) in the world. Thus, cultural tourism is particularly strong, with world-renowned museums such as the Uffizi selling over 1.93 million tickets in 2014. The city's convention centre facilities were restructured during the 1990s and host exhibitions, conferences, meetings, social forums, concerts and other events all year.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In 2016, Florence had 20,588 hotel rooms in 570 facilities. International visitors use 75% of the rooms; some 18% of those were from the U.S. In 2014, the city had 8.5 million overnight stays. A Euromonitor report indicates that in 2015 the city ranked as the world's 36th most visited in the world, with over 4.95 million arrivals for the year.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Tourism brings revenue to Florence, but also creates certain problems. The Ponte Vecchio, The San Lorenzo Market and Santa Maria Novella are plagued by pickpockets. The province of Florence receives roughly 13 million visitors per year and in peak seasons, popular locations may become overcrowded as a result. In 2015, Mayor Dario Nardella expressed concern over visitors who arrive on buses, stay only a few hours, spend little money but contribute significantly to overcrowding. \"No museum visit, just a photo from the square, the bus back and then on to Venice ... We don't want tourists like that\", he said.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Some tourists are less than respectful of the city's cultural heritage, according to Nardella. In June 2017, he instituted a programme of spraying church steps with water to prevent tourists from using such areas as picnic spots. While he values the benefits of tourism, he claims that there has been \"an increase among those who sit down on church steps, eat their food and leave rubbish strewn on them\", he explained. To boost the sale of traditional foods, the mayor had introduced legislation (enacted in 2016) that requires restaurants to use typical Tuscan products and rejected McDonald's application to open a location in the Piazza del Duomo.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "In October 2021, Florence was shortlisted for the European Commission's 2022 European Capital of Smart Tourism award along with Bordeaux, Copenhagen, Dublin, Ljubljana, Palma de Mallorca and Valencia.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Food and wine have long been an important staple of the economy. The Chianti region is just south of the city, and its Sangiovese grapes figure prominently not only in its Chianti Classico wines but also in many of the more recently developed Supertuscan blends. Within 32 km (20 mi) to the west is the Carmignano area, also home to flavourful sangiovese-based reds. The celebrated Chianti Rufina district, geographically and historically separated from the main Chianti region, is also few kilometres east of Florence. More recently, the Bolgheri region (about 150 km or 93 mi southwest of Florence) has become celebrated for its \"Super Tuscan\" reds such as Sassicaia and Ornellaia.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The legislative body of the municipality is the City Council (Consiglio Comunale), which is composed of 36 councillors elected every five years with a proportional system, at the same time as the mayoral elections. The executive body is the City Committee (Giunta Comunale), composed of 7 assessors, nominated and presided over by a directly elected Mayor. The current mayor of Florence is Dario Nardella.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The municipality of Florence is subdivided into five administrative Boroughs (Quartieri). Each borough is governed by a Council (Consiglio) and a President, elected at the same time as the city mayor. The urban organisation is governed by the Italian Constitution (art. 114). The boroughs have the power to advise the Mayor with nonbinding opinions on a large spectrum of topics (environment, construction, public health, local markets) and exercise the functions delegated to them by the City Council; in addition they are supplied with an autonomous funding in order to finance local activities. The boroughs are:",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "All of the five boroughs are governed by the Democratic Party.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The former Italian Prime Minister (2014–2016), Matteo Renzi, served as mayor from 2009 to 2014.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Florence was the birthplace of High Renaissance art, which lasted from about 1500 to 1527. Renaissance art put a larger emphasis on naturalism and human emotion. Medieval art was often formulaic and symbolic; the surviving works are mostly religious, their subjects were chosen by clerics. By contrast, Renaissance art became more rational, mathematical, individualistic, and produced by known artists such as Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael, who started to sign their works. Religion was important, but with this new age came the humanization of religious figures in art, such as Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Ecce Homo, and Madonna Della Seggiola; People of this age began to understand themselves as human beings, which reflected in art. The Renaissance marked the rebirth of classical values in art and society as people studied the ancient masters of the Greco-Roman world; Art became focused on realism as opposed to idealism.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Cimabue and Giotto, the fathers of Italian painting, lived in Florence as well as Arnolfo and Andrea Pisano, renewers of architecture and sculpture; Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio, forefathers of the Renaissance, Ghiberti and the Della Robbias, Filippo Lippi and Angelico; Botticelli, Paolo Uccello and the universal genius of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Their works, together with those of many other generations of artists, are gathered in the several museums of the town: the Uffizi Gallery, the Palatina gallery with the paintings of the \"Golden Ages\", the Bargello with the sculptures of the Renaissance, the museum of San Marco with Fra Angelico's works, the Academy, the chapels of the Medicis Buonarroti's house with the sculptures of Michelangelo, the following museums: Bardini, Horne, Stibbert, Romano, Corsini, The Gallery of Modern Art, the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, the museum of Silverware and the museum of Precious Stones. Several monuments are located in Florence: the Florence Baptistery with its mosaics; the cathedral with its sculptures, the medieval churches with bands of frescoes; public as well as private palaces: Palazzo Vecchio, Palazzo Pitti, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Palazzo Davanzati; monasteries, cloisters, refectories; the \"Certosa\". In the archaeological museum includes documents of Etruscan civilisation. The city is so rich in art that some first time visitors experience the Stendhal syndrome as they encounter its art for the first time.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Florentine architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1466) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) were among the fathers of both Renaissance and Neoclassical architecture.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The cathedral, topped by Brunelleschi's dome, dominates the Florentine skyline. The Florentines decided to start building it late in the 13th century, without a design for the dome. The project proposed by Brunelleschi in the 14th century was the largest ever built at the time, and the first major dome built in Europe since the two great domes of Roman times – the Pantheon in Rome, and Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The dome of Santa Maria del Fiore remains the largest brick construction of its kind in the world. In front of it is the medieval Baptistery. The two buildings incorporate in their decoration the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. In recent years, most of the important works of art from the two buildings – and from the nearby Giotto's Campanile, have been removed and replaced by copies. The originals are now housed in the Museum dell'Opera del Duomo, just to the east of the cathedral.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Florence has large numbers of art-filled churches, such as San Miniato al Monte, San Lorenzo, Santa Maria Novella, Santa Trinita, Santa Maria del Carmine, Santa Croce, Santo Spirito, the Annunziata, Ognissanti and numerous others.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Artists associated with Florence range from Arnolfo di Cambio and Cimabue to Giotto, Nanni di Banco, and Paolo Uccello; through Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Donatello and Massaccio and the della Robbia family; through Fra Angelico and Botticelli and Piero della Francesca, and on to Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Others include Benvenuto Cellini, Andrea del Sarto, Benozzo Gozzoli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Filippo Lippi, Bernardo Buontalenti, Orcagna, Pollaiuolo, Filippino Lippi, Verrocchio, Bronzino, Desiderio da Settignano, Michelozzo, the Rossellis, the Sangallos, and Pontormo. Artists from other regions who worked in Florence include Raphael, Andrea Pisano, Giambologna, Il Sodoma and Peter Paul Rubens.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Picture galleries in Florence include the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace. Two superb collections of sculpture are in the Bargello and the Museum of the Works of the Duomo. They are filled with the creations of Donatello, Verrochio, Desiderio da Settignano, Michelangelo and others. The Galleria dell'Accademia has Michelangelo's David, which was created between 1501 and 1504 and is perhaps the best-known work of art anywhere, plus the unfinished statues of the slaves Michelangelo created for the tomb of Pope Julius II. Other sights include the medieval city hall, the Palazzo della Signoria (also known as the Palazzo Vecchio), the Archeological Museum, the Museum of the History of Science, the Palazzo Davanzatti, the Stibbert Museum, St. Marks, the Medici Chapels, the Museum of the Works of Santa Croce, the Museum of the Cloister of Santa Maria Novella, the Zoological Museum (\"La Specola\"), the Bardini, and the Museo Horne. There is also a collection of works by the modern sculptor, Marino Marini, in a museum named after him. The Strozzi Palace is the site of special exhibits.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Florentine (fiorentino), spoken by inhabitants of Florence and its environs, is a Tuscan dialect and the immediate parent language to modern Italian.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Although its vocabulary and pronunciation are largely identical to standard Italian, differences do exist. The Vocabolario del fiorentino contemporaneo (Dictionary of Modern Florentine) reveals lexical distinctions from all walks of life. Florentines have a highly recognisable accent in phonetic terms due to the so-called gorgia toscana: \"hard c\" /k/ between two vowels is pronounced as a fricative [h] similar to an English h, so that dico 'I say' is phonetically [ˈdiːho], i cani 'the dogs' is [iˈhaːni]. Similarly, t between vowels is pronounced [θ] as in English thin, and p in the same position is the bilabial fricative [ɸ]. Other traits include using a form of the subjunctive mood last commonly used in medieval times, a frequent usage in everyday speech of the modern subjunctive, and a shortened pronunciation of the definite article, [i] instead of \"il\", causing doubling of the consonant that follows, so that il cane 'the dog', for example, is pronounced [ikˈkaːne].",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio pioneered the use of the vernacular instead of the Latin used for most literary works at the time.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Despite Latin being the main language of the courts and the Church in the Middle Ages, writers such as Dante Alighieri and many others used their own language, the Florentine vernacular descended from Latin, in composing their greatest works. The oldest literary pieces written in Florentine go as far back as the 13th century. Florence's literature fully blossomed in the 14th century, when not only Dante with his Divine Comedy (1306–1321) and Petrarch, but also poets such as Guido Cavalcanti and Lapo Gianni composed their most important works. Dante's masterpiece is the Divine Comedy, which mainly deals with the poet himself taking an allegoric and moral tour of Hell, Purgatory and finally Heaven, during which he meets numerous mythological or real characters of his age or before. He is first guided by the Roman poet Virgil, whose non-Christian beliefs damned him to Hell. Later on he is joined by Beatrice, who guides him through Heaven.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "In the 14th century, Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio led the literary scene in Florence after Dante's death in 1321. Petrarch was an all-rounder writer, author and poet, but was particularly known for his Canzoniere, or the Book of Songs, where he conveyed his unremitting love for Laura. His style of writing has since become known as Petrarchism. Boccaccio was better known for his Decameron, a slightly grim story of Florence during the 1350s bubonic plague, known as the Black Death, when some people fled the ravaged city to an isolated country mansion, and spent their time there recounting stories and novellas taken from the medieval and contemporary tradition. All of this is written in a series of 100 distinct novellas.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "In the 16th century, during the Renaissance, Florence was the home town of political writer and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, whose ideas on how rulers should govern the land, detailed in The Prince, spread across European courts and enjoyed enduring popularity for centuries. These principles became known as Machiavellianism.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Florence became a musical centre during the Middle Ages and music and the performing arts remain an important part of its culture. The growth of Northern Italian Cities in the 1500s likely contributed to its increased prominence. During the Renaissance, there were four kinds of musical patronage in the city with respect to both sacred and secular music: state, corporate, church, and private. It was here that the Florentine Camerata convened in the mid-16th century and experimented with setting tales of Greek mythology to music and staging the result—in other words, the first operas, setting the wheels in motion not just for the further development of the operatic form, but for later developments of separate \"classical\" forms such as the symphony and concerto. After the year 1600, Italian trends prevailed across Europe, by 1750 it was the primary musical language. The genre of the Madrigal, born in Italy, gained popularity in Britain and elsewhere. Several Italian cities were \"larger on the musical map than their real-size for power suggested. Florence, was once such city which experienced a fantastic period in the early seventeenth Century of musico-theatrical innovation, including the beginning and flourishing of opera.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Opera was invented in Florence in the late 16th century when Jacopo Peri's Dafne an opera in the style of monody, was premiered. Opera spread from Florence throughout Italy and eventually Europe. Vocal Music in the choir setting was also taking new identity at this time. At the beginning of the 17th century, two practices for writing music were devised, one the first practice or Stile Antico/Prima Prattica the other the Stile Moderno/Seconda Prattica. The Stile Antico was more prevalent in Northern Europe and Stile Moderno was practiced more by the Italian Composers of the time. The piano was invented in Florence in 1709 by Bartolomeo Cristofori. Composers and musicians who have lived in Florence include Piero Strozzi (1550 – after 1608), Giulio Caccini (1551–1618) and Mike Francis (1961–2009). Giulio Caccini's book Le Nuove Musiche was significant in performance practice technique instruction at the time. The book specified a new term, in use by the 1630s, called monody which indicated the combination of voice and basso continuo and connoted a practice of stating text in a free, lyrical, yet speech-like manner. This would occur while an instrument, usually a keyboard type such as harpsichord, played and held chords while the singer sang/spoke the monodic line.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Florence has been a setting for numerous works of fiction and movies, including the novels and associated films, such as Light in the Piazza, The Girl Who Couldn't Say No, Calmi Cuori Appassionati, Hannibal, A Room with a View, Tea with Mussolini, Virgin Territory and Inferno. The city is home to renowned Italian actors and actresses, such as Roberto Benigni, Leonardo Pieraccioni and Vittoria Puccini.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Florence has appeared as a location in video games such as Assassin's Creed II. The Republic of Florence also appears as a playable nation in Paradox Interactive's grand strategy game Europa Universalis IV.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "16th century Florence is the setting of the Japanese manga and anime series Arte.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Florentine food grows out of a tradition of peasant fare rather than rarefied high cuisine. The majority of dishes are based on meat. The whole animal was traditionally eaten; tripe (trippa) and stomach (lampredotto) were once regularly on the menu at restaurants and still are sold at the food carts stationed throughout the city. Antipasti include crostini toscani, sliced bread rounds topped with a chicken liver-based pâté, and sliced meats (mainly prosciutto and salame, often served with melon when in season). The typically saltless Tuscan bread, obtained with natural levain frequently features in Florentine courses, especially in its soups, ribollita and pappa al pomodoro, or in the salad of bread and fresh vegetables called panzanella that is served in summer. The bistecca alla fiorentina is a large (the customary size should weigh around 1.2 to 1.5 kg or 2 lb 10 oz to 3 lb 5 oz) – the \"date\" steak – T-bone steak of Chianina beef cooked over hot charcoal and served very rare with its more recently derived version, the tagliata, sliced rare beef served on a bed of arugula, often with slices of Parmesan cheese on top. Most of these courses are generally served with local olive oil, also a prime product enjoying a worldwide reputation. Among the desserts, schiacciata alla fiorentina, a white flatbread cake, is one of the most popular; it is a very soft cake, prepared with extremely simple ingredients, typical of Florentine cuisine, and is especially eaten at Carnival.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Research institutes and university departments are located within the Florence area and within two campuses at Polo di Novoli and Polo Scientifico di Sesto Fiorentino as well as in the Research Area of Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Florence has been an important scientific centre for centuries, notably during the Renaissance with scientists such as Leonardo da Vinci.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Florentines were one of the driving forces behind the Age of Discovery. Florentine bankers financed Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese explorers who pioneered the route around Africa to India and the Far East. It was a map drawn by the Florentine Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, a student of Brunelleschi, that Christopher Columbus used to sell his \"enterprise\" to the Spanish monarchs, and which he used on his first voyage. Mercator's \"Projection\" is a refined version of Toscanelli's, taking the Americas into account.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Galileo and other scientists pioneered the study of optics, ballistics, astronomy, anatomy, and other scientific disciplines. Pico della Mirandola, Leonardo Bruni, Machiavelli, and many others laid the groundwork for modern scientific understanding.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "By the year 1300 Florence had become a centre of textile production in Europe. Many of the rich families in Renaissance Florence were major purchasers of locally produced fine clothing, and the specialists of fashion in the economy and culture of Florence during that period is often underestimated. Florence is regarded by some as the birthplace and earliest centre of the modern (post World War Two) fashion industry in Italy. The Florentine \"soirées\" of the early 1950s organised by Giovanni Battista Giorgini were events where several Italian designers participated in group shows and first garnered international attention. Florence has served as the home of the Italian fashion company Salvatore Ferragamo since 1928. Gucci, Roberto Cavalli, and Emilio Pucci are also headquartered in Florence. Other major players in the fashion industry such as Prada and Chanel have large offices and stores in Florence or its outskirts. Florence's main upscale shopping street is Via de' Tornabuoni, where major luxury fashion houses and jewellery labels, such as Armani and Bulgari, have boutiques. Via del Parione and Via Roma are other streets that are also well known for their high-end fashion stores.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "The Scoppio del Carro (\"Explosion of the Cart\") is a celebration of the First Crusade. During the day of Easter, a cart, which the Florentines call the Brindellone and which is led by four white oxen, is taken to the Piazza del Duomo between the Baptistery of St. John the Baptist (Battistero di San Giovanni) and the Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore). The cart is connected by a rope to the interior of the church. Near the cart there is a model of a dove, which, according to legend, is a symbol of good luck for the city: at the end of the Easter mass, the dove emerges from the nave of the Duomo and ignites the fireworks on the cart.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Calcio Storico Fiorentino (\"Historic Florentine Football\"), sometimes called Calcio in costume, is a traditional sport, regarded as a forerunner of soccer, though the actual gameplay most closely resembles rugby. The event originates from the Middle Ages, when the most important Florentine nobles amused themselves playing while wearing bright costumes. The most important match was played on 17 February 1530, during the siege of Florence. That day Papal troops besieged the city while the Florentines, with contempt of the enemies, decided to play the game notwithstanding the situation. The game is played in the Piazza di Santa Croce. A temporary arena is constructed, with bleachers and a sand-covered playing field. A series of matches are held between four teams representing each quartiere (quarter) of Florence during late June and early July. There are four teams: Azzurri (light blue), Bianchi (white), Rossi (red) and Verdi (green). The Azzurri are from the quarter of Santa Croce, Bianchi from the quarter of Santo Spirito, Verdi are from San Giovanni and Rossi from Santa Maria Novella.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Florence is known as the \"cradle of the Renaissance\" (la culla del Rinascimento) for its monuments, churches, and buildings. The best-known site of Florence is the domed cathedral of the city, Santa Maria del Fiore, known as The Duomo, whose dome was built by Filippo Brunelleschi. The nearby Campanile (partly designed by Giotto) and the Baptistery buildings are also highlights. The dome, 600 years after its completion, is still the largest dome built in brick and mortar in the world. In 1982, the historic centre of Florence (Italian: centro storico di Firenze) was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO. The centre of the city is contained in medieval walls that were built in the 14th century to defend the city. At the heart of the city, in Piazza della Signoria, is Bartolomeo Ammannati's Fountain of Neptune (1563–1565), which is a masterpiece of marble sculpture at the terminus of a still functioning Roman aqueduct.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "The layout and structure of Florence in many ways harkens back to the Roman era, where it was designed as a garrison settlement. Nevertheless, the majority of the city was built during the Renaissance. Despite the strong presence of Renaissance architecture within the city, traces of medieval, Baroque, Neoclassical and modern architecture can be found. The Palazzo Vecchio as well as the Duomo, or the city's Cathedral, are the two buildings which dominate Florence's skyline.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "The river Arno, which cuts through the old part of the city, is as much a character in Florentine history as many of the people who lived there. Historically, the locals have had a love-hate relationship with the Arno – which alternated between nourishing the city with commerce, and destroying it by flood.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "One of the bridges in particular stands out – the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge), whose most striking feature is the multitude of shops built upon its edges, held up by stilts. The bridge also carries Vasari's elevated corridor linking the Uffizi to the Medici residence (Palazzo Pitti). Although the original bridge was constructed by the Etruscans, the current bridge was rebuilt in the 14th century. It is the only bridge in the city to have survived World War II intact. It is the first example in the western world of a bridge built using segmental arches, that is, arches less than a semicircle, to reduce both span-to-rise ratio and the numbers of pillars to allow lesser encumbrance in the riverbed (being in this much more successful than the Roman Alconétar Bridge).",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "The church of San Lorenzo contains the Medici Chapel, the mausoleum of the Medici family—the most powerful family in Florence from the 15th to the 18th century. Nearby is the Uffizi Gallery, one of the finest art museums in the world – founded on a large bequest from the last member of the Medici family.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "The Uffizi is located at the corner of Piazza della Signoria, a site important for being the centre of Florence's civil life and government for centuries. The Palazzo della Signoria facing it is still home of the municipal government. Many significant episodes in the history of art and political changes were staged here, such as:",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "The Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria is the location of a number of statues by other sculptors such as Donatello, Giambologna, Ammannati and Cellini, although some have been replaced with copies to preserve the originals.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "Florence contains several palaces and buildings from various eras. The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence and also an art museum. This large Romanesque crenellated fortress-palace overlooks the Piazza della Signoria with its copy of Michelangelo's David statue as well as the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi. Originally called the Palazzo della Signoria, after the Signoria of Florence, the ruling body of the Republic of Florence, it was also given several other names: Palazzo del Popolo, Palazzo dei Priori, and Palazzo Ducale, in accordance with the varying use of the palace during its long history. The building acquired its current name when the Medici duke's residence was moved across the Arno to the Palazzo Pitti. It is linked to the Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti through the Corridoio Vasariano.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Palazzo Medici Riccardi, designed by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo for Cosimo il Vecchio, of the Medici family, is another major edifice, and was built between 1445 and 1460. It was well known for its stone masonry that includes rustication and ashlar. Today it is the head office of the Metropolitan City of Florence and hosts museums and the Riccardiana Library. The Palazzo Strozzi, an example of civil architecture with its rusticated stone, was inspired by the Palazzo Medici, but with more harmonious proportions. Today the palace is used for international expositions like the annual antique show (founded as the Biennale dell'Antiquariato in 1959), fashion shows and other cultural and artistic events. Here also is the seat of the Istituto Nazionale del Rinascimento and the noted Gabinetto Vieusseux, with the library and reading room. There are several other notable places, including the Palazzo Rucellai, designed by Leon Battista Alberti between 1446 and 1451 and executed, at least in part, by Bernardo Rossellino; the Palazzo Davanzati, which houses the museum of the Old Florentine House; the Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali, designed in the Neo-Renaissance style in 1871; the Palazzo Spini Feroni, in Piazza Santa Trinita, a historic 13th-century private palace, owned since the 1920s by shoe-designer Salvatore Ferragamo; as well as various others, including the Palazzo Borghese, the Palazzo di Bianca Cappello, the Palazzo Antinori, and the Royal building of Santa Maria Novella.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Florence contains numerous museums and art galleries where some of the world's most important works of art are held. The city is one of the best preserved Renaissance centres of art and architecture in the world and has a high concentration of art, architecture and culture. In the ranking list of the 15 most visited Italian art museums, ⅔ are represented by Florentine museums. The Uffizi is one of these, having a very large collection of international and Florentine art. The gallery is articulated in many halls, catalogued by schools and chronological order. Engendered by the Medici family's artistic collections through the centuries, it houses works of art by various painters and artists. The Vasari Corridor is another gallery, built connecting the Palazzo Vecchio with the Pitti Palace passing by the Uffizi and over the Ponte Vecchio. The Galleria dell'Accademia houses a Michelangelo collection, including the David. It has a collection of Russian icons and works by various artists and painters. Other museums and galleries include the Bargello, which concentrates on sculpture works by artists including Donatello, Giambologna and Michelangelo; the Palazzo Pitti, containing part of the Medici family's former private collection. In addition to the Medici collection, the palace's galleries contain many Renaissance works, including several by Raphael and Titian, large collections of costumes, ceremonial carriages, silver, porcelain and a gallery of modern art dating from the 18th century. Adjoining the palace are the Boboli Gardens, elaborately landscaped and with numerous sculptures.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "There are several different churches and religious buildings in Florence. The cathedral is Santa Maria del Fiore. The San Giovanni Baptistery located in front of the cathedral, is decorated by numerous artists, notably by Lorenzo Ghiberti with the Gates of Paradise. Other churches in Florence include the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, located in Santa Maria Novella square (near the Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station) which contains works by Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Filippino Lippi and Domenico Ghirlandaio; the Basilica of Santa Croce, the principal Franciscan church in the city, which is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce, about 800 metres (2,600 feet) southeast of the Duomo, and is the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Foscolo, Rossini, thus it is known also as the Temple of the Italian Glories (Tempio dell'Itale Glorie); the Basilica of San Lorenzo, which is one of the largest churches in the city, situated at the centre of Florence's main market district, and the burial place of all the principal members of the Medici family from Cosimo il Vecchio to Cosimo III; Santo Spirito, in the Oltrarno quarter, facing the square with the same name; Orsanmichele, whose building was constructed on the site of the kitchen garden of the monastery of San Michele, now demolished; Santissima Annunziata, a Roman Catholic basilica and the mother church of the Servite order; Ognissanti, which was founded by the lay order of the Umiliati, and is among the first examples of Baroque architecture built in the city; the Santa Maria del Carmine, in the Oltrarno district of Florence, which is the location of the Brancacci Chapel, housing outstanding Renaissance frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino da Panicale, later finished by Filippino Lippi; the Medici Chapel with statues by Michelangelo, in the San Lorenzo; as well as several others, including Santa Trinita, San Marco, Santa Felicita, Badia Fiorentina, San Gaetano, San Miniato al Monte, Florence Charterhouse, and Santa Maria del Carmine. The city additionally contains the Orthodox Russian church of Nativity, and the Great Synagogue of Florence, built in the 19th century.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Florence contains various theatres and cinemas. The Odeon Cinema of the Palazzo dello Strozzino is one of the oldest cinemas in the city. Established from 1920 to 1922 in a wing of the Palazzo dello Strozzino, it used to be called the Cinema Teatro Savoia (Savoy Cinema-Theatre), yet was later called Odeon. The Teatro della Pergola, located in the centre of the city on the eponymous street, is an opera house built in the 17th century. Another theatre is the Teatro Comunale (or Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), originally built as the open-air amphitheatre, the Politeama Fiorentino Vittorio Emanuele, which was inaugurated on 17 May 1862 with a production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and which seated 6,000 people. There are several other theatres, such as the Saloncino Castinelli, the Teatro Puccini, the Teatro Verdi, the Teatro Goldoni and the Teatro Niccolini.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "Florence Cathedral, formally the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, is the cathedral of Florence, Italy. It was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to a design of Arnolfo di Cambio and was structurally completed by 1436, with the dome designed by Filippo Brunelleschi.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "Aside from such monuments, Florence contains numerous major squares (piazze) and streets. The Piazza della Repubblica is a square in the city centre, location of the cultural cafés and bourgeois palaces. Among the square's cafés (like Caffè Gilli, Paszkowski or the Hard Rock Cafè), the Giubbe Rosse café has long been a meeting place for artists and writers, notably those of Futurism. The Piazza Santa Croce is another; dominated by the Basilica of Santa Croce, it is a rectangular square in the centre of the city where the Calcio Fiorentino is played every year. Furthermore, there is the Piazza Santa Trinita, a square near the Arno that mark the end of the Via de' Tornabuoni street.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "Other squares include the Piazza San Marco, the Piazza Santa Maria Novella, the Piazza Beccaria and the Piazza della Libertà. The centre additionally contains several streets. Such include the Via Camillo Cavour, one of the main roads of the northern area of the historic centre; the Via Ghibellina, one of central Florence's longest streets; the Via dei Calzaiuoli, one of the most central streets of the historic centre which links Piazza del Duomo to Piazza della Signoria, winding parallel to via Roma and Piazza della Repubblica; the Via de' Tornabuoni, a luxurious street in the city centre that goes from Antinori square to ponte Santa Trinita, across Piazza Santa Trinita, characterised by the presence of fashion boutiques; the Viali di Circonvallazione, 6-lane boulevards surrounding the northern part of the historic centre; as well as others, such as Via Roma, Via degli Speziali, Via de' Cerretani, and the Viale dei Colli.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "Florence also contains various parks and gardens. Such include the Boboli Gardens, the Parco delle Cascine, the Giardino Bardini and the Giardino dei Semplici, amongst others.",
"title": "Main sights"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "In association football, Florence is represented by ACF Fiorentina, which plays in Serie A, the top league of Italian league system. ACF Fiorentina has won two Italian Championships, in 1956 and 1969, and 6 Italian cups, since their formation in 1926. They play their games at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, which holds 47,282. The women's team, ACF Fiorentina Femminile, have won the women's association football Italian Championship of the 2016–17 season.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "The city is home of the Centro Tecnico Federale di Coverciano, in Coverciano, Florence, the main training ground of the Italian national team, and the technical department of the Italian Football Federation.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "Florence was one of the host cities for cycling's 2013 UCI Road World Championships. The city has also hosted stages of the Giro d'Italia, most recently in 2017.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "Since 2017 Florence is also represented in Eccellenza, the top tier of rugby union league system in Italy, by I Medicei, which is a club established in 2015 by the merging of the senior squads of I Cavalieri (of Prato) and Firenze Rugby 1931. I Medicei won the Serie A Championship in 2016–17 and were promoted to Eccellenza for the 2017–18 season.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "Rari Nantes Florentia is a successful water polo club based in Florence; both its male and female squads have won several Italian championships and the female squad has also European titles in their palmarès.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "The centre of Florence is closed to through-traffic, although buses, taxis and residents with appropriate permits are allowed in. This area is commonly referred to as the ZTL (Zona Traffico Limitato), which is divided into several subsections. Residents of one section, therefore, will only be able to drive in their district and perhaps some surrounding ones. Cars without permits are allowed to enter after 7.30 pm, or before 7.30 am. The rules shift during the tourist-filled summers, putting more restrictions on where one can get in and out.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "ATAF&Li-nea was the bus company who run the principal public transit network in the city; it was one the companies of the consortium ONE Scarl to accomplish the contract stipulated with the Regione Toscana for the public transport in the 2018–2019 period. Individual tickets, or a pass called Carta Agile with multiple rides, are purchased in advance and must be validated once on board. These tickets may be used on ATAF&Li-nea buses, Tramvia and second-class local trains only within city railway stations. The bus fleet consisted of 446 urban, 5 suburban, 20 intercity and 15 tourism buses.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "Intercity bus transit is run by the SITA, COPIT, and CAP Autolinee companies. The transit companies also accommodate travellers from the Amerigo Vespucci Airport, which is 5 km (3 mi) west of the city centre, and which has scheduled services run by major European carriers.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "Since 1 November 2021, the public local transport is operated by Autolinee Toscane.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "In an effort to reduce air pollution and car traffic in the city, a multi-line tram network called Tramvia is under construction. The first line began operation on 14 February 2010 and connects Florence's primary intercity railway station (Santa Maria Novella) with the southwestern suburb of Scandicci. This line is 7.4 km (4+5⁄8 mi) long and has 14 stops. The construction of a second line began on 5 November 2011, construction was stopped due to contractors' difficulties and restarted in 2014 with the new line opening on 11 February 2019. This second line connects Florence's airport with the city centre. A third line (from Santa Maria Novella to the Careggi area, where the most important hospitals of Florence are located) is also under construction.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Florence, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 59 min. 13% of public transit riders ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 14 min, while 22% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 4.1 km, while 3% travel for over 12 km in a single direction.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "The Florence Airport, Peretola, is one of two main airports in the Tuscany region though it is not widely used by popular airlines. The other airport in the Tuscany region is the Galileo Galilei International Airport in Pisa.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "Mobike, a Chinese dockless bike sharing company, has been operating in Florence since July 2017. As of 2019, the company operates 4,000 bikes in Florence. The users scan the QR code on the bike using the Mobike app, and end the ride by parking curbside. The bikes have a fixed rate of €1 every 20 minutes. Since Mobike is a dock-less bike-sharing system, it does not provide stations, therefore the bikes can be left almost anywhere.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station is the main national and international railway station in Florence and is used by 59 million people every year. The building, designed by Giovanni Michelucci, was built in the Italian Rationalism style and it is one of the major rationalist buildings in Italy. It is located in Piazza della Stazione, near the Fortezza da Basso, a masterpiece of the military Renaissance architecture, and the Viali di Circonvallazione, and in front of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella's apse from which it takes its name. As well as numerous high speed trains to major Italian cities Florence is served by international overnight sleeper services to Munich and Vienna operated by Austrian railways ÖBB.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "Train tickets must be validated before boarding. The main bus station is next to Santa Maria Novella railway station. Trenitalia runs trains between the railway stations within the city, and to other destinations around Italy and Europe. The central railway station, Santa Maria Novella, is about 500 m (1,600 ft) northwest of the Piazza del Duomo. There are two other important stations: Campo di Marte and Rifredi. Most bundled routes are Firenze–Pisa, Firenze–Viareggio and Firenze–Arezzo (along the main line to Rome). Other local railways connect Florence with Borgo San Lorenzo in the Mugello area (Faentina railway) and Siena.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "A new high-speed rail station is under construction and is contracted to be operational by 2015. It is planned to be connected to Vespucci airport, Santa Maria Novella railway station, and to the city centre by the second line of Tramvia. The architectural firms Foster + Partners and Lancietti Passaleva Giordo and Associates designed this new rail station.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "The University of Florence was first founded in 1321, and was recognized by Pope Clement VI in 1349. In 2019, over 50,000 students were enrolled at the university. The European University Institute has been based in the suburb of Fiesole since 1976. Several American universities host a campus in Florence. Including New York University, Marist College, Pepperdine, Stanford, Florida State, Kent State, and James Madison. The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies is based in Villa I Tatti. The center for arts and humanities advanced research has been located on the border of Florence, Fiesole and Settignano since 1961. Over 8,000 American students are enrolled for study in Florence, although mostly while studying in US based degree programs.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "The private school, Centro Machiavelli which teaches Italian language and culture to foreigners, is located in Piazza Santo Spirito in Florence.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "Florence is twinned with:",
"title": "International relations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "Florence has friendly relations with:",
"title": "International relations"
}
] |
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 360,930 inhabitants in 2023, and 984,991 in its metropolitan area. Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. The Florentine dialect forms the base of standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini. The city attracts millions of tourists each year, and UNESCO declared the Historic Centre of Florence a World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture and monuments. The city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, Forbes ranked it as one of the most beautiful cities in the world in 2010. Florence plays an important role in Italian fashion, and is ranked in the top 15 fashion capitals of the world by Global Language Monitor; furthermore, it is a major national economic centre, as well as a tourist and industrial hub.
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2001-11-19T13:39:02Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence
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Quotient group
|
A quotient group or factor group is a mathematical group obtained by aggregating similar elements of a larger group using an equivalence relation that preserves some of the group structure (the rest of the structure is "factored" out). For example, the cyclic group of addition modulo n can be obtained from the group of integers under addition by identifying elements that differ by a multiple of n {\displaystyle n} and defining a group structure that operates on each such class (known as a congruence class) as a single entity. It is part of the mathematical field known as group theory.
For a congruence relation on a group, the equivalence class of the identity element is always a normal subgroup of the original group, and the other equivalence classes are precisely the cosets of that normal subgroup. The resulting quotient is written G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} , where G {\displaystyle G} is the original group and N {\displaystyle N} is the normal subgroup. (This is pronounced G mod N {\displaystyle G{\bmod {N}}} , where mod {\displaystyle {\mbox{mod}}} is short for modulo.)
Much of the importance of quotient groups is derived from their relation to homomorphisms. The first isomorphism theorem states that the image of any group G under a homomorphism is always isomorphic to a quotient of G {\displaystyle G} . Specifically, the image of G {\displaystyle G} under a homomorphism φ : G → H {\displaystyle \varphi :G\rightarrow H} is isomorphic to G / ker ( φ ) {\displaystyle G\,/\,\ker(\varphi )} where ker ( φ ) {\displaystyle \ker(\varphi )} denotes the kernel of φ {\displaystyle \varphi } .
The dual notion of a quotient group is a subgroup, these being the two primary ways of forming a smaller group from a larger one. Any normal subgroup has a corresponding quotient group, formed from the larger group by eliminating the distinction between elements of the subgroup. In category theory, quotient groups are examples of quotient objects, which are dual to subobjects.
Given a group G {\displaystyle G} and a subgroup H {\displaystyle H} , and a fixed element a ∈ G {\displaystyle a\in G} , one can consider the corresponding left coset: a H := { a h : h ∈ H } {\displaystyle aH:=\left\{ah:h\in H\right\}} . Cosets are a natural class of subsets of a group; for example consider the abelian group G of integers, with operation defined by the usual addition, and the subgroup H {\displaystyle H} of even integers. Then there are exactly two cosets: 0 + H {\displaystyle 0+H} , which are the even integers, and 1 + H {\displaystyle 1+H} , which are the odd integers (here we are using additive notation for the binary operation instead of multiplicative notation).
For a general subgroup H {\displaystyle H} , it is desirable to define a compatible group operation on the set of all possible cosets, { a H : a ∈ G } {\displaystyle \left\{aH:a\in G\right\}} . This is possible exactly when H {\displaystyle H} is a normal subgroup, see below. A subgroup N {\displaystyle N} of a group G {\displaystyle G} is normal if and only if the coset equality a N = N a {\displaystyle aN=Na} holds for all a ∈ G {\displaystyle a\in G} . A normal subgroup of G {\displaystyle G} is denoted N {\displaystyle N} .
Let N {\displaystyle N} be a normal subgroup of a group G {\displaystyle G} . Define the set G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} to be the set of all left cosets of N {\displaystyle N} in G {\displaystyle G} . That is, G / N = { a N : a ∈ G } {\displaystyle G\,/\,N=\left\{aN:a\in G\right\}} . Since the identity element e ∈ N {\displaystyle e\in N} , a ∈ a N {\displaystyle a\in aN} . Define a binary operation on the set of cosets, G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} , as follows. For each a N {\displaystyle aN} and b N {\displaystyle bN} in G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} , the product of a N {\displaystyle aN} and b N {\displaystyle bN} , ( a N ) ( b N ) {\displaystyle (aN)(bN)} , is ( a b ) N {\displaystyle (ab)N} . This works only because ( a b ) N {\displaystyle (ab)N} does not depend on the choice of the representatives, a {\displaystyle a} and b {\displaystyle b} , of each left coset, a N {\displaystyle aN} and b N {\displaystyle bN} . To prove this, suppose x N = a N {\displaystyle xN=aN} and y N = b N {\displaystyle yN=bN} for some x , y , a , b ∈ G {\displaystyle x,y,a,b\in G} . Then
This depends on the fact that N is a normal subgroup. It still remains to be shown that this condition is not only sufficient but necessary to define the operation on G/N.
To show that it is necessary, consider that for a subgroup N {\displaystyle N} of G {\displaystyle G} , we have been given that the operation is well defined. That is, for all x N = a N {\displaystyle xN=aN} and y N = b N {\displaystyle yN=bN} , for x , y , a , b ∈ G , ( a b ) N = ( x y ) N {\displaystyle x,y,a,b\in G,\;(ab)N=(xy)N} .
Let n ∈ N {\displaystyle n\in N} and g ∈ G {\displaystyle g\in G} . Since e N = n N {\displaystyle eN=nN} , we have g N = ( e g ) N = ( e N ) ( g N ) = ( n N ) ( g N ) = ( n g ) N {\displaystyle gN=(eg)N=(eN)(gN)=(nN)(gN)=(ng)N} .
Now, g N = ( n g ) N ⇔ N = ( g − 1 n g ) N ⇔ g − 1 n g ∈ N , ∀ n ∈ N {\displaystyle gN=(ng)N\Leftrightarrow N=(g^{-1}ng)N\Leftrightarrow g^{-1}ng\in N,\;\forall \,n\in N} and g ∈ G {\displaystyle g\in G} .
Hence N {\displaystyle N} is a normal subgroup of G {\displaystyle G} .
It can also be checked that this operation on G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} is always associative, G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} has identity element N {\displaystyle N} , and the inverse of element a N {\displaystyle aN} can always be represented by a − 1 N {\displaystyle a^{-1}N} . Therefore, the set G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} together with the operation defined by ( a N ) ( b N ) = ( a b ) N {\displaystyle (aN)(bN)=(ab)N} forms a group, the quotient group of G {\displaystyle G} by N {\displaystyle N} .
Due to the normality of N {\displaystyle N} , the left cosets and right cosets of N {\displaystyle N} in G {\displaystyle G} are the same, and so, G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} could have been defined to be the set of right cosets of N {\displaystyle N} in G {\displaystyle G} .
For example, consider the group with addition modulo 6: G = { 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 } {\displaystyle G=\left\{0,1,2,3,4,5\right\}} . Consider the subgroup N = { 0 , 3 } {\displaystyle N=\left\{0,3\right\}} , which is normal because G {\displaystyle G} is abelian. Then the set of (left) cosets is of size three:
The binary operation defined above makes this set into a group, known as the quotient group, which in this case is isomorphic to the cyclic group of order 3.
The reason G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} is called a quotient group comes from division of integers. When dividing 12 by 3 one obtains the answer 4 because one can regroup 12 objects into 4 subcollections of 3 objects. The quotient group is the same idea, although we end up with a group for a final answer instead of a number because groups have more structure than an arbitrary collection of objects.
To elaborate, when looking at G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} with N {\displaystyle N} a normal subgroup of G {\displaystyle G} , the group structure is used to form a natural "regrouping". These are the cosets of N {\displaystyle N} in G {\displaystyle G} . Because we started with a group and normal subgroup, the final quotient contains more information than just the number of cosets (which is what regular division yields), but instead has a group structure itself.
Consider the group of integers Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} } (under addition) and the subgroup 2 Z {\displaystyle 2\mathbb {Z} } consisting of all even integers. This is a normal subgroup, because Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} } is abelian. There are only two cosets: the set of even integers and the set of odd integers, and therefore the quotient group Z / 2 Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} \,/\,2\mathbb {Z} } is the cyclic group with two elements. This quotient group is isomorphic with the set { 0 , 1 } {\displaystyle \left\{0,1\right\}} with addition modulo 2; informally, it is sometimes said that Z / 2 Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} \,/\,2\mathbb {Z} } equals the set { 0 , 1 } {\displaystyle \left\{0,1\right\}} with addition modulo 2.
Example further explained...
A slight generalization of the last example. Once again consider the group of integers Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} } under addition. Let n be any positive integer. We will consider the subgroup n Z {\displaystyle n\mathbb {Z} } of Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} } consisting of all multiples of n {\displaystyle n} . Once again n Z {\displaystyle n\mathbb {Z} } is normal in Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} } because Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} } is abelian. The cosets are the collection { n Z , 1 + n Z , … , ( n − 2 ) + n Z , ( n − 1 ) + n Z } {\displaystyle \left\{n\mathbb {Z} ,1+n\mathbb {Z} ,\;\ldots ,(n-2)+n\mathbb {Z} ,(n-1)+n\mathbb {Z} \right\}} . An integer k {\displaystyle k} belongs to the coset r + n Z {\displaystyle r+n\mathbb {Z} } , where r {\displaystyle r} is the remainder when dividing k {\displaystyle k} by n {\displaystyle n} . The quotient Z / n Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} \,/\,n\mathbb {Z} } can be thought of as the group of "remainders" modulo n {\displaystyle n} . This is a cyclic group of order n {\displaystyle n} .
The twelfth roots of unity, which are points on the complex unit circle, form a multiplicative abelian group G {\displaystyle G} , shown on the picture on the right as colored balls with the number at each point giving its complex argument. Consider its subgroup N {\displaystyle N} made of the fourth roots of unity, shown as red balls. This normal subgroup splits the group into three cosets, shown in red, green and blue. One can check that the cosets form a group of three elements (the product of a red element with a blue element is blue, the inverse of a blue element is green, etc.). Thus, the quotient group G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} is the group of three colors, which turns out to be the cyclic group with three elements.
Consider the group of real numbers R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } under addition, and the subgroup Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} } of integers. Each coset of Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} } in R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } is a set of the form a + Z {\displaystyle a+\mathbb {Z} } , where a {\displaystyle a} is a real number. Since a 1 + Z {\displaystyle a_{1}+\mathbb {Z} } and a 2 + Z {\displaystyle a_{2}+\mathbb {Z} } are identical sets when the non-integer parts of a 1 {\displaystyle a_{1}} and a 2 {\displaystyle a_{2}} are equal, one may impose the restriction 0 ≤ a < 1 {\displaystyle 0\leq a<1} without change of meaning. Adding such cosets is done by adding the corresponding real numbers, and subtracting 1 if the result is greater than or equal to 1. The quotient group R / Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} \,/\,\mathbb {Z} } is isomorphic to the circle group, the group of complex numbers of absolute value 1 under multiplication, or correspondingly, the group of rotations in 2D about the origin, that is, the special orthogonal group SO ( 2 ) {\displaystyle {\mbox{SO}}(2)} . An isomorphism is given by f ( a + Z ) = exp ( 2 π i a ) {\displaystyle f(a+\mathbb {Z} )=\exp(2\pi ia)} (see Euler's identity).
If G {\displaystyle G} is the group of invertible 3 × 3 {\displaystyle 3\times 3} real matrices, and N {\displaystyle N} is the subgroup of 3 × 3 {\displaystyle 3\times 3} real matrices with determinant 1, then N {\displaystyle N} is normal in G {\displaystyle G} (since it is the kernel of the determinant homomorphism). The cosets of N {\displaystyle N} are the sets of matrices with a given determinant, and hence G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} is isomorphic to the multiplicative group of non-zero real numbers. The group N {\displaystyle N} is known as the special linear group SL ( 3 ) {\displaystyle {\mbox{SL}}(3)} .
Consider the abelian group Z 4 = Z / 4 Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} _{4}=\mathbb {Z} \,/\,4\mathbb {Z} } (that is, the set { 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 } {\displaystyle \left\{0,1,2,3\right\}} with addition modulo 4), and its subgroup { 0 , 2 } {\displaystyle \left\{0,2\right\}} . The quotient group Z 4 / { 0 , 2 } {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} _{4}\,/\,\left\{0,2\right\}} is { { 0 , 2 } , { 1 , 3 } } {\displaystyle \left\{\left\{0,2\right\},\left\{1,3\right\}\right\}} . This is a group with identity element { 0 , 2 } {\displaystyle \left\{0,2\right\}} , and group operations such as { 0 , 2 } + { 1 , 3 } = { 1 , 3 } {\displaystyle \left\{0,2\right\}+\left\{1,3\right\}=\left\{1,3\right\}} . Both the subgroup { 0 , 2 } {\displaystyle \left\{0,2\right\}} and the quotient group { { 0 , 2 } , { 1 , 3 } } {\displaystyle \left\{\left\{0,2\right\},\left\{1,3\right\}\right\}} are isomorphic with Z 2 {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} _{2}} .
Consider the multiplicative group G = ( Z n 2 ) × {\displaystyle G=(\mathbb {Z} _{n^{2}})^{\times }} . The set N {\displaystyle N} of n {\displaystyle n} th residues is a multiplicative subgroup isomorphic to ( Z n ) × {\displaystyle (\mathbb {Z} _{n})^{\times }} . Then N {\displaystyle N} is normal in G {\displaystyle G} and the factor group G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} has the cosets N , ( 1 + n ) N , ( 1 + n ) 2 N , … , ( 1 + n ) n − 1 N {\displaystyle N,(1+n)N,(1+n)2N,\;\ldots ,(1+n)n-1N} . The Paillier cryptosystem is based on the conjecture that it is difficult to determine the coset of a random element of G {\displaystyle G} without knowing the factorization of n {\displaystyle n} .
The quotient group G / G {\displaystyle G\,/\,G} is isomorphic to the trivial group (the group with one element), and G / { e } {\displaystyle G\,/\,\left\{e\right\}} is isomorphic to G {\displaystyle G} .
The order of G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} , by definition the number of elements, is equal to | G : N | {\displaystyle \vert G:N\vert } , the index of N {\displaystyle N} in G {\displaystyle G} . If G {\displaystyle G} is finite, the index is also equal to the order of G {\displaystyle G} divided by the order of N {\displaystyle N} . The set G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} may be finite, although both G {\displaystyle G} and N {\displaystyle N} are infinite (for example, Z / 2 Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} \,/\,2\mathbb {Z} } ).
There is a "natural" surjective group homomorphism π : G → G / N {\displaystyle \pi :G\rightarrow G\,/\,N} , sending each element g {\displaystyle g} of G {\displaystyle G} to the coset of N {\displaystyle N} to which g {\displaystyle g} belongs, that is: π ( g ) = g N {\displaystyle \pi (g)=gN} . The mapping π {\displaystyle \pi } is sometimes called the canonical projection of G {\displaystyle G} onto G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} . Its kernel is N {\displaystyle N} .
There is a bijective correspondence between the subgroups of G {\displaystyle G} that contain N {\displaystyle N} and the subgroups of G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} ; if H {\displaystyle H} is a subgroup of G {\displaystyle G} containing N {\displaystyle N} , then the corresponding subgroup of G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} is π ( H ) {\displaystyle \pi (H)} . This correspondence holds for normal subgroups of G {\displaystyle G} and G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} as well, and is formalized in the lattice theorem.
Several important properties of quotient groups are recorded in the fundamental theorem on homomorphisms and the isomorphism theorems.
If G {\displaystyle G} is abelian, nilpotent, solvable, cyclic or finitely generated, then so is G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} .
If H {\displaystyle H} is a subgroup in a finite group G {\displaystyle G} , and the order of H {\displaystyle H} is one half of the order of G {\displaystyle G} , then H {\displaystyle H} is guaranteed to be a normal subgroup, so G / H {\displaystyle G\,/\,H} exists and is isomorphic to C 2 {\displaystyle C_{2}} . This result can also be stated as "any subgroup of index 2 is normal", and in this form it applies also to infinite groups. Furthermore, if p {\displaystyle p} is the smallest prime number dividing the order of a finite group, G {\displaystyle G} , then if G / H {\displaystyle G\,/\,H} has order p {\displaystyle p} , H {\displaystyle H} must be a normal subgroup of G {\displaystyle G} .
Given G {\displaystyle G} and a normal subgroup N {\displaystyle N} , then G {\displaystyle G} is a group extension of G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} by N {\displaystyle N} . One could ask whether this extension is trivial or split; in other words, one could ask whether G {\displaystyle G} is a direct product or semidirect product of N {\displaystyle N} and G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} . This is a special case of the extension problem. An example where the extension is not split is as follows: Let G = Z 4 = { 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 } {\displaystyle G=\mathbb {Z} _{4}=\left\{0,1,2,3\right\}} , and N = { 0 , 2 } {\displaystyle N=\left\{0,2\right\}} , which is isomorphic to Z 2 {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} _{2}} . Then G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} is also isomorphic to Z 2 {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} _{2}} . But Z 2 {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} _{2}} has only the trivial automorphism, so the only semi-direct product of N {\displaystyle N} and G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} is the direct product. Since Z 4 {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} _{4}} is different from Z 2 × Z 2 {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} _{2}\times \mathbb {Z} _{2}} , we conclude that G {\displaystyle G} is not a semi-direct product of N {\displaystyle N} and G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} .
If G {\displaystyle G} is a Lie group and N {\displaystyle N} is a normal and closed (in the topological rather than the algebraic sense of the word) Lie subgroup of G {\displaystyle G} , the quotient G {\displaystyle G} / N {\displaystyle N} is also a Lie group. In this case, the original group G {\displaystyle G} has the structure of a fiber bundle (specifically, a principal N {\displaystyle N} -bundle), with base space G {\displaystyle G} / N {\displaystyle N} and fiber N {\displaystyle N} . The dimension of G {\displaystyle G} / N {\displaystyle N} equals dim G − dim N {\displaystyle \dim G-\dim N} .
Note that the condition that N {\displaystyle N} is closed is necessary. Indeed, if N {\displaystyle N} is not closed then the quotient space is not a T1-space (since there is a coset in the quotient which cannot be separated from the identity by an open set), and thus not a Hausdorff space.
For a non-normal Lie subgroup N {\displaystyle N} , the space G / N {\displaystyle G\,/\,N} of left cosets is not a group, but simply a differentiable manifold on which G {\displaystyle G} acts. The result is known as a homogeneous space.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A quotient group or factor group is a mathematical group obtained by aggregating similar elements of a larger group using an equivalence relation that preserves some of the group structure (the rest of the structure is \"factored\" out). For example, the cyclic group of addition modulo n can be obtained from the group of integers under addition by identifying elements that differ by a multiple of n {\\displaystyle n} and defining a group structure that operates on each such class (known as a congruence class) as a single entity. It is part of the mathematical field known as group theory.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "For a congruence relation on a group, the equivalence class of the identity element is always a normal subgroup of the original group, and the other equivalence classes are precisely the cosets of that normal subgroup. The resulting quotient is written G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} , where G {\\displaystyle G} is the original group and N {\\displaystyle N} is the normal subgroup. (This is pronounced G mod N {\\displaystyle G{\\bmod {N}}} , where mod {\\displaystyle {\\mbox{mod}}} is short for modulo.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Much of the importance of quotient groups is derived from their relation to homomorphisms. The first isomorphism theorem states that the image of any group G under a homomorphism is always isomorphic to a quotient of G {\\displaystyle G} . Specifically, the image of G {\\displaystyle G} under a homomorphism φ : G → H {\\displaystyle \\varphi :G\\rightarrow H} is isomorphic to G / ker ( φ ) {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,\\ker(\\varphi )} where ker ( φ ) {\\displaystyle \\ker(\\varphi )} denotes the kernel of φ {\\displaystyle \\varphi } .",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The dual notion of a quotient group is a subgroup, these being the two primary ways of forming a smaller group from a larger one. Any normal subgroup has a corresponding quotient group, formed from the larger group by eliminating the distinction between elements of the subgroup. In category theory, quotient groups are examples of quotient objects, which are dual to subobjects.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Given a group G {\\displaystyle G} and a subgroup H {\\displaystyle H} , and a fixed element a ∈ G {\\displaystyle a\\in G} , one can consider the corresponding left coset: a H := { a h : h ∈ H } {\\displaystyle aH:=\\left\\{ah:h\\in H\\right\\}} . Cosets are a natural class of subsets of a group; for example consider the abelian group G of integers, with operation defined by the usual addition, and the subgroup H {\\displaystyle H} of even integers. Then there are exactly two cosets: 0 + H {\\displaystyle 0+H} , which are the even integers, and 1 + H {\\displaystyle 1+H} , which are the odd integers (here we are using additive notation for the binary operation instead of multiplicative notation).",
"title": "Definition and illustration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "For a general subgroup H {\\displaystyle H} , it is desirable to define a compatible group operation on the set of all possible cosets, { a H : a ∈ G } {\\displaystyle \\left\\{aH:a\\in G\\right\\}} . This is possible exactly when H {\\displaystyle H} is a normal subgroup, see below. A subgroup N {\\displaystyle N} of a group G {\\displaystyle G} is normal if and only if the coset equality a N = N a {\\displaystyle aN=Na} holds for all a ∈ G {\\displaystyle a\\in G} . A normal subgroup of G {\\displaystyle G} is denoted N {\\displaystyle N} .",
"title": "Definition and illustration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Let N {\\displaystyle N} be a normal subgroup of a group G {\\displaystyle G} . Define the set G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} to be the set of all left cosets of N {\\displaystyle N} in G {\\displaystyle G} . That is, G / N = { a N : a ∈ G } {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N=\\left\\{aN:a\\in G\\right\\}} . Since the identity element e ∈ N {\\displaystyle e\\in N} , a ∈ a N {\\displaystyle a\\in aN} . Define a binary operation on the set of cosets, G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} , as follows. For each a N {\\displaystyle aN} and b N {\\displaystyle bN} in G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} , the product of a N {\\displaystyle aN} and b N {\\displaystyle bN} , ( a N ) ( b N ) {\\displaystyle (aN)(bN)} , is ( a b ) N {\\displaystyle (ab)N} . This works only because ( a b ) N {\\displaystyle (ab)N} does not depend on the choice of the representatives, a {\\displaystyle a} and b {\\displaystyle b} , of each left coset, a N {\\displaystyle aN} and b N {\\displaystyle bN} . To prove this, suppose x N = a N {\\displaystyle xN=aN} and y N = b N {\\displaystyle yN=bN} for some x , y , a , b ∈ G {\\displaystyle x,y,a,b\\in G} . Then",
"title": "Definition and illustration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "This depends on the fact that N is a normal subgroup. It still remains to be shown that this condition is not only sufficient but necessary to define the operation on G/N.",
"title": "Definition and illustration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "To show that it is necessary, consider that for a subgroup N {\\displaystyle N} of G {\\displaystyle G} , we have been given that the operation is well defined. That is, for all x N = a N {\\displaystyle xN=aN} and y N = b N {\\displaystyle yN=bN} , for x , y , a , b ∈ G , ( a b ) N = ( x y ) N {\\displaystyle x,y,a,b\\in G,\\;(ab)N=(xy)N} .",
"title": "Definition and illustration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Let n ∈ N {\\displaystyle n\\in N} and g ∈ G {\\displaystyle g\\in G} . Since e N = n N {\\displaystyle eN=nN} , we have g N = ( e g ) N = ( e N ) ( g N ) = ( n N ) ( g N ) = ( n g ) N {\\displaystyle gN=(eg)N=(eN)(gN)=(nN)(gN)=(ng)N} .",
"title": "Definition and illustration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Now, g N = ( n g ) N ⇔ N = ( g − 1 n g ) N ⇔ g − 1 n g ∈ N , ∀ n ∈ N {\\displaystyle gN=(ng)N\\Leftrightarrow N=(g^{-1}ng)N\\Leftrightarrow g^{-1}ng\\in N,\\;\\forall \\,n\\in N} and g ∈ G {\\displaystyle g\\in G} .",
"title": "Definition and illustration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Hence N {\\displaystyle N} is a normal subgroup of G {\\displaystyle G} .",
"title": "Definition and illustration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "It can also be checked that this operation on G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} is always associative, G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} has identity element N {\\displaystyle N} , and the inverse of element a N {\\displaystyle aN} can always be represented by a − 1 N {\\displaystyle a^{-1}N} . Therefore, the set G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} together with the operation defined by ( a N ) ( b N ) = ( a b ) N {\\displaystyle (aN)(bN)=(ab)N} forms a group, the quotient group of G {\\displaystyle G} by N {\\displaystyle N} .",
"title": "Definition and illustration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Due to the normality of N {\\displaystyle N} , the left cosets and right cosets of N {\\displaystyle N} in G {\\displaystyle G} are the same, and so, G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} could have been defined to be the set of right cosets of N {\\displaystyle N} in G {\\displaystyle G} .",
"title": "Definition and illustration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "For example, consider the group with addition modulo 6: G = { 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 } {\\displaystyle G=\\left\\{0,1,2,3,4,5\\right\\}} . Consider the subgroup N = { 0 , 3 } {\\displaystyle N=\\left\\{0,3\\right\\}} , which is normal because G {\\displaystyle G} is abelian. Then the set of (left) cosets is of size three:",
"title": "Definition and illustration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The binary operation defined above makes this set into a group, known as the quotient group, which in this case is isomorphic to the cyclic group of order 3.",
"title": "Definition and illustration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The reason G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} is called a quotient group comes from division of integers. When dividing 12 by 3 one obtains the answer 4 because one can regroup 12 objects into 4 subcollections of 3 objects. The quotient group is the same idea, although we end up with a group for a final answer instead of a number because groups have more structure than an arbitrary collection of objects.",
"title": "Motivation for the name \"quotient\""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "To elaborate, when looking at G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} with N {\\displaystyle N} a normal subgroup of G {\\displaystyle G} , the group structure is used to form a natural \"regrouping\". These are the cosets of N {\\displaystyle N} in G {\\displaystyle G} . Because we started with a group and normal subgroup, the final quotient contains more information than just the number of cosets (which is what regular division yields), but instead has a group structure itself.",
"title": "Motivation for the name \"quotient\""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Consider the group of integers Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} } (under addition) and the subgroup 2 Z {\\displaystyle 2\\mathbb {Z} } consisting of all even integers. This is a normal subgroup, because Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} } is abelian. There are only two cosets: the set of even integers and the set of odd integers, and therefore the quotient group Z / 2 Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} \\,/\\,2\\mathbb {Z} } is the cyclic group with two elements. This quotient group is isomorphic with the set { 0 , 1 } {\\displaystyle \\left\\{0,1\\right\\}} with addition modulo 2; informally, it is sometimes said that Z / 2 Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} \\,/\\,2\\mathbb {Z} } equals the set { 0 , 1 } {\\displaystyle \\left\\{0,1\\right\\}} with addition modulo 2.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Example further explained...",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "A slight generalization of the last example. Once again consider the group of integers Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} } under addition. Let n be any positive integer. We will consider the subgroup n Z {\\displaystyle n\\mathbb {Z} } of Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} } consisting of all multiples of n {\\displaystyle n} . Once again n Z {\\displaystyle n\\mathbb {Z} } is normal in Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} } because Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} } is abelian. The cosets are the collection { n Z , 1 + n Z , … , ( n − 2 ) + n Z , ( n − 1 ) + n Z } {\\displaystyle \\left\\{n\\mathbb {Z} ,1+n\\mathbb {Z} ,\\;\\ldots ,(n-2)+n\\mathbb {Z} ,(n-1)+n\\mathbb {Z} \\right\\}} . An integer k {\\displaystyle k} belongs to the coset r + n Z {\\displaystyle r+n\\mathbb {Z} } , where r {\\displaystyle r} is the remainder when dividing k {\\displaystyle k} by n {\\displaystyle n} . The quotient Z / n Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} \\,/\\,n\\mathbb {Z} } can be thought of as the group of \"remainders\" modulo n {\\displaystyle n} . This is a cyclic group of order n {\\displaystyle n} .",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The twelfth roots of unity, which are points on the complex unit circle, form a multiplicative abelian group G {\\displaystyle G} , shown on the picture on the right as colored balls with the number at each point giving its complex argument. Consider its subgroup N {\\displaystyle N} made of the fourth roots of unity, shown as red balls. This normal subgroup splits the group into three cosets, shown in red, green and blue. One can check that the cosets form a group of three elements (the product of a red element with a blue element is blue, the inverse of a blue element is green, etc.). Thus, the quotient group G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} is the group of three colors, which turns out to be the cyclic group with three elements.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Consider the group of real numbers R {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} } under addition, and the subgroup Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} } of integers. Each coset of Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} } in R {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} } is a set of the form a + Z {\\displaystyle a+\\mathbb {Z} } , where a {\\displaystyle a} is a real number. Since a 1 + Z {\\displaystyle a_{1}+\\mathbb {Z} } and a 2 + Z {\\displaystyle a_{2}+\\mathbb {Z} } are identical sets when the non-integer parts of a 1 {\\displaystyle a_{1}} and a 2 {\\displaystyle a_{2}} are equal, one may impose the restriction 0 ≤ a < 1 {\\displaystyle 0\\leq a<1} without change of meaning. Adding such cosets is done by adding the corresponding real numbers, and subtracting 1 if the result is greater than or equal to 1. The quotient group R / Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} \\,/\\,\\mathbb {Z} } is isomorphic to the circle group, the group of complex numbers of absolute value 1 under multiplication, or correspondingly, the group of rotations in 2D about the origin, that is, the special orthogonal group SO ( 2 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mbox{SO}}(2)} . An isomorphism is given by f ( a + Z ) = exp ( 2 π i a ) {\\displaystyle f(a+\\mathbb {Z} )=\\exp(2\\pi ia)} (see Euler's identity).",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "If G {\\displaystyle G} is the group of invertible 3 × 3 {\\displaystyle 3\\times 3} real matrices, and N {\\displaystyle N} is the subgroup of 3 × 3 {\\displaystyle 3\\times 3} real matrices with determinant 1, then N {\\displaystyle N} is normal in G {\\displaystyle G} (since it is the kernel of the determinant homomorphism). The cosets of N {\\displaystyle N} are the sets of matrices with a given determinant, and hence G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} is isomorphic to the multiplicative group of non-zero real numbers. The group N {\\displaystyle N} is known as the special linear group SL ( 3 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mbox{SL}}(3)} .",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Consider the abelian group Z 4 = Z / 4 Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} _{4}=\\mathbb {Z} \\,/\\,4\\mathbb {Z} } (that is, the set { 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 } {\\displaystyle \\left\\{0,1,2,3\\right\\}} with addition modulo 4), and its subgroup { 0 , 2 } {\\displaystyle \\left\\{0,2\\right\\}} . The quotient group Z 4 / { 0 , 2 } {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} _{4}\\,/\\,\\left\\{0,2\\right\\}} is { { 0 , 2 } , { 1 , 3 } } {\\displaystyle \\left\\{\\left\\{0,2\\right\\},\\left\\{1,3\\right\\}\\right\\}} . This is a group with identity element { 0 , 2 } {\\displaystyle \\left\\{0,2\\right\\}} , and group operations such as { 0 , 2 } + { 1 , 3 } = { 1 , 3 } {\\displaystyle \\left\\{0,2\\right\\}+\\left\\{1,3\\right\\}=\\left\\{1,3\\right\\}} . Both the subgroup { 0 , 2 } {\\displaystyle \\left\\{0,2\\right\\}} and the quotient group { { 0 , 2 } , { 1 , 3 } } {\\displaystyle \\left\\{\\left\\{0,2\\right\\},\\left\\{1,3\\right\\}\\right\\}} are isomorphic with Z 2 {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} _{2}} .",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Consider the multiplicative group G = ( Z n 2 ) × {\\displaystyle G=(\\mathbb {Z} _{n^{2}})^{\\times }} . The set N {\\displaystyle N} of n {\\displaystyle n} th residues is a multiplicative subgroup isomorphic to ( Z n ) × {\\displaystyle (\\mathbb {Z} _{n})^{\\times }} . Then N {\\displaystyle N} is normal in G {\\displaystyle G} and the factor group G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} has the cosets N , ( 1 + n ) N , ( 1 + n ) 2 N , … , ( 1 + n ) n − 1 N {\\displaystyle N,(1+n)N,(1+n)2N,\\;\\ldots ,(1+n)n-1N} . The Paillier cryptosystem is based on the conjecture that it is difficult to determine the coset of a random element of G {\\displaystyle G} without knowing the factorization of n {\\displaystyle n} .",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The quotient group G / G {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,G} is isomorphic to the trivial group (the group with one element), and G / { e } {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,\\left\\{e\\right\\}} is isomorphic to G {\\displaystyle G} .",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The order of G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} , by definition the number of elements, is equal to | G : N | {\\displaystyle \\vert G:N\\vert } , the index of N {\\displaystyle N} in G {\\displaystyle G} . If G {\\displaystyle G} is finite, the index is also equal to the order of G {\\displaystyle G} divided by the order of N {\\displaystyle N} . The set G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} may be finite, although both G {\\displaystyle G} and N {\\displaystyle N} are infinite (for example, Z / 2 Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} \\,/\\,2\\mathbb {Z} } ).",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "There is a \"natural\" surjective group homomorphism π : G → G / N {\\displaystyle \\pi :G\\rightarrow G\\,/\\,N} , sending each element g {\\displaystyle g} of G {\\displaystyle G} to the coset of N {\\displaystyle N} to which g {\\displaystyle g} belongs, that is: π ( g ) = g N {\\displaystyle \\pi (g)=gN} . The mapping π {\\displaystyle \\pi } is sometimes called the canonical projection of G {\\displaystyle G} onto G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} . Its kernel is N {\\displaystyle N} .",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "There is a bijective correspondence between the subgroups of G {\\displaystyle G} that contain N {\\displaystyle N} and the subgroups of G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} ; if H {\\displaystyle H} is a subgroup of G {\\displaystyle G} containing N {\\displaystyle N} , then the corresponding subgroup of G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} is π ( H ) {\\displaystyle \\pi (H)} . This correspondence holds for normal subgroups of G {\\displaystyle G} and G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} as well, and is formalized in the lattice theorem.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Several important properties of quotient groups are recorded in the fundamental theorem on homomorphisms and the isomorphism theorems.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "If G {\\displaystyle G} is abelian, nilpotent, solvable, cyclic or finitely generated, then so is G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} .",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "If H {\\displaystyle H} is a subgroup in a finite group G {\\displaystyle G} , and the order of H {\\displaystyle H} is one half of the order of G {\\displaystyle G} , then H {\\displaystyle H} is guaranteed to be a normal subgroup, so G / H {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,H} exists and is isomorphic to C 2 {\\displaystyle C_{2}} . This result can also be stated as \"any subgroup of index 2 is normal\", and in this form it applies also to infinite groups. Furthermore, if p {\\displaystyle p} is the smallest prime number dividing the order of a finite group, G {\\displaystyle G} , then if G / H {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,H} has order p {\\displaystyle p} , H {\\displaystyle H} must be a normal subgroup of G {\\displaystyle G} .",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Given G {\\displaystyle G} and a normal subgroup N {\\displaystyle N} , then G {\\displaystyle G} is a group extension of G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} by N {\\displaystyle N} . One could ask whether this extension is trivial or split; in other words, one could ask whether G {\\displaystyle G} is a direct product or semidirect product of N {\\displaystyle N} and G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} . This is a special case of the extension problem. An example where the extension is not split is as follows: Let G = Z 4 = { 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 } {\\displaystyle G=\\mathbb {Z} _{4}=\\left\\{0,1,2,3\\right\\}} , and N = { 0 , 2 } {\\displaystyle N=\\left\\{0,2\\right\\}} , which is isomorphic to Z 2 {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} _{2}} . Then G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} is also isomorphic to Z 2 {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} _{2}} . But Z 2 {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} _{2}} has only the trivial automorphism, so the only semi-direct product of N {\\displaystyle N} and G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} is the direct product. Since Z 4 {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} _{4}} is different from Z 2 × Z 2 {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} _{2}\\times \\mathbb {Z} _{2}} , we conclude that G {\\displaystyle G} is not a semi-direct product of N {\\displaystyle N} and G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} .",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "If G {\\displaystyle G} is a Lie group and N {\\displaystyle N} is a normal and closed (in the topological rather than the algebraic sense of the word) Lie subgroup of G {\\displaystyle G} , the quotient G {\\displaystyle G} / N {\\displaystyle N} is also a Lie group. In this case, the original group G {\\displaystyle G} has the structure of a fiber bundle (specifically, a principal N {\\displaystyle N} -bundle), with base space G {\\displaystyle G} / N {\\displaystyle N} and fiber N {\\displaystyle N} . The dimension of G {\\displaystyle G} / N {\\displaystyle N} equals dim G − dim N {\\displaystyle \\dim G-\\dim N} .",
"title": "Quotients of Lie groups"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Note that the condition that N {\\displaystyle N} is closed is necessary. Indeed, if N {\\displaystyle N} is not closed then the quotient space is not a T1-space (since there is a coset in the quotient which cannot be separated from the identity by an open set), and thus not a Hausdorff space.",
"title": "Quotients of Lie groups"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "For a non-normal Lie subgroup N {\\displaystyle N} , the space G / N {\\displaystyle G\\,/\\,N} of left cosets is not a group, but simply a differentiable manifold on which G {\\displaystyle G} acts. The result is known as a homogeneous space.",
"title": "Quotients of Lie groups"
}
] |
A quotient group or factor group is a mathematical group obtained by aggregating similar elements of a larger group using an equivalence relation that preserves some of the group structure. For example, the cyclic group of addition modulo n can be obtained from the group of integers under addition by identifying elements that differ by a multiple of n and defining a group structure that operates on each such class as a single entity. It is part of the mathematical field known as group theory. For a congruence relation on a group, the equivalence class of the identity element is always a normal subgroup of the original group, and the other equivalence classes are precisely the cosets of that normal subgroup. The resulting quotient is written G / N , where G is the original group and N is the normal subgroup. Much of the importance of quotient groups is derived from their relation to homomorphisms. The first isomorphism theorem states that the image of any group G under a homomorphism is always isomorphic to a quotient of G . Specifically, the image of G under a homomorphism φ : G → H is isomorphic to G / ker where ker denotes the kernel of φ . The dual notion of a quotient group is a subgroup, these being the two primary ways of forming a smaller group from a larger one. Any normal subgroup has a corresponding quotient group, formed from the larger group by eliminating the distinction between elements of the subgroup. In category theory, quotient groups are examples of quotient objects, which are dual to subobjects.
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2001-11-19T14:36:13Z
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2023-09-11T23:23:33Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotient_group
|
11,527 |
Fundamental theorem on homomorphisms
|
In abstract algebra, the fundamental theorem on homomorphisms, also known as the fundamental homomorphism theorem, or the first isomorphism theorem, relates the structure of two objects between which a homomorphism is given, and of the kernel and image of the homomorphism.
The homomorphism theorem is used to prove the isomorphism theorems.
Given two groups G and H and a group homomorphism f : G → H, let N be a normal subgroup in G and φ the natural surjective homomorphism G → G/N (where G/N is the quotient group of G by N). If N is a subset of ker(f) then there exists a unique homomorphism h: G/N → H such that f = h∘φ.
In other words, the natural projection φ is universal among homomorphisms on G that map N to the identity element.
The situation is described by the following commutative diagram:
h is injective if and only if N = ker(f). Therefore, by setting N = ker(f) we immediately get the first isomorphism theorem.
We can write the statement of the fundamental theorem on homomorphisms of groups as "every homomorphic image of a group is isomorphic to a quotient group".
The proof follows from two basic facts about homomorphisms, namely their preservation of the group operation, and their mapping of the identity element to the identity element. We need to show that if ϕ : G → H {\displaystyle \phi :G\to H} is a homomorphism of groups, then: im ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle {\text{im}}(\phi )} is a subgroup of H {\displaystyle H} . G / ker ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle G/\ker(\phi )} is isomorphic to im ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle {\text{im}}(\phi )} .
The operation that is preserved by ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } is the group operation. If a , b ∈ im ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle a,b\in {\text{im}}(\phi )} , then there exist elements a ′ , b ′ ∈ G {\displaystyle a',b'\in G} such that ϕ ( a ′ ) = a {\displaystyle \phi (a')=a} and ϕ ( b ′ ) = b {\displaystyle \phi (b')=b} . For these a {\displaystyle a} and b {\displaystyle b} , we have a b = ϕ ( a ′ ) ϕ ( b ′ ) = ϕ ( a ′ b ′ ) ∈ im ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle ab=\phi (a')\phi (b')=\phi (a'b')\in {\text{im}}(\phi )} (since ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } preserves the group operation), and thus, the closure property is satisfied in im ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle {\text{im}}(\phi )} . The identity element e ∈ H {\displaystyle e\in H} is also in im ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle {\text{im}}(\phi )} because ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } maps the identity element of G {\displaystyle G} to it. Since every element a ′ {\displaystyle a'} in G {\displaystyle G} has an inverse ( a ′ ) − 1 {\displaystyle (a')^{-1}} such that ϕ ( ( a ′ ) − 1 ) = ( ϕ ( a ′ ) ) − 1 {\displaystyle \phi ((a')^{-1})=(\phi (a'))^{-1}} (because ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } preserves the inverse property as well), we have an inverse for each element ϕ ( a ′ ) = a {\displaystyle \phi (a')=a} in im ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle {\text{im}}(\phi )} , therefore, im ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle {\text{im}}(\phi )} is a subgroup of H {\displaystyle H} .
Construct a map ψ : G / ker ( ϕ ) → im ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle \psi :G/\ker(\phi )\to {\text{im}}(\phi )} by ψ ( a ker ( ϕ ) ) = ϕ ( a ) {\displaystyle \psi (a\ker(\phi ))=\phi (a)} . This map is well-defined, as if a ker ( ϕ ) = b ker ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle a\ker(\phi )=b\ker(\phi )} , then b − 1 a ∈ ker ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle b^{-1}a\in \ker(\phi )} and so ϕ ( b − 1 a ) = e ⇒ ϕ ( b − 1 ) ϕ ( a ) = e {\displaystyle \phi (b^{-1}a)=e\Rightarrow \phi (b^{-1})\phi (a)=e} which gives ϕ ( a ) = ϕ ( b ) {\displaystyle \phi (a)=\phi (b)} . This map is an isomorphism. ψ {\displaystyle \psi } is surjective onto im ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle {\text{im}}(\phi )} by definition. To show injectiveness, if ψ ( a ker ( ϕ ) ) = ψ ( b ker ( ϕ ) ) {\displaystyle \psi (a\ker(\phi ))=\psi (b\ker(\phi ))} , then ϕ ( a ) = ϕ ( b ) {\displaystyle \phi (a)=\phi (b)} , which implies b − 1 a ∈ ker ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle b^{-1}a\in \ker(\phi )} so a ker ( ϕ ) = b ker ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle a\ker(\phi )=b\ker(\phi )} .
Finally,
hence ψ {\displaystyle \psi } preserves the group operation. Hence ψ {\displaystyle \psi } is an isomorphism between G / ker ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle G/\ker(\phi )} and im ( ϕ ) {\displaystyle {\text{im}}(\phi )} , which completes the proof.
Similar theorems are valid for monoids, vector spaces, modules, and rings.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In abstract algebra, the fundamental theorem on homomorphisms, also known as the fundamental homomorphism theorem, or the first isomorphism theorem, relates the structure of two objects between which a homomorphism is given, and of the kernel and image of the homomorphism.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The homomorphism theorem is used to prove the isomorphism theorems.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Given two groups G and H and a group homomorphism f : G → H, let N be a normal subgroup in G and φ the natural surjective homomorphism G → G/N (where G/N is the quotient group of G by N). If N is a subset of ker(f) then there exists a unique homomorphism h: G/N → H such that f = h∘φ.",
"title": "Group theoretic version"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In other words, the natural projection φ is universal among homomorphisms on G that map N to the identity element.",
"title": "Group theoretic version"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The situation is described by the following commutative diagram:",
"title": "Group theoretic version"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "h is injective if and only if N = ker(f). Therefore, by setting N = ker(f) we immediately get the first isomorphism theorem.",
"title": "Group theoretic version"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "We can write the statement of the fundamental theorem on homomorphisms of groups as \"every homomorphic image of a group is isomorphic to a quotient group\".",
"title": "Group theoretic version"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The proof follows from two basic facts about homomorphisms, namely their preservation of the group operation, and their mapping of the identity element to the identity element. We need to show that if ϕ : G → H {\\displaystyle \\phi :G\\to H} is a homomorphism of groups, then: im ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle {\\text{im}}(\\phi )} is a subgroup of H {\\displaystyle H} . G / ker ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle G/\\ker(\\phi )} is isomorphic to im ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle {\\text{im}}(\\phi )} .",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The operation that is preserved by ϕ {\\displaystyle \\phi } is the group operation. If a , b ∈ im ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle a,b\\in {\\text{im}}(\\phi )} , then there exist elements a ′ , b ′ ∈ G {\\displaystyle a',b'\\in G} such that ϕ ( a ′ ) = a {\\displaystyle \\phi (a')=a} and ϕ ( b ′ ) = b {\\displaystyle \\phi (b')=b} . For these a {\\displaystyle a} and b {\\displaystyle b} , we have a b = ϕ ( a ′ ) ϕ ( b ′ ) = ϕ ( a ′ b ′ ) ∈ im ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle ab=\\phi (a')\\phi (b')=\\phi (a'b')\\in {\\text{im}}(\\phi )} (since ϕ {\\displaystyle \\phi } preserves the group operation), and thus, the closure property is satisfied in im ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle {\\text{im}}(\\phi )} . The identity element e ∈ H {\\displaystyle e\\in H} is also in im ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle {\\text{im}}(\\phi )} because ϕ {\\displaystyle \\phi } maps the identity element of G {\\displaystyle G} to it. Since every element a ′ {\\displaystyle a'} in G {\\displaystyle G} has an inverse ( a ′ ) − 1 {\\displaystyle (a')^{-1}} such that ϕ ( ( a ′ ) − 1 ) = ( ϕ ( a ′ ) ) − 1 {\\displaystyle \\phi ((a')^{-1})=(\\phi (a'))^{-1}} (because ϕ {\\displaystyle \\phi } preserves the inverse property as well), we have an inverse for each element ϕ ( a ′ ) = a {\\displaystyle \\phi (a')=a} in im ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle {\\text{im}}(\\phi )} , therefore, im ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle {\\text{im}}(\\phi )} is a subgroup of H {\\displaystyle H} .",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Construct a map ψ : G / ker ( ϕ ) → im ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle \\psi :G/\\ker(\\phi )\\to {\\text{im}}(\\phi )} by ψ ( a ker ( ϕ ) ) = ϕ ( a ) {\\displaystyle \\psi (a\\ker(\\phi ))=\\phi (a)} . This map is well-defined, as if a ker ( ϕ ) = b ker ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle a\\ker(\\phi )=b\\ker(\\phi )} , then b − 1 a ∈ ker ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle b^{-1}a\\in \\ker(\\phi )} and so ϕ ( b − 1 a ) = e ⇒ ϕ ( b − 1 ) ϕ ( a ) = e {\\displaystyle \\phi (b^{-1}a)=e\\Rightarrow \\phi (b^{-1})\\phi (a)=e} which gives ϕ ( a ) = ϕ ( b ) {\\displaystyle \\phi (a)=\\phi (b)} . This map is an isomorphism. ψ {\\displaystyle \\psi } is surjective onto im ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle {\\text{im}}(\\phi )} by definition. To show injectiveness, if ψ ( a ker ( ϕ ) ) = ψ ( b ker ( ϕ ) ) {\\displaystyle \\psi (a\\ker(\\phi ))=\\psi (b\\ker(\\phi ))} , then ϕ ( a ) = ϕ ( b ) {\\displaystyle \\phi (a)=\\phi (b)} , which implies b − 1 a ∈ ker ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle b^{-1}a\\in \\ker(\\phi )} so a ker ( ϕ ) = b ker ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle a\\ker(\\phi )=b\\ker(\\phi )} .",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Finally,",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "hence ψ {\\displaystyle \\psi } preserves the group operation. Hence ψ {\\displaystyle \\psi } is an isomorphism between G / ker ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle G/\\ker(\\phi )} and im ( ϕ ) {\\displaystyle {\\text{im}}(\\phi )} , which completes the proof.",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Similar theorems are valid for monoids, vector spaces, modules, and rings.",
"title": "Other versions"
}
] |
In abstract algebra, the fundamental theorem on homomorphisms, also known as the fundamental homomorphism theorem, or the first isomorphism theorem, relates the structure of two objects between which a homomorphism is given, and of the kernel and image of the homomorphism. The homomorphism theorem is used to prove the isomorphism theorems.
|
2001-11-19T17:51:54Z
|
2023-12-07T16:53:34Z
|
[
"Template:Nowrap",
"Template:Citation",
"Template:Short description"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_theorem_on_homomorphisms
|
11,528 |
FCO
|
FCO may mean:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "FCO may mean:",
"title": ""
}
] |
FCO may mean: Buenos Aires Western Railway
Club Ferro Carril Oeste, an Argentine football club
Farm Cove Observatory, in New Zealand
Federal Cartel Office, in Germany
Fellow of the College of Organists
Financial control officer, one of various names for a management-level position responsible for supervising the quality of accounting and financial reporting of an organization, also known as a comptroller
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Fort Collins, Colorado, United States
Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport, near Rome, Italy
Final Certificate of Occupancy
|
2022-08-12T11:37:48Z
|
[
"Template:Lang",
"Template:Disambiguation"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCO
|
|
11,529 |
Fermion
|
In particle physics, a fermion is a particle that follows Fermi–Dirac statistics. Generally, it has a half-odd-integer spin: spin 1/2, spin 3/2, etc. In addition, these particles obey the Pauli exclusion principle. Fermions include all quarks and leptons and all composite particles made of an odd number of these, such as all baryons and many atoms and nuclei. Fermions differ from bosons, which obey Bose–Einstein statistics.
Some fermions are elementary particles (such as electrons), and some are composite particles (such as protons). For example, according to the spin-statistics theorem in relativistic quantum field theory, particles with integer spin are bosons. In contrast, particles with half-integer spin are fermions.
In addition to the spin characteristic, fermions have another specific property: they possess conserved baryon or lepton quantum numbers. Therefore, what is usually referred to as the spin-statistics relation is, in fact, a spin statistics-quantum number relation.
As a consequence of the Pauli exclusion principle, only one fermion can occupy a particular quantum state at a given time. Suppose multiple fermions have the same spatial probability distribution. Then, at least one property of each fermion, such as its spin, must be different. Fermions are usually associated with matter, whereas bosons are generally force carrier particles. However, in the current state of particle physics, the distinction between the two concepts is unclear. Weakly interacting fermions can also display bosonic behavior under extreme conditions. For example, at low temperatures, fermions show superfluidity for uncharged particles and superconductivity for charged particles.
Composite fermions, such as protons and neutrons, are the key building blocks of everyday matter.
English theoretical physicist Paul Dirac coined the name fermion from the surname of Italian physicist Enrico Fermi.
The Standard Model recognizes two types of elementary fermions: quarks and leptons. In all, the model distinguishes 24 different fermions. There are six quarks (up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top), and six leptons (electron, electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, tauon and tauon neutrino), along with the corresponding antiparticle of each of these.
Mathematically, there are many varieties of fermions, with the three most common types being:
Most Standard Model fermions are believed to be Dirac fermions, although it is unknown at this time whether the neutrinos are Dirac or Majorana fermions (or both). Dirac fermions can be treated as a combination of two Weyl fermions. In July 2015, Weyl fermions have been experimentally realized in Weyl semimetals.
Composite particles (such as hadrons, nuclei, and atoms) can be bosons or fermions depending on their constituents. More precisely, because of the relation between spin and statistics, a particle containing an odd number of fermions is itself a fermion. It will have half-integer spin.
Examples include the following:
The number of bosons within a composite particle made up of simple particles bound with a potential has no effect on whether it is a boson or a fermion.
Fermionic or bosonic behavior of a composite particle (or system) is only seen at large (compared to size of the system) distances. At proximity, where spatial structure begins to be important, a composite particle (or system) behaves according to its constituent makeup.
Fermions can exhibit bosonic behavior when they become loosely bound in pairs. This is the origin of superconductivity and the superfluidity of helium-3: in superconducting materials, electrons interact through the exchange of phonons, forming Cooper pairs, while in helium-3, Cooper pairs are formed via spin fluctuations.
The quasiparticles of the fractional quantum Hall effect are also known as composite fermions; they consist of electrons with an even number of quantized vortices attached to them.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In particle physics, a fermion is a particle that follows Fermi–Dirac statistics. Generally, it has a half-odd-integer spin: spin 1/2, spin 3/2, etc. In addition, these particles obey the Pauli exclusion principle. Fermions include all quarks and leptons and all composite particles made of an odd number of these, such as all baryons and many atoms and nuclei. Fermions differ from bosons, which obey Bose–Einstein statistics.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Some fermions are elementary particles (such as electrons), and some are composite particles (such as protons). For example, according to the spin-statistics theorem in relativistic quantum field theory, particles with integer spin are bosons. In contrast, particles with half-integer spin are fermions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In addition to the spin characteristic, fermions have another specific property: they possess conserved baryon or lepton quantum numbers. Therefore, what is usually referred to as the spin-statistics relation is, in fact, a spin statistics-quantum number relation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "As a consequence of the Pauli exclusion principle, only one fermion can occupy a particular quantum state at a given time. Suppose multiple fermions have the same spatial probability distribution. Then, at least one property of each fermion, such as its spin, must be different. Fermions are usually associated with matter, whereas bosons are generally force carrier particles. However, in the current state of particle physics, the distinction between the two concepts is unclear. Weakly interacting fermions can also display bosonic behavior under extreme conditions. For example, at low temperatures, fermions show superfluidity for uncharged particles and superconductivity for charged particles.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Composite fermions, such as protons and neutrons, are the key building blocks of everyday matter.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "English theoretical physicist Paul Dirac coined the name fermion from the surname of Italian physicist Enrico Fermi.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Standard Model recognizes two types of elementary fermions: quarks and leptons. In all, the model distinguishes 24 different fermions. There are six quarks (up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top), and six leptons (electron, electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, tauon and tauon neutrino), along with the corresponding antiparticle of each of these.",
"title": "Elementary fermions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Mathematically, there are many varieties of fermions, with the three most common types being:",
"title": "Elementary fermions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Most Standard Model fermions are believed to be Dirac fermions, although it is unknown at this time whether the neutrinos are Dirac or Majorana fermions (or both). Dirac fermions can be treated as a combination of two Weyl fermions. In July 2015, Weyl fermions have been experimentally realized in Weyl semimetals.",
"title": "Elementary fermions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Composite particles (such as hadrons, nuclei, and atoms) can be bosons or fermions depending on their constituents. More precisely, because of the relation between spin and statistics, a particle containing an odd number of fermions is itself a fermion. It will have half-integer spin.",
"title": "Composite fermions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Examples include the following:",
"title": "Composite fermions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The number of bosons within a composite particle made up of simple particles bound with a potential has no effect on whether it is a boson or a fermion.",
"title": "Composite fermions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Fermionic or bosonic behavior of a composite particle (or system) is only seen at large (compared to size of the system) distances. At proximity, where spatial structure begins to be important, a composite particle (or system) behaves according to its constituent makeup.",
"title": "Composite fermions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Fermions can exhibit bosonic behavior when they become loosely bound in pairs. This is the origin of superconductivity and the superfluidity of helium-3: in superconducting materials, electrons interact through the exchange of phonons, forming Cooper pairs, while in helium-3, Cooper pairs are formed via spin fluctuations.",
"title": "Composite fermions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The quasiparticles of the fractional quantum Hall effect are also known as composite fermions; they consist of electrons with an even number of quantized vortices attached to them.",
"title": "Composite fermions"
}
] |
In particle physics, a fermion is a particle that follows Fermi–Dirac statistics. Generally, it has a half-odd-integer spin: spin 1/2, spin 3/2, etc. In addition, these particles obey the Pauli exclusion principle. Fermions include all quarks and leptons and all composite particles made of an odd number of these, such as all baryons and many atoms and nuclei. Fermions differ from bosons, which obey Bose–Einstein statistics. Some fermions are elementary particles, and some are composite particles. For example, according to the spin-statistics theorem in relativistic quantum field theory, particles with integer spin are bosons. In contrast, particles with half-integer spin are fermions. In addition to the spin characteristic, fermions have another specific property: they possess conserved baryon or lepton quantum numbers. Therefore, what is usually referred to as the spin-statistics relation is, in fact, a spin statistics-quantum number relation. As a consequence of the Pauli exclusion principle, only one fermion can occupy a particular quantum state at a given time. Suppose multiple fermions have the same spatial probability distribution. Then, at least one property of each fermion, such as its spin, must be different. Fermions are usually associated with matter, whereas bosons are generally force carrier particles. However, in the current state of particle physics, the distinction between the two concepts is unclear. Weakly interacting fermions can also display bosonic behavior under extreme conditions. For example, at low temperatures, fermions show superfluidity for uncharged particles and superconductivity for charged particles. Composite fermions, such as protons and neutrons, are the key building blocks of everyday matter. English theoretical physicist Paul Dirac coined the name fermion from the surname of Italian physicist Enrico Fermi.
|
2001-11-19T22:05:42Z
|
2023-11-12T11:44:12Z
|
[
"Template:Cite book",
"Template:Authority control",
"Template:Short description",
"Template:Use dmy dates",
"Template:Sfrac",
"Template:Standard model of particle physics",
"Template:Cols",
"Template:Distinguish",
"Template:Reflist",
"Template:Cite journal",
"Template:Anchor",
"Template:Rp",
"Template:Colend",
"Template:Spoken Wikipedia",
"Template:Particles",
"Template:See also",
"Template:Standard model of physics"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermion
|
11,530 |
Fred Savage
|
Frederick Aaron Savage (born July 9, 1976) is an American actor and director. He is known for his role as Kevin Arnold in the American television series The Wonder Years (1988–1993). He has earned several awards and nominations, such as People's Choice Awards and Young Artist Awards. He is also known for playing the Grandson in The Princess Bride, and voiced the title protagonist in Oswald. Savage has worked as a director, and in 2005 later starred in the television sitcom Crumbs. Savage returned to acting in the television series The Grinder, as well as the Netflix series Friends from College.
Savage was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Joanne and Lewis Savage, who was an industrial real estate broker and consultant. Savage grew up in Glencoe, Illinois, before moving to California. His younger brother is actor Ben Savage and his younger sister is actress/musician Kala Savage. His grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Poland, Ukraine, Germany and Latvia. He was raised as a Reform Jew.
Savage was educated at Brentwood School, a private co-educational day school in Brentwood, in the Westside area of Los Angeles County in California. He graduated from Stanford University in 1999, with a bachelor's degree in English and as a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.
Savage's first screen performance was in the television show Morningstar/Eveningstar, at the age of nine. He then appeared onscreen in The Boy Who Could Fly, Dinosaurs!, and several television shows, including The Twilight Zone and Crime Story before gaining national attention as the grandson in the 1987 film The Princess Bride opposite Peter Falk.
In 1988, Savage appeared as Kevin Arnold on The Wonder Years, the role for which he is best known, and for which he received two Golden Globe nominations and two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. At the age of thirteen, he was the youngest actor ever to receive these honors. He remained on the show until it ended in 1993. During this period, he appeared in several films, most notably Vice Versa (1988), and also starred in Little Monsters. After The Wonder Years ended, Savage returned to high school at age 17, and later attended Stanford. His first television role after high school was the NBC sitcom Working, which Savage starred in for its two-season run. Savage also had a series of guest and supporting roles in the late 1990s and the 2000s such as on the show Boy Meets World, (which starred his younger brother Ben Savage), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Legend of Prince Valiant, and the film Austin Powers in Goldmember as The Mole.
Savage has lent his voice to several animated projects, including Family Guy, Kim Possible, Justice League Unlimited, Oswald, and Holidaze: The Christmas That Almost Didn't Happen. His two lead roles since The Wonder Years were on the short-lived sitcoms Working and Crumbs. He ranked at #27 on VH1's 100 Greatest Kid Stars.
In July 2008, Savage guest-starred in the web series The Rascal on Crackle.
In 2015, Savage returned to acting with the Fox series The Grinder. Producer Nick Stoller approached Savage about playing the role of Stewart on The Grinder. Savage was uninterested at first, but agreed to meet with the producers of the series because his children attended school with Stoller's children. Savage eventually agreed to take on the role. The Grinder was canceled by Fox on May 16, 2016.
In 2017, he joined the cast of the Netflix series Friends from College as Max Adler, a gay literary agent.
In 1999, Savage began his directing career in which he helmed episodes of over a dozen television series. Savage's first directing credit was on the short-lived NBC sitcom Working which also starred Savage. Following Working, Savage began observing production on the Disney Channel show Even Stevens to further learn the craft of directing. Savage also learned by shadowing Amy Sherman-Palladino, Todd Holland, and James Burrows.
His credits include Boy Meets World, Drake & Josh and Ned's Declassified for Nickelodeon, as well as That's So Raven, Hannah Montana, and Wizards of Waverly Place for Disney Channel. Additionally, Savage has directed for prime-time network sitcoms including Modern Family and 2 Broke Girls.
Besides directing several episodes, Savage co-produced the Disney Channel Original Series Phil of the Future. In 2007, he was nominated for a Directors Guild award for the Phil episode "Not-So-Great-Great Grandpa".
Savage has served as a producer for several episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Friends with Benefits, Party Down, Phil of the Future, The Crazy Ones, and Happy Endings.
In 2007, he made his feature film directing debut with the film Daddy Day Camp for which he was nominated worst director for the Golden Raspberry Awards.
In 1993, Savage, then 16, and his Wonder Years co-star Jason Hervey were accused of sexual harassment in a lawsuit filed by the show's former costume designer. Monique Long alleged the young actors "verbally and physically harassed her daily," with her complaints over their behavior ignored by the show's staff. The lawsuit was settled out of court. Actress Alley Mills, who played Arnold family matriarch Norma on the show, called those allegations against Savage "completely ridiculous" in a 2018 interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, claiming the lawsuit prompted The Wonder Years' cancellation after six seasons. "I just thought this was a joke. You know, they bought her off, which really made me mad," she said of network executives' decision to settle with Long. "They wanted to avoid a scandal or something, but it made them look guilty. You know, you don't pay someone off when there was no crime, you just fire the girl." A state welfare worker, who was required to be with Fred Savage at all times under California Labor Law, dismissed the allegations, saying "It's absurd. If Fred said anything, 20 people would have heard it — he was miked most of the time."
In March 2018, a costume designer on The Grinder accused Savage of assault and intimidation and filed a complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging crimes including assault, battery, and gender discrimination. Savage denied the allegations. Fox later stated that an investigation cleared the actor of any wrongdoing.
On May 6, 2022, Savage was fired as executive producer and director of The Wonder Years reboot after an investigation into alleged inappropriate conduct. While Savage stated that some of the claims were untrue, he also stated that he was going to work on changing any perceived negative behavior.
Savage married his childhood friend Jennifer Lynn Stone on August 7, 2004. They have three children.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Frederick Aaron Savage (born July 9, 1976) is an American actor and director. He is known for his role as Kevin Arnold in the American television series The Wonder Years (1988–1993). He has earned several awards and nominations, such as People's Choice Awards and Young Artist Awards. He is also known for playing the Grandson in The Princess Bride, and voiced the title protagonist in Oswald. Savage has worked as a director, and in 2005 later starred in the television sitcom Crumbs. Savage returned to acting in the television series The Grinder, as well as the Netflix series Friends from College.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Savage was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Joanne and Lewis Savage, who was an industrial real estate broker and consultant. Savage grew up in Glencoe, Illinois, before moving to California. His younger brother is actor Ben Savage and his younger sister is actress/musician Kala Savage. His grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Poland, Ukraine, Germany and Latvia. He was raised as a Reform Jew.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Savage was educated at Brentwood School, a private co-educational day school in Brentwood, in the Westside area of Los Angeles County in California. He graduated from Stanford University in 1999, with a bachelor's degree in English and as a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Savage's first screen performance was in the television show Morningstar/Eveningstar, at the age of nine. He then appeared onscreen in The Boy Who Could Fly, Dinosaurs!, and several television shows, including The Twilight Zone and Crime Story before gaining national attention as the grandson in the 1987 film The Princess Bride opposite Peter Falk.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1988, Savage appeared as Kevin Arnold on The Wonder Years, the role for which he is best known, and for which he received two Golden Globe nominations and two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. At the age of thirteen, he was the youngest actor ever to receive these honors. He remained on the show until it ended in 1993. During this period, he appeared in several films, most notably Vice Versa (1988), and also starred in Little Monsters. After The Wonder Years ended, Savage returned to high school at age 17, and later attended Stanford. His first television role after high school was the NBC sitcom Working, which Savage starred in for its two-season run. Savage also had a series of guest and supporting roles in the late 1990s and the 2000s such as on the show Boy Meets World, (which starred his younger brother Ben Savage), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Legend of Prince Valiant, and the film Austin Powers in Goldmember as The Mole.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Savage has lent his voice to several animated projects, including Family Guy, Kim Possible, Justice League Unlimited, Oswald, and Holidaze: The Christmas That Almost Didn't Happen. His two lead roles since The Wonder Years were on the short-lived sitcoms Working and Crumbs. He ranked at #27 on VH1's 100 Greatest Kid Stars.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In July 2008, Savage guest-starred in the web series The Rascal on Crackle.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 2015, Savage returned to acting with the Fox series The Grinder. Producer Nick Stoller approached Savage about playing the role of Stewart on The Grinder. Savage was uninterested at first, but agreed to meet with the producers of the series because his children attended school with Stoller's children. Savage eventually agreed to take on the role. The Grinder was canceled by Fox on May 16, 2016.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 2017, he joined the cast of the Netflix series Friends from College as Max Adler, a gay literary agent.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 1999, Savage began his directing career in which he helmed episodes of over a dozen television series. Savage's first directing credit was on the short-lived NBC sitcom Working which also starred Savage. Following Working, Savage began observing production on the Disney Channel show Even Stevens to further learn the craft of directing. Savage also learned by shadowing Amy Sherman-Palladino, Todd Holland, and James Burrows.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "His credits include Boy Meets World, Drake & Josh and Ned's Declassified for Nickelodeon, as well as That's So Raven, Hannah Montana, and Wizards of Waverly Place for Disney Channel. Additionally, Savage has directed for prime-time network sitcoms including Modern Family and 2 Broke Girls.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Besides directing several episodes, Savage co-produced the Disney Channel Original Series Phil of the Future. In 2007, he was nominated for a Directors Guild award for the Phil episode \"Not-So-Great-Great Grandpa\".",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Savage has served as a producer for several episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Friends with Benefits, Party Down, Phil of the Future, The Crazy Ones, and Happy Endings.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 2007, he made his feature film directing debut with the film Daddy Day Camp for which he was nominated worst director for the Golden Raspberry Awards.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In 1993, Savage, then 16, and his Wonder Years co-star Jason Hervey were accused of sexual harassment in a lawsuit filed by the show's former costume designer. Monique Long alleged the young actors \"verbally and physically harassed her daily,\" with her complaints over their behavior ignored by the show's staff. The lawsuit was settled out of court. Actress Alley Mills, who played Arnold family matriarch Norma on the show, called those allegations against Savage \"completely ridiculous\" in a 2018 interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, claiming the lawsuit prompted The Wonder Years' cancellation after six seasons. \"I just thought this was a joke. You know, they bought her off, which really made me mad,\" she said of network executives' decision to settle with Long. \"They wanted to avoid a scandal or something, but it made them look guilty. You know, you don't pay someone off when there was no crime, you just fire the girl.\" A state welfare worker, who was required to be with Fred Savage at all times under California Labor Law, dismissed the allegations, saying \"It's absurd. If Fred said anything, 20 people would have heard it — he was miked most of the time.\"",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In March 2018, a costume designer on The Grinder accused Savage of assault and intimidation and filed a complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging crimes including assault, battery, and gender discrimination. Savage denied the allegations. Fox later stated that an investigation cleared the actor of any wrongdoing.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "On May 6, 2022, Savage was fired as executive producer and director of The Wonder Years reboot after an investigation into alleged inappropriate conduct. While Savage stated that some of the claims were untrue, he also stated that he was going to work on changing any perceived negative behavior.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Savage married his childhood friend Jennifer Lynn Stone on August 7, 2004. They have three children.",
"title": "Personal life"
}
] |
Frederick Aaron Savage is an American actor and director. He is known for his role as Kevin Arnold in the American television series The Wonder Years (1988–1993). He has earned several awards and nominations, such as People's Choice Awards and Young Artist Awards. He is also known for playing the Grandson in The Princess Bride, and voiced the title protagonist in Oswald. Savage has worked as a director, and in 2005 later starred in the television sitcom Crumbs. Savage returned to acting in the television series The Grinder, as well as the Netflix series Friends from College.
|
2001-11-20T00:30:25Z
|
2023-11-12T08:10:07Z
|
[
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"Template:Reflist",
"Template:Cite news",
"Template:Cite magazine",
"Template:IMDb name",
"Template:Other people",
"Template:Infobox person",
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"Template:Short description",
"Template:Use American English",
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] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Savage
|
11,531 |
Futurians
|
The Futurians were a group of science fiction (SF) fans, many of whom became editors and writers as well. The Futurians were based in New York City and were a major force in the development of science fiction writing and science fiction fandom in the years 1937–1945.
As described in Isaac Asimov's 1979 autobiography In Memory Yet Green, the Futurians spun off from the Greater New York Science Fiction Club (headed by Sam Moskowitz, later an influential SF editor and historian) over ideological differences, with the Futurians wishing to take a more overtly Marxist political stance. Other sources indicate that Donald A. Wollheim was pushing for a more left-wing direction with a goal of leading fandom toward a political ideal, all of which Moskowitz resisted. As a result, Wollheim broke off from the Greater New York group and founded the Futurians in September, 1938. The fans following Moskowitz reorganized into the Queens Science Fiction Club.
Frederik Pohl, in his autobiography The Way the Future Was, said that the origin of the Futurians lay with the Science Fiction League founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1934, the local New York City chapter of which was called the "Brooklyn Science Fiction League" or BSFL, headed by G. G. Clark.
Wollheim, John Michel, and Robert A. W. Lowndes were also members of the BSFL. Along with Pohl, the four started calling themselves the "Quadrumvirate". Pohl, commenting about that time, said "we four marched from Brooklyn to the sea, leaving a wide scar of burned out clubs behind us. We changed clubs the way Detroit changes tailfins, every year had a new one, and last year's was junk".
There were several club names during that period, before finally settling on the Futurians. In 1935 there was the "East New York Science Fiction League" (ENYSFL), later the "Independent League for Science Fiction" (ILSF). In 1936 came the International Cosmos Science Club (ICSC), which also involved Will Sykora. Pohl then says that "on reflection 'Cosmos' seemed to take in a bit more territory than was justified, so we changed it to the International Scientific Association (it wasn't International either, but then it also wasn't scientific)". The ISA then was renamed New York Branch-International Scientific Association (NYB-ISA).
In 1937, after a falling-out with Will Sykora and others, the "Quadrumvirate" went on to found the Futurians. Sykora then founded the Queens Science Fiction League with Sam Moskowitz and James V. Taurasi. Later, the QSFL changed into New Fandom. Pohl said the New Fandom and the Futurians were "Addicted to Feuds", that "No CIA nor KGB ever wrestled so valiantly for the soul of an emerging nation as New Fandom and the Futurians did for science fiction".
Most of the group's members also had professional ambitions within science fiction and related fields, and collectively were very effective at achieving this goal, as the roster of members suggests. At one point in the earliest 1940s, approximately half of all the pulp SF and fantasy magazines in the U.S. were being edited by Futurians: Frederik Pohl at the Popular Publications offshoot Fictioneers, Inc. (Astonishing Stories and Super-Science Stories); Robert Lowndes at Columbia Publications, most notably with Science Fiction and Future Fiction (though through the decade to come, Lowndes's responsibilities would expand to other types of fiction magazine in the chain), and Donald Wollheim at the very marginal Albing Publications with the short-lived, micro-budgeted Cosmic Stories and Stirring Science Stories (Wollheim soon moved on to Avon Books; Doë "Leslie Perri" Baumgardt also worked on a romance fiction title for Albing). Most of these projects had small editorial budgets, and relied in part, or occasionally entirely, on contributions from fellow Futurians for their contents.
At the time the Futurians were formed, Donald Wollheim was strongly attracted by communism and believed that followers of science fiction "should actively work for the realization of the scientific world-state as the only genuine justification for their activities and existence". It was to this end that Wollheim formed the Futurians, and many of its members were in some degree interested in the political applications of science fiction. Members of the Futurians, including Wollheim, Michel, Lowndes, and Cohen briefly became interested in Technocracy, a utopian movement led by Howard Scott, and attended a study course, although they later dismissed Scott as a "crackpot".
Hence the group included supporters of Trotskyism, like Judith Merril and others who would have been deemed far left for the era (Frederik Pohl became a member of the Communist Party in 1936, but quit in 1939).
Pohl, in his autobiography, The Way the Future Was, said Wollheim voted for Republican Presidential Candidate Alfred Landon in 1936.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Futurians were a group of science fiction (SF) fans, many of whom became editors and writers as well. The Futurians were based in New York City and were a major force in the development of science fiction writing and science fiction fandom in the years 1937–1945.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "As described in Isaac Asimov's 1979 autobiography In Memory Yet Green, the Futurians spun off from the Greater New York Science Fiction Club (headed by Sam Moskowitz, later an influential SF editor and historian) over ideological differences, with the Futurians wishing to take a more overtly Marxist political stance. Other sources indicate that Donald A. Wollheim was pushing for a more left-wing direction with a goal of leading fandom toward a political ideal, all of which Moskowitz resisted. As a result, Wollheim broke off from the Greater New York group and founded the Futurians in September, 1938. The fans following Moskowitz reorganized into the Queens Science Fiction Club.",
"title": "Origins of the group"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Frederik Pohl, in his autobiography The Way the Future Was, said that the origin of the Futurians lay with the Science Fiction League founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1934, the local New York City chapter of which was called the \"Brooklyn Science Fiction League\" or BSFL, headed by G. G. Clark.",
"title": "Origins of the group"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Wollheim, John Michel, and Robert A. W. Lowndes were also members of the BSFL. Along with Pohl, the four started calling themselves the \"Quadrumvirate\". Pohl, commenting about that time, said \"we four marched from Brooklyn to the sea, leaving a wide scar of burned out clubs behind us. We changed clubs the way Detroit changes tailfins, every year had a new one, and last year's was junk\".",
"title": "Origins of the group"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "There were several club names during that period, before finally settling on the Futurians. In 1935 there was the \"East New York Science Fiction League\" (ENYSFL), later the \"Independent League for Science Fiction\" (ILSF). In 1936 came the International Cosmos Science Club (ICSC), which also involved Will Sykora. Pohl then says that \"on reflection 'Cosmos' seemed to take in a bit more territory than was justified, so we changed it to the International Scientific Association (it wasn't International either, but then it also wasn't scientific)\". The ISA then was renamed New York Branch-International Scientific Association (NYB-ISA).",
"title": "Origins of the group"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1937, after a falling-out with Will Sykora and others, the \"Quadrumvirate\" went on to found the Futurians. Sykora then founded the Queens Science Fiction League with Sam Moskowitz and James V. Taurasi. Later, the QSFL changed into New Fandom. Pohl said the New Fandom and the Futurians were \"Addicted to Feuds\", that \"No CIA nor KGB ever wrestled so valiantly for the soul of an emerging nation as New Fandom and the Futurians did for science fiction\".",
"title": "Origins of the group"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Most of the group's members also had professional ambitions within science fiction and related fields, and collectively were very effective at achieving this goal, as the roster of members suggests. At one point in the earliest 1940s, approximately half of all the pulp SF and fantasy magazines in the U.S. were being edited by Futurians: Frederik Pohl at the Popular Publications offshoot Fictioneers, Inc. (Astonishing Stories and Super-Science Stories); Robert Lowndes at Columbia Publications, most notably with Science Fiction and Future Fiction (though through the decade to come, Lowndes's responsibilities would expand to other types of fiction magazine in the chain), and Donald Wollheim at the very marginal Albing Publications with the short-lived, micro-budgeted Cosmic Stories and Stirring Science Stories (Wollheim soon moved on to Avon Books; Doë \"Leslie Perri\" Baumgardt also worked on a romance fiction title for Albing). Most of these projects had small editorial budgets, and relied in part, or occasionally entirely, on contributions from fellow Futurians for their contents.",
"title": "Origins of the group"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "At the time the Futurians were formed, Donald Wollheim was strongly attracted by communism and believed that followers of science fiction \"should actively work for the realization of the scientific world-state as the only genuine justification for their activities and existence\". It was to this end that Wollheim formed the Futurians, and many of its members were in some degree interested in the political applications of science fiction. Members of the Futurians, including Wollheim, Michel, Lowndes, and Cohen briefly became interested in Technocracy, a utopian movement led by Howard Scott, and attended a study course, although they later dismissed Scott as a \"crackpot\".",
"title": "Political tendencies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Hence the group included supporters of Trotskyism, like Judith Merril and others who would have been deemed far left for the era (Frederik Pohl became a member of the Communist Party in 1936, but quit in 1939).",
"title": "Political tendencies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Pohl, in his autobiography, The Way the Future Was, said Wollheim voted for Republican Presidential Candidate Alfred Landon in 1936.",
"title": "Political tendencies"
}
] |
The Futurians were a group of science fiction (SF) fans, many of whom became editors and writers as well. The Futurians were based in New York City and were a major force in the development of science fiction writing and science fiction fandom in the years 1937–1945.
|
2001-11-20T00:43:27Z
|
2023-10-17T05:37:06Z
|
[
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"Template:Cite web",
"Template:Short description",
"Template:Cite journal",
"Template:Dead link",
"Template:Cite book",
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] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurians
|
11,532 |
First Fandom
|
First Fandom is an informal association of early, active and well-known science fiction fans.
In 1958 a number of fans at Midwestcon realized amid table-talk that they all had been active in fandom for more than 20 years. This inspired the creation of an organization for longstanding fans under the initial chairmanship of Robert A. Madle, who "in 1958 suggested the idea of forming an organization called First Fandom". Originally only those fans who were known to have been active in fandom before the cutoff date, January 1, 1938, were eligible. Such fannish activity (or "fanac") including writing to letter columns in science fiction magazines, having been published in fanzines, or having participated in science fiction oriented clubs, or just generally doing fannish things.
The term itself is an oblique reference to Olaf Stapledon's classic science fiction epic Last and First Men. In this book the stages of mankind are enumerated. Thus early 1950s historian of fandom Jack Speer began to label successive generations of fans as First Fandom, Second Fandom, Third Fandom, and so forth... all the way to Seventh Fandom and beyond.
Currently the organization allows several classes of membership. For example, a Dinosaur is a member who was active before the first Worldcon (World Science Fiction Convention) held on July 4, 1939, while Associate Membership requires provable activity in fandom for more than three decades.
First Fandom annually presents its First Fandom Hall of Fame award and Sam Moskowitz Archive Award for excellence in science fiction collecting. at the beginning of the Hugo Awards Ceremony at the World Science Fiction Convention.
There is an analogous informal society in Finnish fandom called the Dinosaur Club; the cutoff being the first major Finnish con Kingcon.
First Fandom recognizes people for their work within the science-fiction community.
This award "is presented annually for contributions to the field of science fiction dating back more than 30 years. Contributions can be as a fan, writer, editor, artist, agent, or any combination of the five." It is usually presented at the Hugo Awards.
See full article.
This award "is presented for contributions to the field of science fiction dating back more than 30 years. The Posthumous Hall of Fame award was established as a separate and equal award with unique criteria in 1994 at Rivercon XIX" and is also usually presented at the Hugos.
This award is "for excellence in science fiction collecting. Most years, the award is presented at the World Science Fiction Convention."
1. Bob Madle's American Letter, Nebula Science Fiction 1959.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "First Fandom is an informal association of early, active and well-known science fiction fans.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In 1958 a number of fans at Midwestcon realized amid table-talk that they all had been active in fandom for more than 20 years. This inspired the creation of an organization for longstanding fans under the initial chairmanship of Robert A. Madle, who \"in 1958 suggested the idea of forming an organization called First Fandom\". Originally only those fans who were known to have been active in fandom before the cutoff date, January 1, 1938, were eligible. Such fannish activity (or \"fanac\") including writing to letter columns in science fiction magazines, having been published in fanzines, or having participated in science fiction oriented clubs, or just generally doing fannish things.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The term itself is an oblique reference to Olaf Stapledon's classic science fiction epic Last and First Men. In this book the stages of mankind are enumerated. Thus early 1950s historian of fandom Jack Speer began to label successive generations of fans as First Fandom, Second Fandom, Third Fandom, and so forth... all the way to Seventh Fandom and beyond.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Currently the organization allows several classes of membership. For example, a Dinosaur is a member who was active before the first Worldcon (World Science Fiction Convention) held on July 4, 1939, while Associate Membership requires provable activity in fandom for more than three decades.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "First Fandom annually presents its First Fandom Hall of Fame award and Sam Moskowitz Archive Award for excellence in science fiction collecting. at the beginning of the Hugo Awards Ceremony at the World Science Fiction Convention.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "There is an analogous informal society in Finnish fandom called the Dinosaur Club; the cutoff being the first major Finnish con Kingcon.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "First Fandom recognizes people for their work within the science-fiction community.",
"title": "Awards"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "This award \"is presented annually for contributions to the field of science fiction dating back more than 30 years. Contributions can be as a fan, writer, editor, artist, agent, or any combination of the five.\" It is usually presented at the Hugo Awards.",
"title": "Awards"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "See full article.",
"title": "Awards"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "This award \"is presented for contributions to the field of science fiction dating back more than 30 years. The Posthumous Hall of Fame award was established as a separate and equal award with unique criteria in 1994 at Rivercon XIX\" and is also usually presented at the Hugos.",
"title": "Awards"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "This award is \"for excellence in science fiction collecting. Most years, the award is presented at the World Science Fiction Convention.\"",
"title": "Awards"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "1. Bob Madle's American Letter, Nebula Science Fiction 1959.",
"title": "References"
}
] |
First Fandom is an informal association of early, active and well-known science fiction fans. In 1958 a number of fans at Midwestcon realized amid table-talk that they all had been active in fandom for more than 20 years. This inspired the creation of an organization for longstanding fans under the initial chairmanship of Robert A. Madle, who "in 1958 suggested the idea of forming an organization called First Fandom". Originally only those fans who were known to have been active in fandom before the cutoff date, January 1, 1938, were eligible. Such fannish activity including writing to letter columns in science fiction magazines, having been published in fanzines, or having participated in science fiction oriented clubs, or just generally doing fannish things. The term itself is an oblique reference to Olaf Stapledon's classic science fiction epic Last and First Men. In this book the stages of mankind are enumerated. Thus early 1950s historian of fandom Jack Speer began to label successive generations of fans as First Fandom, Second Fandom, Third Fandom, and so forth... all the way to Seventh Fandom and beyond. Currently the organization allows several classes of membership. For example, a Dinosaur is a member who was active before the first Worldcon held on July 4, 1939, while Associate Membership requires provable activity in fandom for more than three decades. First Fandom annually presents its First Fandom Hall of Fame award and Sam Moskowitz Archive Award for excellence in science fiction collecting. at the beginning of the Hugo Awards Ceremony at the World Science Fiction Convention. There is an analogous informal society in Finnish fandom called the Dinosaur Club; the cutoff being the first major Finnish con Kingcon.
|
2023-04-03T23:53:23Z
|
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"Template:Short description",
"Template:One source",
"Template:Div col",
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Fandom
|
|
11,536 |
Fianna Fáil
|
Fianna Fáil (/fiˌænə ˈfɔɪl, ˌfiːənə -/, Irish: [ˌfʲiən̪ˠə ˈfˠaːlʲ] ; meaning 'Soldiers of Destiny' or 'Warriors of Fál'), officially Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party (Irish: Fianna Fáil – An Páirtí Poblachtánach), is a conservative and Christian-democratic political party registered in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The party was founded as a republican party on 16 May 1926 by Éamon de Valera and his supporters after they split from Sinn Féin. De Valera and his followers were determined to take seats in the Oireachtas while Sinn Féin's policy was to refuse to recognise it. Since 1927, Fianna Fáil has been one of Ireland's two major parties, along with Fine Gael since 1933; both are seen as centre-right parties, to the right of the Labour Party and Sinn Féin. The party dominated Irish political life for most of the 20th century, and, since its foundation, either it or Fine Gael has led every government. Between 1932 and 2011, it was the largest party in Dáil Éireann, but latterly with a decline in its vote share; from 1989 onwards, its periods of government were in coalition with parties of either the left or the right.
Fianna Fáil's vote collapsed in the 2011 general election; it emerged in third place, in what was widely seen as a political realignment in the wake of the post-2008 Irish economic downturn. By 2016, it had recovered enough to become the largest opposition party, and it entered a confidence and supply arrangement with a Fine Gael–led minority government. In 2020, after a number of months of political stalemate following the general election, Fianna Fáil agreed with Fine Gael and the Green Party to enter into an unprecedented coalition, with the leaders of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael rotating between the roles of Taoiseach and Tánaiste.
Fianna Fáil is a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and of Liberal International. From February 2019 to September 2022, Fianna Fáil was in partnership with the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland.
Fianna Fáil was founded by Éamon de Valera, a former leader of Sinn Féin. He and a number of other members split from Sinn Féin when a motion he proposed—which called for elected members to be allowed to take their seats in Dáil Éireann if and when the controversial Oath of Allegiance was removed—failed to pass at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in 1926. His new party adopted its name on 2 April of the same year. While it was also opposed to the Treaty settlement, it rejected abstentionism, instead aiming to republicanise the Irish Free State from within. Fianna Fáil's platform of economic autarky had appeal among the farmers, working-class people and the poor, while alienating more affluent classes. It largely pre-empted voters of the aforementioned groups from the Labour Party (with its almost identical economic and social policy) following its entry into the Dáil in 1927. Fianna Fáil would go on to style themselves for several decades as "the real Labour Party."
Cumann na nGaedheal sought to exploit the notion that Fianna Fáil was a party in thrall to communists. During the 1932 general election campaign, Cumann na Gaedheal declared in a newspaper advert that "the gunmen and Communists are voting for Fianna Fáil today – vote for the Government party." However, Fianna Fáil won the election. The party first entered government on 9 March 1932. It was in power for 61 of the 79 years between then and the election of 2011. Its longest continuous period in office has been 15 years and 11 months (March 1932 – February 1948). Its longest single period out of office in the 20th century was four years and four months (March 1973 – July 1977). All of the party's leaders have served as Taoiseach.
The party's most dominant era was the 41-year period between 1932 and 1973, when party leaders Éamon de Valera, Seán Lemass and Jack Lynch served as Taoiseach in an almost unbroken chain save for six years that John A. Costello of Fine Gael briefly interrupted. De Valera's reign is acknowledged for having successfully guided Ireland through World War II unscathed but is criticised for leaving Ireland in economic and cultural stagnation. His successors such as Lemass however were able to turn around Ireland's economic fortunes as well as primed the country for entry into the European Economic Community, later the European Union.
Fianna Fáil's fortunes began to falter in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1970 the Arms Crisis threatened to split the entire party in two when Fianna Fáil cabinet ministers Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney were dismissed by Jack Lynch after being accused of seeking to provide arms to the newly emergent Provisional Irish Republican Army. Factional infighting over Northern Ireland, economics and the "moral issues" such as the legalization of divorce, abortion, and contraception plagued the party in this era and grew particularly intense when Charles Haughey later became party leader. Under Haughey, Fianna Fáil lost both the 1981 general election and November 1982 general election to Garret FitzGerald's Fine Gael during a particularly chaotic time in Ireland's political and economic history. Numerous failed internal attempts to oust Haughey as leader of the party culminated in the most significant split in the party's history when a large portion of the membership walked out to create the Progressive Democrats in 1985, under the leadership of Haughey archrival Desmond O'Malley. Haughey was forced to resign as Taoiseach and party leader in 1992 following revelations about his role in a phone tapping scandal.
Although the two parties had seemed poised to be bitter enemies owing to the personal conflicts between the memberships, from 1989 onwards Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats served repeatedly in coalition governments together, helping to stabilise Fianna Fáil. In 1994 Fianna Fáil came under the new leadership of Haughey protégé Bertie Ahern, who also became Taoiseach in 1997. Under Ahern, Fianna Fáil was able to claim credit for helping to broker the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 which began the peace process in Northern Ireland, as well the economic upswing caused by the Celtic Tiger which saw Ireland's economy boom during the 2000s. However, this momentum came to a sharp and sudden halt following two events. Firstly, Ahern was forced to resign as Taoiseach and left the party in 2008 following revelations made in the Mahon Tribunal that Ahern had accepted money from property developers. Secondly, the party, which was still in government under a new leader and Taoiseach Brian Cowen, was held responsible for the effects of the post-2008 Irish economic downturn. The party's popularity crashed: an opinion poll on 27 February 2009 indicated that only 10% of voters were satisfied with the Government's performance.
In the 2011 general election, it suffered the worst defeat of a sitting government in the history of the Irish state. This loss was described as "historic" in its proportions and "unthinkable". The party sank from being the largest in the Dáil to the third-largest, losing 58 of its 78 seats. This broke 79 consecutive years of Fianna Fáil being the largest single party in the Dáil. That election took place with Micheál Martin as leader, as Cowen had resigned as party leader in January 2011, although retained his role as Taoiseach until the election. Cowen's premiership was sharply criticised in the media, with The Sunday Times describing Cowen's tenure as Taoiseach as "a dismal failure" and in 2011 the Irish Independent calling Cowen the "worst Taoiseach in the history of the State."
Martin continued to lead Fianna Fáil past 2011; In the 2016 general election Martin's Fianna Fáil made a moderate recovery while Fine Gael retained control of the government as a minority government, made possible by a confidence and supply agreement with Fianna Fáíl. In 2018 the party was divided internally over how the party would handle that year's referendum on the Eighth Amendment, the provision in the Irish constitution which forbade abortion, with a significant portion of both the parliamentary party and the ordinary membership in favour of a No vote. Leader Micheál Martin signalled his own desire for a Yes vote, but was unable to bring the party under one stance, and ultimately more than half of Fianna Fáil's TDs campaigned for a No vote. On polling day the Yes side won, 66% to 33%.
After the 2020 general election, for the first time in history, Fianna Fáil entered into a coalition government with its traditional rival Fine Gael, as well as the Green Party, with Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin serving as Taoiseach. That same year a number of Fianna Fáil members were involved in the "Golfgate" scandal, an event that ultimately led to the resignation of Fianna Fáil deputy leader Dara Calleary. In July 2021 Fianna Fáil suffered what a number of sources suggested might have been the single worst result in its history when the party polled extremely poorly in the 2021 Dublin Bay South by-election. The result prompted Jim O'Callaghan and Cathal Crowe to question whether Martin should lead the party into its next general election. In February 2023, former leader Bertie Ahern rejoined the party, having left in 2012.
Fianna Fáil uses a structure called a cumann system. The basic unit was the cumann (branch); these were grouped into comhairlí ceantair (district branches) and a comhairle dáil ceantair (constituency branch) in every constituency. The party claimed that in 2005 they had 50,000 registered names, but only an estimated 10,000–15,000 members were considered active.
However, from the early 1990s onward the cumann structure was weakened. Every cumann was entitled to three votes to selection conventions irrespective of its size; hence, a large number of cumainn had become in effect "paper cumainn", the only use of which was to ensure an aspiring or sitting candidate got enough votes. Although this phenomenon was nothing new (the most famous example being Neil Blaney's "Donegal Mafia").
Since the 2007 election, the party's structure has significantly weakened. This was in part exacerbated by significant infighting between candidates in the run-up to the 2011 general election. The Irish Times estimated that half of its 3,000 cumainn were effectively moribund. This fraction rose in Dublin with the exception of Dublin West, the former seat of both Brian Lenihan Snr and Brian Lenihan Jnr.
In the modern era, Fianna Fáil is seen as a typical catch-all party and has defined itself as such. In the 1980s Brian Lenihan Snr declared "there are no isms or [ide]ologies in my party", while in the early 2000s Fianna Fáil leader Bertie Ahern affirmed the party's catch-all stance by defining Fianna Fáil as a party that "looks out for the small ranking guy, the middle-ranking guy and assists the big guy". This contrasts with the more working-class orientation Fianna Fáil had in the early 20th century; In 1926 Seán Lemass described the party as "a progressive republican party based on the actual conditions of the moment" while upon winning the 1932 Irish general election, newly elected Fianna Fáil TD Seán Moylan proclaimed that Fianna Fáil's win meant a victory of "the owners of the donkey and cart over the pony and trap class". The Fianna Fáil party of the 1930s has been described as an economically social democratic one that sought to create an economically independent state (autarky) via protectionist policies, based on its culturally nationalist thinking.
During the leadership of Seán Lemass in the 1960s, Fianna Fáil began to utilise some corporatist policies (embracing the concept of 'social partnership'), taking some influence from the Roman Catholic Church. It was also during Lemass' time that the party shifted heavily away from autarkic thinking and towards a firm belief in free trade and foreign direct investment in Ireland.
In 1967 Jack Lynch described the party as "left of centre" while suggesting it was to the left of Fine Gael and Labour. However, during the 1969 Irish general election the party ran red scare tactics against Labour after it began using the slogan "the seventies will be socialist!". As Fine Gael became more and more socially liberal in the 1970s under Garret FitzGerald, the party reacted by embracing social conservatism and populism. In the same time period, the emergence of the Troubles and the Arms Crisis of 1971 tested the party's nationalism, but despite these events, Fianna Fáil maintained their moderate culturally nationalist stance.
In the 1990s, Fianna Fáil was described as a conservative party but also as a nationalist party. It has presented itself as a "broad church" and attracted support from across disparate social classes. Between 1989 and 2011, it led coalition governments with parties of both the left and the right. Fianna Fáil's platform contains a number of enduring commitments: to Irish unity; to the promotion and protection of the Irish language; and to maintaining Ireland's tradition of military neutrality. While the party is distinctly more populist, nationalist, and generally more economically interventionist than Fine Gael, the party shares its rival's support of the European Union. Although part of the liberal ALDE group in the European Parliament, the party has not supported the group's positions on civil liberties and its liberal nature is disputed, though the party did legalize same-sex civil partnerships in 2010.
The party's name and logo incorporates the words 'The Republican Party'. According to Fianna Fáil, "Republican here stands both for the unity of the island and a commitment to the historic principles of European republican philosophy, namely liberty, equality and fraternity". The party's main goal at its beginning was to reunite the North and the South.
R. Ken Carty wrote of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that they were "heterogeneous in their bases of support, relatively undifferentiated in terms of policy or programme, and remarkably stable in their support levels". Evidence from expert surveys, opinion polls and candidate surveys all fail to identify strong distinctions between the two parties.
The following are the terms of office as party leader and as Taoiseach:
Ógra Fianna Fáil serves as the party's official youth wing.
On 17 September 2007, Fianna Fáil announced that the party would for the first time organise in Northern Ireland. The then Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern was asked to chair a committee on the matter: "In the period ahead Dermot Ahern will lead efforts to develop that strategy for carrying through this policy, examining timescales and structures. We will act gradually and strategically. We are under no illusions. It will not be easy. It will challenge us all. But I am confident we will succeed".
The party embarked on its first ever recruitment drive north of the border in September 2007 in northern universities, and established two 'Political Societies', the William Drennan Cumann in Queens University, Belfast, and the Watty Graham Cumann in UU Magee, Derry, which subsequently became official units of Fianna Fáil's youth wing, attaining full membership and voting rights, and attained official voting delegates at the 2012 Ard Fheis. On 23 February 2008, it was announced that a former Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) councillor, Colonel Harvey Bicker, had joined Fianna Fáil.
Bertie Ahern announced on 7 December 2007 that Fianna Fáil had been registered in Northern Ireland by the UK Electoral Commission. The party's Ard Fheis in 2009 unanimously passed a motion to organise in Northern Ireland by establishing forums, rather than cumainn, in each of its six counties. In December 2009, Fianna Fáil secured its first Northern Ireland Assembly MLA when Gerry McHugh, an independent MLA, announced he had joined the party. Mr. McHugh confirmed that although he had joined the party, he would continue to sit as an independent MLA. In June 2010, Fianna Fáil opened its first official office in Northern Ireland, in Crossmaglen, County Armagh. The then Taoiseach Brian Cowen officially opened the office, accompanied by Ministers Éamon Ó Cuív and Dermot Ahern and Deputies Rory O’Hanlon and Margaret Conlon. Discussing the party's slow development towards all-Ireland politics, Mr. Cowen observed: "We have a very open and pragmatic approach. We are a constitutional republican party and we make no secret of the aspirations on which this party was founded. It has always been very clear in our mind what it is we are seeking to achieve, that is to reconcile this country and not being prisoners of our past history. To be part of a generation that will build a new Ireland, an Ireland of which we can all be proud".
Fianna Fáil has not contested any elections in Northern Ireland since its registration and recognition there in 2007. At the party's 2014 Ard Fheis, a motion was passed without debate to stand candidates for election north of the border for the first time in 2019.
Since 24 January 2019, the party have been in partnership with the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) formerly the main Irish nationalist party in Northern Ireland, but now smaller than Sinn Féin. There had long been speculation about the eventual partnership for several years prior. This was initially met with a negative reaction from Seamus Mallon, former Deputy Leader of the SDLP, who stated he would be opposed to any such merger. Former leader of the SDLP Margaret Ritchie originally stated publicly that she opposed any merger, announcing to the Labour Party Conference that such a merger would not happen on her "watch". On 10 January 2019, Richie stated that she now supported a new partnership with Fianna Fáil.
Both Fianna Fáil and the SDLP currently have shared policies on key areas including addressing the current political situation in Northern Ireland, improving public services in both jurisdictions of Ireland, such as healthcare, housing, education, and governmental reform, and bringing about the further unity and cooperation of the people on the island and arrangements for a future poll on Irish reunification.
In September 2022, SDLP party leader Colum Eastwood announced the end of its partnership with Fianna Fáil, saying that the SDLP needed to move forward by "standing on its own two feet".
Fianna Fáil joined the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) party on 16 April 2009, and the party's Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) sat in the ALDE Group during the 7th European Parliament term from June 2009 to 1 July 2014. The party is a full member of the Liberal International. Prior to this, the party was part of the Eurosceptic Union for Europe of the Nations parliamentary group between 1999 and 2009.
Party headquarters, over the objections of some MEPs, had made several attempts to sever the party's links to the European right, including an aborted 2004 agreement to join the European Liberal Democrat and Reform (ELDR) Party, with whom it already sat in the Council of Europe under the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) banner. On 27 February 2009, Taoiseach Brian Cowen announced that Fianna Fáil proposed to join the ELDR Party and intended to sit with them in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Group in the European Parliament after the 2009 European elections.
In October 2009, it was reported that Fianna Fáil had irritated its new Liberal colleagues by failing to vote for the motion on press freedom in Italy (resulting in its defeat by a majority of one in the Parliament) and by trying to scupper their party colleagues' initiative for gay rights. In January 2010, a report by academic experts writing for the votewatch.eu site found that FF "do not seem to toe the political line" of the ALDE Group "when it comes to budget and civil liberties" issues.
In the 2014 European elections, Fianna Fáil received 22.3% of first-preference votes but only returned a single MEP, a reduction in representation of two MEPs from the previous term. This was due to a combination of the party's vote further dropping in Dublin and a two candidate strategy in the Midlands North West constituency, which backfired, resulting in sitting MEP Pat "the Cope" Gallagher losing his seat. On 23 June 2014, returning MEP Brian Crowley announced that he intended to sit with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) rather than the ALDE group during the upcoming 8th term of the European parliament. The following day on 24 June 2014 Crowley had the Fianna Fáil party whip withdrawn. He has since been re-added to Fianna Fáil's website.
In the European Committee of the Regions, Fianna Fáil sits in the Renew Europe CoR group, with two full and two alternate members for the 2020–2025 mandate. Kate Feeney is third vice-president of the Group.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fianna Fáil (/fiˌænə ˈfɔɪl, ˌfiːənə -/, Irish: [ˌfʲiən̪ˠə ˈfˠaːlʲ] ; meaning 'Soldiers of Destiny' or 'Warriors of Fál'), officially Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party (Irish: Fianna Fáil – An Páirtí Poblachtánach), is a conservative and Christian-democratic political party registered in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The party was founded as a republican party on 16 May 1926 by Éamon de Valera and his supporters after they split from Sinn Féin. De Valera and his followers were determined to take seats in the Oireachtas while Sinn Féin's policy was to refuse to recognise it. Since 1927, Fianna Fáil has been one of Ireland's two major parties, along with Fine Gael since 1933; both are seen as centre-right parties, to the right of the Labour Party and Sinn Féin. The party dominated Irish political life for most of the 20th century, and, since its foundation, either it or Fine Gael has led every government. Between 1932 and 2011, it was the largest party in Dáil Éireann, but latterly with a decline in its vote share; from 1989 onwards, its periods of government were in coalition with parties of either the left or the right.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Fianna Fáil's vote collapsed in the 2011 general election; it emerged in third place, in what was widely seen as a political realignment in the wake of the post-2008 Irish economic downturn. By 2016, it had recovered enough to become the largest opposition party, and it entered a confidence and supply arrangement with a Fine Gael–led minority government. In 2020, after a number of months of political stalemate following the general election, Fianna Fáil agreed with Fine Gael and the Green Party to enter into an unprecedented coalition, with the leaders of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael rotating between the roles of Taoiseach and Tánaiste.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Fianna Fáil is a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and of Liberal International. From February 2019 to September 2022, Fianna Fáil was in partnership with the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Fianna Fáil was founded by Éamon de Valera, a former leader of Sinn Féin. He and a number of other members split from Sinn Féin when a motion he proposed—which called for elected members to be allowed to take their seats in Dáil Éireann if and when the controversial Oath of Allegiance was removed—failed to pass at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in 1926. His new party adopted its name on 2 April of the same year. While it was also opposed to the Treaty settlement, it rejected abstentionism, instead aiming to republicanise the Irish Free State from within. Fianna Fáil's platform of economic autarky had appeal among the farmers, working-class people and the poor, while alienating more affluent classes. It largely pre-empted voters of the aforementioned groups from the Labour Party (with its almost identical economic and social policy) following its entry into the Dáil in 1927. Fianna Fáil would go on to style themselves for several decades as \"the real Labour Party.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Cumann na nGaedheal sought to exploit the notion that Fianna Fáil was a party in thrall to communists. During the 1932 general election campaign, Cumann na Gaedheal declared in a newspaper advert that \"the gunmen and Communists are voting for Fianna Fáil today – vote for the Government party.\" However, Fianna Fáil won the election. The party first entered government on 9 March 1932. It was in power for 61 of the 79 years between then and the election of 2011. Its longest continuous period in office has been 15 years and 11 months (March 1932 – February 1948). Its longest single period out of office in the 20th century was four years and four months (March 1973 – July 1977). All of the party's leaders have served as Taoiseach.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The party's most dominant era was the 41-year period between 1932 and 1973, when party leaders Éamon de Valera, Seán Lemass and Jack Lynch served as Taoiseach in an almost unbroken chain save for six years that John A. Costello of Fine Gael briefly interrupted. De Valera's reign is acknowledged for having successfully guided Ireland through World War II unscathed but is criticised for leaving Ireland in economic and cultural stagnation. His successors such as Lemass however were able to turn around Ireland's economic fortunes as well as primed the country for entry into the European Economic Community, later the European Union.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Fianna Fáil's fortunes began to falter in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1970 the Arms Crisis threatened to split the entire party in two when Fianna Fáil cabinet ministers Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney were dismissed by Jack Lynch after being accused of seeking to provide arms to the newly emergent Provisional Irish Republican Army. Factional infighting over Northern Ireland, economics and the \"moral issues\" such as the legalization of divorce, abortion, and contraception plagued the party in this era and grew particularly intense when Charles Haughey later became party leader. Under Haughey, Fianna Fáil lost both the 1981 general election and November 1982 general election to Garret FitzGerald's Fine Gael during a particularly chaotic time in Ireland's political and economic history. Numerous failed internal attempts to oust Haughey as leader of the party culminated in the most significant split in the party's history when a large portion of the membership walked out to create the Progressive Democrats in 1985, under the leadership of Haughey archrival Desmond O'Malley. Haughey was forced to resign as Taoiseach and party leader in 1992 following revelations about his role in a phone tapping scandal.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Although the two parties had seemed poised to be bitter enemies owing to the personal conflicts between the memberships, from 1989 onwards Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats served repeatedly in coalition governments together, helping to stabilise Fianna Fáil. In 1994 Fianna Fáil came under the new leadership of Haughey protégé Bertie Ahern, who also became Taoiseach in 1997. Under Ahern, Fianna Fáil was able to claim credit for helping to broker the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 which began the peace process in Northern Ireland, as well the economic upswing caused by the Celtic Tiger which saw Ireland's economy boom during the 2000s. However, this momentum came to a sharp and sudden halt following two events. Firstly, Ahern was forced to resign as Taoiseach and left the party in 2008 following revelations made in the Mahon Tribunal that Ahern had accepted money from property developers. Secondly, the party, which was still in government under a new leader and Taoiseach Brian Cowen, was held responsible for the effects of the post-2008 Irish economic downturn. The party's popularity crashed: an opinion poll on 27 February 2009 indicated that only 10% of voters were satisfied with the Government's performance.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In the 2011 general election, it suffered the worst defeat of a sitting government in the history of the Irish state. This loss was described as \"historic\" in its proportions and \"unthinkable\". The party sank from being the largest in the Dáil to the third-largest, losing 58 of its 78 seats. This broke 79 consecutive years of Fianna Fáil being the largest single party in the Dáil. That election took place with Micheál Martin as leader, as Cowen had resigned as party leader in January 2011, although retained his role as Taoiseach until the election. Cowen's premiership was sharply criticised in the media, with The Sunday Times describing Cowen's tenure as Taoiseach as \"a dismal failure\" and in 2011 the Irish Independent calling Cowen the \"worst Taoiseach in the history of the State.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Martin continued to lead Fianna Fáil past 2011; In the 2016 general election Martin's Fianna Fáil made a moderate recovery while Fine Gael retained control of the government as a minority government, made possible by a confidence and supply agreement with Fianna Fáíl. In 2018 the party was divided internally over how the party would handle that year's referendum on the Eighth Amendment, the provision in the Irish constitution which forbade abortion, with a significant portion of both the parliamentary party and the ordinary membership in favour of a No vote. Leader Micheál Martin signalled his own desire for a Yes vote, but was unable to bring the party under one stance, and ultimately more than half of Fianna Fáil's TDs campaigned for a No vote. On polling day the Yes side won, 66% to 33%.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "After the 2020 general election, for the first time in history, Fianna Fáil entered into a coalition government with its traditional rival Fine Gael, as well as the Green Party, with Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin serving as Taoiseach. That same year a number of Fianna Fáil members were involved in the \"Golfgate\" scandal, an event that ultimately led to the resignation of Fianna Fáil deputy leader Dara Calleary. In July 2021 Fianna Fáil suffered what a number of sources suggested might have been the single worst result in its history when the party polled extremely poorly in the 2021 Dublin Bay South by-election. The result prompted Jim O'Callaghan and Cathal Crowe to question whether Martin should lead the party into its next general election. In February 2023, former leader Bertie Ahern rejoined the party, having left in 2012.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Fianna Fáil uses a structure called a cumann system. The basic unit was the cumann (branch); these were grouped into comhairlí ceantair (district branches) and a comhairle dáil ceantair (constituency branch) in every constituency. The party claimed that in 2005 they had 50,000 registered names, but only an estimated 10,000–15,000 members were considered active.",
"title": "Organisation and structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "However, from the early 1990s onward the cumann structure was weakened. Every cumann was entitled to three votes to selection conventions irrespective of its size; hence, a large number of cumainn had become in effect \"paper cumainn\", the only use of which was to ensure an aspiring or sitting candidate got enough votes. Although this phenomenon was nothing new (the most famous example being Neil Blaney's \"Donegal Mafia\").",
"title": "Organisation and structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Since the 2007 election, the party's structure has significantly weakened. This was in part exacerbated by significant infighting between candidates in the run-up to the 2011 general election. The Irish Times estimated that half of its 3,000 cumainn were effectively moribund. This fraction rose in Dublin with the exception of Dublin West, the former seat of both Brian Lenihan Snr and Brian Lenihan Jnr.",
"title": "Organisation and structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In the modern era, Fianna Fáil is seen as a typical catch-all party and has defined itself as such. In the 1980s Brian Lenihan Snr declared \"there are no isms or [ide]ologies in my party\", while in the early 2000s Fianna Fáil leader Bertie Ahern affirmed the party's catch-all stance by defining Fianna Fáil as a party that \"looks out for the small ranking guy, the middle-ranking guy and assists the big guy\". This contrasts with the more working-class orientation Fianna Fáil had in the early 20th century; In 1926 Seán Lemass described the party as \"a progressive republican party based on the actual conditions of the moment\" while upon winning the 1932 Irish general election, newly elected Fianna Fáil TD Seán Moylan proclaimed that Fianna Fáil's win meant a victory of \"the owners of the donkey and cart over the pony and trap class\". The Fianna Fáil party of the 1930s has been described as an economically social democratic one that sought to create an economically independent state (autarky) via protectionist policies, based on its culturally nationalist thinking.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "During the leadership of Seán Lemass in the 1960s, Fianna Fáil began to utilise some corporatist policies (embracing the concept of 'social partnership'), taking some influence from the Roman Catholic Church. It was also during Lemass' time that the party shifted heavily away from autarkic thinking and towards a firm belief in free trade and foreign direct investment in Ireland.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In 1967 Jack Lynch described the party as \"left of centre\" while suggesting it was to the left of Fine Gael and Labour. However, during the 1969 Irish general election the party ran red scare tactics against Labour after it began using the slogan \"the seventies will be socialist!\". As Fine Gael became more and more socially liberal in the 1970s under Garret FitzGerald, the party reacted by embracing social conservatism and populism. In the same time period, the emergence of the Troubles and the Arms Crisis of 1971 tested the party's nationalism, but despite these events, Fianna Fáil maintained their moderate culturally nationalist stance.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In the 1990s, Fianna Fáil was described as a conservative party but also as a nationalist party. It has presented itself as a \"broad church\" and attracted support from across disparate social classes. Between 1989 and 2011, it led coalition governments with parties of both the left and the right. Fianna Fáil's platform contains a number of enduring commitments: to Irish unity; to the promotion and protection of the Irish language; and to maintaining Ireland's tradition of military neutrality. While the party is distinctly more populist, nationalist, and generally more economically interventionist than Fine Gael, the party shares its rival's support of the European Union. Although part of the liberal ALDE group in the European Parliament, the party has not supported the group's positions on civil liberties and its liberal nature is disputed, though the party did legalize same-sex civil partnerships in 2010.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The party's name and logo incorporates the words 'The Republican Party'. According to Fianna Fáil, \"Republican here stands both for the unity of the island and a commitment to the historic principles of European republican philosophy, namely liberty, equality and fraternity\". The party's main goal at its beginning was to reunite the North and the South.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "R. Ken Carty wrote of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that they were \"heterogeneous in their bases of support, relatively undifferentiated in terms of policy or programme, and remarkably stable in their support levels\". Evidence from expert surveys, opinion polls and candidate surveys all fail to identify strong distinctions between the two parties.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The following are the terms of office as party leader and as Taoiseach:",
"title": "Leadership and president"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Ógra Fianna Fáil serves as the party's official youth wing.",
"title": "Ógra Fianna Fáil"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "On 17 September 2007, Fianna Fáil announced that the party would for the first time organise in Northern Ireland. The then Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern was asked to chair a committee on the matter: \"In the period ahead Dermot Ahern will lead efforts to develop that strategy for carrying through this policy, examining timescales and structures. We will act gradually and strategically. We are under no illusions. It will not be easy. It will challenge us all. But I am confident we will succeed\".",
"title": "Fianna Fáil and Northern Ireland politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The party embarked on its first ever recruitment drive north of the border in September 2007 in northern universities, and established two 'Political Societies', the William Drennan Cumann in Queens University, Belfast, and the Watty Graham Cumann in UU Magee, Derry, which subsequently became official units of Fianna Fáil's youth wing, attaining full membership and voting rights, and attained official voting delegates at the 2012 Ard Fheis. On 23 February 2008, it was announced that a former Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) councillor, Colonel Harvey Bicker, had joined Fianna Fáil.",
"title": "Fianna Fáil and Northern Ireland politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Bertie Ahern announced on 7 December 2007 that Fianna Fáil had been registered in Northern Ireland by the UK Electoral Commission. The party's Ard Fheis in 2009 unanimously passed a motion to organise in Northern Ireland by establishing forums, rather than cumainn, in each of its six counties. In December 2009, Fianna Fáil secured its first Northern Ireland Assembly MLA when Gerry McHugh, an independent MLA, announced he had joined the party. Mr. McHugh confirmed that although he had joined the party, he would continue to sit as an independent MLA. In June 2010, Fianna Fáil opened its first official office in Northern Ireland, in Crossmaglen, County Armagh. The then Taoiseach Brian Cowen officially opened the office, accompanied by Ministers Éamon Ó Cuív and Dermot Ahern and Deputies Rory O’Hanlon and Margaret Conlon. Discussing the party's slow development towards all-Ireland politics, Mr. Cowen observed: \"We have a very open and pragmatic approach. We are a constitutional republican party and we make no secret of the aspirations on which this party was founded. It has always been very clear in our mind what it is we are seeking to achieve, that is to reconcile this country and not being prisoners of our past history. To be part of a generation that will build a new Ireland, an Ireland of which we can all be proud\".",
"title": "Fianna Fáil and Northern Ireland politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Fianna Fáil has not contested any elections in Northern Ireland since its registration and recognition there in 2007. At the party's 2014 Ard Fheis, a motion was passed without debate to stand candidates for election north of the border for the first time in 2019.",
"title": "Fianna Fáil and Northern Ireland politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Since 24 January 2019, the party have been in partnership with the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) formerly the main Irish nationalist party in Northern Ireland, but now smaller than Sinn Féin. There had long been speculation about the eventual partnership for several years prior. This was initially met with a negative reaction from Seamus Mallon, former Deputy Leader of the SDLP, who stated he would be opposed to any such merger. Former leader of the SDLP Margaret Ritchie originally stated publicly that she opposed any merger, announcing to the Labour Party Conference that such a merger would not happen on her \"watch\". On 10 January 2019, Richie stated that she now supported a new partnership with Fianna Fáil.",
"title": "Fianna Fáil and Northern Ireland politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Both Fianna Fáil and the SDLP currently have shared policies on key areas including addressing the current political situation in Northern Ireland, improving public services in both jurisdictions of Ireland, such as healthcare, housing, education, and governmental reform, and bringing about the further unity and cooperation of the people on the island and arrangements for a future poll on Irish reunification.",
"title": "Fianna Fáil and Northern Ireland politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In September 2022, SDLP party leader Colum Eastwood announced the end of its partnership with Fianna Fáil, saying that the SDLP needed to move forward by \"standing on its own two feet\".",
"title": "Fianna Fáil and Northern Ireland politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Fianna Fáil joined the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) party on 16 April 2009, and the party's Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) sat in the ALDE Group during the 7th European Parliament term from June 2009 to 1 July 2014. The party is a full member of the Liberal International. Prior to this, the party was part of the Eurosceptic Union for Europe of the Nations parliamentary group between 1999 and 2009.",
"title": "Representation in European institutions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Party headquarters, over the objections of some MEPs, had made several attempts to sever the party's links to the European right, including an aborted 2004 agreement to join the European Liberal Democrat and Reform (ELDR) Party, with whom it already sat in the Council of Europe under the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) banner. On 27 February 2009, Taoiseach Brian Cowen announced that Fianna Fáil proposed to join the ELDR Party and intended to sit with them in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Group in the European Parliament after the 2009 European elections.",
"title": "Representation in European institutions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In October 2009, it was reported that Fianna Fáil had irritated its new Liberal colleagues by failing to vote for the motion on press freedom in Italy (resulting in its defeat by a majority of one in the Parliament) and by trying to scupper their party colleagues' initiative for gay rights. In January 2010, a report by academic experts writing for the votewatch.eu site found that FF \"do not seem to toe the political line\" of the ALDE Group \"when it comes to budget and civil liberties\" issues.",
"title": "Representation in European institutions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In the 2014 European elections, Fianna Fáil received 22.3% of first-preference votes but only returned a single MEP, a reduction in representation of two MEPs from the previous term. This was due to a combination of the party's vote further dropping in Dublin and a two candidate strategy in the Midlands North West constituency, which backfired, resulting in sitting MEP Pat \"the Cope\" Gallagher losing his seat. On 23 June 2014, returning MEP Brian Crowley announced that he intended to sit with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) rather than the ALDE group during the upcoming 8th term of the European parliament. The following day on 24 June 2014 Crowley had the Fianna Fáil party whip withdrawn. He has since been re-added to Fianna Fáil's website.",
"title": "Representation in European institutions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In the European Committee of the Regions, Fianna Fáil sits in the Renew Europe CoR group, with two full and two alternate members for the 2020–2025 mandate. Kate Feeney is third vice-president of the Group.",
"title": "Representation in European institutions"
}
] |
Fianna Fáil, officially Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party, is a conservative and Christian-democratic political party registered in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The party was founded as a republican party on 16 May 1926 by Éamon de Valera and his supporters after they split from Sinn Féin. De Valera and his followers were determined to take seats in the Oireachtas while Sinn Féin's policy was to refuse to recognise it. Since 1927, Fianna Fáil has been one of Ireland's two major parties, along with Fine Gael since 1933; both are seen as centre-right parties, to the right of the Labour Party and Sinn Féin. The party dominated Irish political life for most of the 20th century, and, since its foundation, either it or Fine Gael has led every government. Between 1932 and 2011, it was the largest party in Dáil Éireann, but latterly with a decline in its vote share; from 1989 onwards, its periods of government were in coalition with parties of either the left or the right. Fianna Fáil's vote collapsed in the 2011 general election; it emerged in third place, in what was widely seen as a political realignment in the wake of the post-2008 Irish economic downturn. By 2016, it had recovered enough to become the largest opposition party, and it entered a confidence and supply arrangement with a Fine Gael–led minority government. In 2020, after a number of months of political stalemate following the general election, Fianna Fáil agreed with Fine Gael and the Green Party to enter into an unprecedented coalition, with the leaders of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael rotating between the roles of Taoiseach and Tánaiste. Fianna Fáil is a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and of Liberal International. From February 2019 to September 2022, Fianna Fáil was in partnership with the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland.
|
2001-11-21T03:18:42Z
|
2023-12-18T16:17:15Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fianna_F%C3%A1il
|
11,539 |
Fujiwara clan
|
The Fujiwara clan (藤原氏, Fujiwara-shi or Fujiwara-uji) was a powerful family of imperial regents in Japan, descending from the Nakatomi clan and, as legend held, through them their ancestral god Ame-no-Koyane. The Fujiwara prospered since the ancient times and dominated the imperial court until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. They held the title of Ason. The abbreviated form is Tōshi (藤氏).
The 8th century clan history Tōshi Kaden (藤氏家伝) states the following at the biography of the clan's patriarch, Fujiwara no Kamatari (614–669): "Kamatari, the Inner Palace Minister who was also called ‘Chūrō,’ was a man of the Takechi district of Yamato Province. His forebears descended from Ame no Koyane no Mikoto; for generations they had administered the rites for Heaven and Earth, harmonizing the space between men and the gods. Therefore, it was ordered their clan was to be called Ōnakatomi"
The clan originated when the founder, Nakatomi no Kamatari (614–669) of the Nakatomi clan, was rewarded by Emperor Tenji with the honorific "Fujiwara", which evolved as a surname for Kamatari and his descendants. In time, Fujiwara became known as a clan name.
The Fujiwara dominated the Japanese politics of the Heian period (794–1185) through the monopoly of regent positions, Sesshō and Kampaku. The family's primary strategy for central influence was through the marrying of Fujiwara daughters to the Emperors. Through this, the Fujiwara would gain influence over the next emperor who would, according to family tradition of that time, be raised in the household of his mother's side and owe loyalty to his grandfather. As abdicated emperors took over power by exercising insei (院政, cloistered rule) at the end of the 11th century, then followed by the rise of the warrior class, the Fujiwara gradually lost its control over mainstream politics.
The Northern Fujiwara (Ōshū Fujiwara) ruled the Tōhoku region (northeast Honshū) of Japan during the 12th century.
Beyond the 12th century, they continued to monopolize the titles of Sesshō and Kampaku for much of the time until the system was abolished in the Meiji era. Though their influence declined, the clan remained close advisors to the succeeding Emperors.
The Fujiwara clan's political influence was initiated during the Asuka period. Nakatomi no Kamatari, a member of the lower-nobility Nakatomi family led a coup against the Soga in 645 and initiated a series of sweeping government reforms that would be known as the Taika Reform. In 668 Emperor Tenji (reigned 668–671), bestowed the kabane Fujiwara no Ason (藤原朝臣) on Kamatari. The surname passed to the descendants of Fujiwara no Fuhito (659–720), the second son and heir of Kamatari, who was prominent at the court of several emperors and empresses during the early Nara period. He made his daughter Miyako a concubine of Emperor Monmu. Her son, Prince Obito became Emperor Shōmu. Fuhito succeeded in making another of his daughters, Kōmyōshi, the empress consort of Emperor Shōmu. She was the first empress consort of Japan who was not a daughter of the imperial family itself. Fuhito had four sons; and each of them became the progenitor of a cadet branch of the clan:
Among them, the Hokke came to be considered as the leaders of the entire clan. All four brothers died in 737 during a major smallpox epidemic in Japan.
During the Heian period of Japanese history, the Hokke managed to establish a hereditary claim to the position of regent, either for an underage emperor (sesshō) or for an adult one (kampaku). Some prominent Fujiwaras occupied these positions more than once, and for more than one emperor. Lesser members of the Fujiwara were court nobles, provincial governors and vice governors, members of the provincial aristocracy, and samurai. The Fujiwara was one of the four great families that dominated Japanese politics during the Heian Period (794–1185), and the most important of them at that time. The others were the Tachibana, the Taira and the Minamoto. The Fujiwara exercised tremendous power, especially during the period of regency governments in the 10th and 11th centuries, having many emperors as practically puppet monarchs.
The Fujiwara dominated the government of Japan 794–1160. There is no clear starting point of their dominance. However, their domination of civil administration was lost by the establishment of the first shogunate (i.e., Kamakura shogunate) under Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1192.
Fujiwara princes initially served as highest ministers of the imperial Court (kampaku) and regents (sesshō) for underage monarchs. The Fujiwara were the proverbial "power behind the throne" for centuries. Apparently they never aspired to supplant the imperial dynasty. Instead, the clan's influence stemmed from its matrimonial alliances with the imperial family. Because consorts of crown princes, younger sons, and emperors were generally Fujiwara women, the male heads of the Fujiwara house were often the father-in-law, brother-in-law, uncle, or maternal grandfather of the emperor. The family reached the peak of its power under Fujiwara no Michinaga (966–1027). He was the grandfather of three emperors, the father of six empresses or imperial consorts, and the grandfather of seven additional imperial consorts; it is no exaggeration to say that it was Michinaga who ruled Japan during this period, not the titular Emperors. As a result of these unusually strong familial links, Michinaga never took the title of Kampaku—he held more than the power that the position would bring, and had no need of the title.
The Fujiwara clan is featured prominently in The Pillow Book, by Sei Shōnagon, and the character of Genji is partially based on Michinaga in the eponymous Tale of Genji.
The Fujiwara Regency was the main feature of government during most of the Heian era. Kyoto (Heian-kyō) was geopolitically a better seat of government; with good river access to the sea, it could be reached by land routes from the eastern provinces.
Just before the move to the Heian-kyō, the Emperor had abolished universal conscription in the eighth century and soon local, private militaries came into being. The Fujiwara and the clans of Taira and Minamoto created later during the ninth century were among the most prominent families supported by the new military class.
In the ninth and tenth centuries, much authority was lost to the great families, who disregarded the Chinese-style land and tax systems imposed by the government in Kyoto. Stability came to Heian Japan, but, even though succession was ensured for the Imperial family through heredity, power again concentrated in the hands of one noble family, the Fujiwara.
Family administrations now became public institutions. As the most powerful family, the Fujiwara governed Japan and determined the general affairs of state, such as succession to the throne. Family and state affairs were thoroughly intermixed, a pattern followed among other families, monasteries, and even the imperial family.
As the Soga had taken control of the throne in the sixth century, the Fujiwara by the ninth century had intermarried with the imperial family, and one of their members was the first head of the Emperor's Private Office. While the earliest parts of the Heian period was marked by unusually strong emperors governing themselves (in particular from Emperor Kanmu to Emperor Saga (781–823)), the Fujiwara started to rebuild their influence first under Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu in the first half of the ninth century. Fuyutsugu's son Fujiwara no Yoshifusa was the first person not from the imperial family to become regent for a minor emperor when he gained that position when his grandson was enthroned as Emperor Seiwa in 858. His adopted son, Fujiwara no Mototsune, had himself further appointed kampaku (regent for an adult emperor, a newly invented position). After Mototsune's death Emperor Uda (who was not the son of a Fujiwara daughter) managed to regain control of much of government. However, after abdicating in favour of his son, Emperor Daigo (897–930), while apparently intending to control government from retirement, Mototsune's son Fujiwara no Tokihira managed to maneuver himself back to very prominent position until his early death in 909. The remaining period of Daigo's reign was again relatively free from Fujiwara dominance, but from the beginning of the reign of his son Emperor Suzaku, the Fujiwara again re-established their dominance of the court with the leadership of Fujiwara no Tadahira.
Nevertheless, the Fujiwara were not demoted by Emperor Daigo but in many ways became stronger during his reign. Central control of Japan had continued to decline, and the Fujiwara, along with other great families and religious foundations, acquired ever larger shōen and greater wealth during the early tenth century. By the early Heian period, the shōen had obtained legal status, and the large religious establishments sought clear titles in perpetuity, waiver of taxes, and immunity from government inspection of the shōen they held. Those people who worked the land found it advantageous to transfer title to shōen holders in return for a share of the harvest. People and lands were increasingly beyond central control and taxation, a de facto return to conditions before the Taika Reform.
Within decades of Emperor Daigo's death, the Fujiwara had absolute control over the court. By the year 1000, Fujiwara no Michinaga was able to enthrone and dethrone emperors at will. Little authority was left for traditional officialdom, and government affairs were handled through the Fujiwara family's private administration. The Fujiwara had become what historian George B. Sansom has called "hereditary dictators".
The Fujiwara presided over a period of cultural and artistic flowering at the imperial court and among the aristocracy. There was great interest in graceful poetry and vernacular literature. Japanese writing had long depended on Chinese ideograms (kanji), but these were now supplemented by kana, two types of phonetic Japanese script: katakana, a mnemonic device using parts of Chinese ideograms; and hiragana, a cursive form of kanji writing and an art form in itself. Hiragana gave written expression to the spoken word and, with it, to the rise in Japan's famous vernacular literature, much of it written by court women who had not been trained in Chinese as had their male counterparts. Three late tenth century and early eleventh century women presented their views of life and romance at the Heian court in Kagerō Nikki ("The Gossamer Years") by "the mother of Michitsuna", Makura no Sōshi (The Pillow Book) by Sei Shōnagon, and Genji Monogatari (Tale of Genji) by Murasaki Shikibu (herself a Fujiwara). Indigenous art also flourished under the Fujiwara after centuries of imitating Chinese forms. Vividly colored yamato-e (Japanese style) paintings of court life and stories about temples and shrines became common in the mid and late Heian periods, setting patterns for Japanese art to this day.
Decline in food production, growth of the population, and competition for resources among the great families all led to the gradual decline of Fujiwara power and gave rise to military disturbances in the mid-tenth and eleventh centuries. Members of the Fujiwara, Taira, and Minamoto families—all of whom had descended from the imperial family—attacked one another, claimed control over vast tracts of conquered land, set up rival regimes, and generally broke the peace of Japan.
The Fujiwara controlled the throne until the reign of Emperor Go-Sanjō (1068–73), the first emperor not born of a Fujiwara mother since the ninth century. Emperor Go-Sanjō, determined to restore imperial control through strong personal rule, implemented reforms to curb Fujiwara influence. He also established an office to compile and validate estate records with the aim of reasserting central control. Many shōen were not properly certified, and large landholders, like the Fujiwara, felt threatened with the loss of their lands. Emperor Go-Sanjō also established the In no chō, or Office of the Cloistered Emperor, which was held by a succession of emperors who abdicated to devote themselves to behind-the-scenes governance, or insei (Cloistered rule).
The In no chō filled the void left by the decline of Fujiwara power. Rather than being banished, the Fujiwara were mostly retained in their old positions of civil dictator and minister of the center while being bypassed in decision making. In time, many of the Fujiwara were replaced, mostly by members of the rising Minamoto family. While the Fujiwara fell into disputes among themselves and formed northern and southern factions, the insei system allowed the paternal line of the imperial family to gain influence over the throne. The period from 1086 to 1156 was the age of supremacy of the In no chō and of the rise of the military class throughout the country. Military might rather than civil authority dominated the government.
A struggle for succession in the mid-twelfth century gave the Fujiwara an opportunity to regain their former power. Fujiwara no Yorinaga sided with the retired emperor in a violent battle in 1158 against the heir apparent, who was supported by the Taira and Minamoto. In the end, the Fujiwara were destroyed, the old system of government supplanted, and the insei system left powerless as bushi took control of court affairs, marking a turning point in Japanese history. Within a year, the Taira and Minamoto clashed, and a twenty-year period of Taira ascendancy began. The Taira were seduced by court life and ignored problems in the provinces. Finally, Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147–99) rose from his headquarters at Kamakura (in the Kantō region, southwest of modern Tokyo) to defeat the Taira, and with them the child emperor Emperor Antoku they controlled, in the Genpei War (1180–85).
After this downfall, the younger branches of the Fujiwara clan turned their focus from politics to the arts, producing literary scholars including Fujiwara no Shunzei and Fujiwara no Teika.
Only forty years after Michinaga's death, his Fujiwara heirs were not able to prevent the accession of Emperor Go-Sanjō (reigned 1068–73), the first emperor since Emperor Uda whose mother was not a Fujiwara. The system of government by retired emperor (daijō tennō) (cloistered rule) beginning from 1087 further weakened the Fujiwara's control over the Imperial Court.
The Fujiwara-dominated Heian period approached its end along disturbances of 12th century. The dynastic struggle known as the Hōgen Disturbance (Hōgen no Ran) led to the Taira emerging as the most powerful clan in 1156. During the Heiji Disturbance (Heiji no Ran) in 1160 the Taira defeated the coalition of Fujiwara and Minamoto forces. This defeat marked the end of the Fujiwara's dominance.
During the 13th century, the Fujiwara Hokke was split into five regent houses: Konoe, Takatsukasa, Kujō, Nijō and Ichijō.
They had a "monopoly" to the offices of sesshō and kampaku, and served in turn. The political power had shifted away from the court nobility in Kyoto to the new warrior class in the countryside. However, Fujiwara remained close advisers, regents and ministers to the emperors for centuries; the family retained political reputation and influence even until the 20th century (such as Fumimaro Konoe and Morihiro Hosokawa, who became the Prime Ministers). As such, they had a certain political power and much influence, as often the rival warriors and later bakufu sought their alliance. Oda Nobunaga and his sister Oichi claimed to have descent from the Taira and Fujiwara clans; regent Toyotomi Hideyoshi and shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu were related by marriage to various families from Fujiwara clan. Empress Shōken, wife of Emperor Meiji, was a descendant of the Fujiwara clan.
Until the marriage of the Crown Prince Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) to Princess Nagako of Kuni (posthumously Empress Kōjun) in January 1924, the principal consorts of emperors and crown princes had often been recruited from one of the Sekke Fujiwara. Imperial princesses were often married to Fujiwara lords – throughout a millennium at least. As recently as Emperor Shōwa's third daughter, the former Princess Kazuko and Prince Mikasa's elder daughter, the former Princess Yasuko, married into Takatsukasa and Konoe families, respectively. Likewise a daughter of the last shōgun married a second cousin of Emperor Shōwa.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Fujiwara clan (藤原氏, Fujiwara-shi or Fujiwara-uji) was a powerful family of imperial regents in Japan, descending from the Nakatomi clan and, as legend held, through them their ancestral god Ame-no-Koyane. The Fujiwara prospered since the ancient times and dominated the imperial court until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. They held the title of Ason. The abbreviated form is Tōshi (藤氏).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The 8th century clan history Tōshi Kaden (藤氏家伝) states the following at the biography of the clan's patriarch, Fujiwara no Kamatari (614–669): \"Kamatari, the Inner Palace Minister who was also called ‘Chūrō,’ was a man of the Takechi district of Yamato Province. His forebears descended from Ame no Koyane no Mikoto; for generations they had administered the rites for Heaven and Earth, harmonizing the space between men and the gods. Therefore, it was ordered their clan was to be called Ōnakatomi\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The clan originated when the founder, Nakatomi no Kamatari (614–669) of the Nakatomi clan, was rewarded by Emperor Tenji with the honorific \"Fujiwara\", which evolved as a surname for Kamatari and his descendants. In time, Fujiwara became known as a clan name.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The Fujiwara dominated the Japanese politics of the Heian period (794–1185) through the monopoly of regent positions, Sesshō and Kampaku. The family's primary strategy for central influence was through the marrying of Fujiwara daughters to the Emperors. Through this, the Fujiwara would gain influence over the next emperor who would, according to family tradition of that time, be raised in the household of his mother's side and owe loyalty to his grandfather. As abdicated emperors took over power by exercising insei (院政, cloistered rule) at the end of the 11th century, then followed by the rise of the warrior class, the Fujiwara gradually lost its control over mainstream politics.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Northern Fujiwara (Ōshū Fujiwara) ruled the Tōhoku region (northeast Honshū) of Japan during the 12th century.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Beyond the 12th century, they continued to monopolize the titles of Sesshō and Kampaku for much of the time until the system was abolished in the Meiji era. Though their influence declined, the clan remained close advisors to the succeeding Emperors.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Fujiwara clan's political influence was initiated during the Asuka period. Nakatomi no Kamatari, a member of the lower-nobility Nakatomi family led a coup against the Soga in 645 and initiated a series of sweeping government reforms that would be known as the Taika Reform. In 668 Emperor Tenji (reigned 668–671), bestowed the kabane Fujiwara no Ason (藤原朝臣) on Kamatari. The surname passed to the descendants of Fujiwara no Fuhito (659–720), the second son and heir of Kamatari, who was prominent at the court of several emperors and empresses during the early Nara period. He made his daughter Miyako a concubine of Emperor Monmu. Her son, Prince Obito became Emperor Shōmu. Fuhito succeeded in making another of his daughters, Kōmyōshi, the empress consort of Emperor Shōmu. She was the first empress consort of Japan who was not a daughter of the imperial family itself. Fuhito had four sons; and each of them became the progenitor of a cadet branch of the clan:",
"title": "Asuka/Nara period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Among them, the Hokke came to be considered as the leaders of the entire clan. All four brothers died in 737 during a major smallpox epidemic in Japan.",
"title": "Asuka/Nara period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "During the Heian period of Japanese history, the Hokke managed to establish a hereditary claim to the position of regent, either for an underage emperor (sesshō) or for an adult one (kampaku). Some prominent Fujiwaras occupied these positions more than once, and for more than one emperor. Lesser members of the Fujiwara were court nobles, provincial governors and vice governors, members of the provincial aristocracy, and samurai. The Fujiwara was one of the four great families that dominated Japanese politics during the Heian Period (794–1185), and the most important of them at that time. The others were the Tachibana, the Taira and the Minamoto. The Fujiwara exercised tremendous power, especially during the period of regency governments in the 10th and 11th centuries, having many emperors as practically puppet monarchs.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Fujiwara dominated the government of Japan 794–1160. There is no clear starting point of their dominance. However, their domination of civil administration was lost by the establishment of the first shogunate (i.e., Kamakura shogunate) under Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1192.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Fujiwara princes initially served as highest ministers of the imperial Court (kampaku) and regents (sesshō) for underage monarchs. The Fujiwara were the proverbial \"power behind the throne\" for centuries. Apparently they never aspired to supplant the imperial dynasty. Instead, the clan's influence stemmed from its matrimonial alliances with the imperial family. Because consorts of crown princes, younger sons, and emperors were generally Fujiwara women, the male heads of the Fujiwara house were often the father-in-law, brother-in-law, uncle, or maternal grandfather of the emperor. The family reached the peak of its power under Fujiwara no Michinaga (966–1027). He was the grandfather of three emperors, the father of six empresses or imperial consorts, and the grandfather of seven additional imperial consorts; it is no exaggeration to say that it was Michinaga who ruled Japan during this period, not the titular Emperors. As a result of these unusually strong familial links, Michinaga never took the title of Kampaku—he held more than the power that the position would bring, and had no need of the title.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Fujiwara clan is featured prominently in The Pillow Book, by Sei Shōnagon, and the character of Genji is partially based on Michinaga in the eponymous Tale of Genji.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Fujiwara Regency was the main feature of government during most of the Heian era. Kyoto (Heian-kyō) was geopolitically a better seat of government; with good river access to the sea, it could be reached by land routes from the eastern provinces.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Just before the move to the Heian-kyō, the Emperor had abolished universal conscription in the eighth century and soon local, private militaries came into being. The Fujiwara and the clans of Taira and Minamoto created later during the ninth century were among the most prominent families supported by the new military class.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In the ninth and tenth centuries, much authority was lost to the great families, who disregarded the Chinese-style land and tax systems imposed by the government in Kyoto. Stability came to Heian Japan, but, even though succession was ensured for the Imperial family through heredity, power again concentrated in the hands of one noble family, the Fujiwara.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Family administrations now became public institutions. As the most powerful family, the Fujiwara governed Japan and determined the general affairs of state, such as succession to the throne. Family and state affairs were thoroughly intermixed, a pattern followed among other families, monasteries, and even the imperial family.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "As the Soga had taken control of the throne in the sixth century, the Fujiwara by the ninth century had intermarried with the imperial family, and one of their members was the first head of the Emperor's Private Office. While the earliest parts of the Heian period was marked by unusually strong emperors governing themselves (in particular from Emperor Kanmu to Emperor Saga (781–823)), the Fujiwara started to rebuild their influence first under Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu in the first half of the ninth century. Fuyutsugu's son Fujiwara no Yoshifusa was the first person not from the imperial family to become regent for a minor emperor when he gained that position when his grandson was enthroned as Emperor Seiwa in 858. His adopted son, Fujiwara no Mototsune, had himself further appointed kampaku (regent for an adult emperor, a newly invented position). After Mototsune's death Emperor Uda (who was not the son of a Fujiwara daughter) managed to regain control of much of government. However, after abdicating in favour of his son, Emperor Daigo (897–930), while apparently intending to control government from retirement, Mototsune's son Fujiwara no Tokihira managed to maneuver himself back to very prominent position until his early death in 909. The remaining period of Daigo's reign was again relatively free from Fujiwara dominance, but from the beginning of the reign of his son Emperor Suzaku, the Fujiwara again re-established their dominance of the court with the leadership of Fujiwara no Tadahira.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Nevertheless, the Fujiwara were not demoted by Emperor Daigo but in many ways became stronger during his reign. Central control of Japan had continued to decline, and the Fujiwara, along with other great families and religious foundations, acquired ever larger shōen and greater wealth during the early tenth century. By the early Heian period, the shōen had obtained legal status, and the large religious establishments sought clear titles in perpetuity, waiver of taxes, and immunity from government inspection of the shōen they held. Those people who worked the land found it advantageous to transfer title to shōen holders in return for a share of the harvest. People and lands were increasingly beyond central control and taxation, a de facto return to conditions before the Taika Reform.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Within decades of Emperor Daigo's death, the Fujiwara had absolute control over the court. By the year 1000, Fujiwara no Michinaga was able to enthrone and dethrone emperors at will. Little authority was left for traditional officialdom, and government affairs were handled through the Fujiwara family's private administration. The Fujiwara had become what historian George B. Sansom has called \"hereditary dictators\".",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The Fujiwara presided over a period of cultural and artistic flowering at the imperial court and among the aristocracy. There was great interest in graceful poetry and vernacular literature. Japanese writing had long depended on Chinese ideograms (kanji), but these were now supplemented by kana, two types of phonetic Japanese script: katakana, a mnemonic device using parts of Chinese ideograms; and hiragana, a cursive form of kanji writing and an art form in itself. Hiragana gave written expression to the spoken word and, with it, to the rise in Japan's famous vernacular literature, much of it written by court women who had not been trained in Chinese as had their male counterparts. Three late tenth century and early eleventh century women presented their views of life and romance at the Heian court in Kagerō Nikki (\"The Gossamer Years\") by \"the mother of Michitsuna\", Makura no Sōshi (The Pillow Book) by Sei Shōnagon, and Genji Monogatari (Tale of Genji) by Murasaki Shikibu (herself a Fujiwara). Indigenous art also flourished under the Fujiwara after centuries of imitating Chinese forms. Vividly colored yamato-e (Japanese style) paintings of court life and stories about temples and shrines became common in the mid and late Heian periods, setting patterns for Japanese art to this day.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Decline in food production, growth of the population, and competition for resources among the great families all led to the gradual decline of Fujiwara power and gave rise to military disturbances in the mid-tenth and eleventh centuries. Members of the Fujiwara, Taira, and Minamoto families—all of whom had descended from the imperial family—attacked one another, claimed control over vast tracts of conquered land, set up rival regimes, and generally broke the peace of Japan.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The Fujiwara controlled the throne until the reign of Emperor Go-Sanjō (1068–73), the first emperor not born of a Fujiwara mother since the ninth century. Emperor Go-Sanjō, determined to restore imperial control through strong personal rule, implemented reforms to curb Fujiwara influence. He also established an office to compile and validate estate records with the aim of reasserting central control. Many shōen were not properly certified, and large landholders, like the Fujiwara, felt threatened with the loss of their lands. Emperor Go-Sanjō also established the In no chō, or Office of the Cloistered Emperor, which was held by a succession of emperors who abdicated to devote themselves to behind-the-scenes governance, or insei (Cloistered rule).",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The In no chō filled the void left by the decline of Fujiwara power. Rather than being banished, the Fujiwara were mostly retained in their old positions of civil dictator and minister of the center while being bypassed in decision making. In time, many of the Fujiwara were replaced, mostly by members of the rising Minamoto family. While the Fujiwara fell into disputes among themselves and formed northern and southern factions, the insei system allowed the paternal line of the imperial family to gain influence over the throne. The period from 1086 to 1156 was the age of supremacy of the In no chō and of the rise of the military class throughout the country. Military might rather than civil authority dominated the government.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "A struggle for succession in the mid-twelfth century gave the Fujiwara an opportunity to regain their former power. Fujiwara no Yorinaga sided with the retired emperor in a violent battle in 1158 against the heir apparent, who was supported by the Taira and Minamoto. In the end, the Fujiwara were destroyed, the old system of government supplanted, and the insei system left powerless as bushi took control of court affairs, marking a turning point in Japanese history. Within a year, the Taira and Minamoto clashed, and a twenty-year period of Taira ascendancy began. The Taira were seduced by court life and ignored problems in the provinces. Finally, Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147–99) rose from his headquarters at Kamakura (in the Kantō region, southwest of modern Tokyo) to defeat the Taira, and with them the child emperor Emperor Antoku they controlled, in the Genpei War (1180–85).",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "After this downfall, the younger branches of the Fujiwara clan turned their focus from politics to the arts, producing literary scholars including Fujiwara no Shunzei and Fujiwara no Teika.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Only forty years after Michinaga's death, his Fujiwara heirs were not able to prevent the accession of Emperor Go-Sanjō (reigned 1068–73), the first emperor since Emperor Uda whose mother was not a Fujiwara. The system of government by retired emperor (daijō tennō) (cloistered rule) beginning from 1087 further weakened the Fujiwara's control over the Imperial Court.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Fujiwara-dominated Heian period approached its end along disturbances of 12th century. The dynastic struggle known as the Hōgen Disturbance (Hōgen no Ran) led to the Taira emerging as the most powerful clan in 1156. During the Heiji Disturbance (Heiji no Ran) in 1160 the Taira defeated the coalition of Fujiwara and Minamoto forces. This defeat marked the end of the Fujiwara's dominance.",
"title": "Heian period"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "During the 13th century, the Fujiwara Hokke was split into five regent houses: Konoe, Takatsukasa, Kujō, Nijō and Ichijō.",
"title": "Split and enduring influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "They had a \"monopoly\" to the offices of sesshō and kampaku, and served in turn. The political power had shifted away from the court nobility in Kyoto to the new warrior class in the countryside. However, Fujiwara remained close advisers, regents and ministers to the emperors for centuries; the family retained political reputation and influence even until the 20th century (such as Fumimaro Konoe and Morihiro Hosokawa, who became the Prime Ministers). As such, they had a certain political power and much influence, as often the rival warriors and later bakufu sought their alliance. Oda Nobunaga and his sister Oichi claimed to have descent from the Taira and Fujiwara clans; regent Toyotomi Hideyoshi and shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu were related by marriage to various families from Fujiwara clan. Empress Shōken, wife of Emperor Meiji, was a descendant of the Fujiwara clan.",
"title": "Split and enduring influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Until the marriage of the Crown Prince Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) to Princess Nagako of Kuni (posthumously Empress Kōjun) in January 1924, the principal consorts of emperors and crown princes had often been recruited from one of the Sekke Fujiwara. Imperial princesses were often married to Fujiwara lords – throughout a millennium at least. As recently as Emperor Shōwa's third daughter, the former Princess Kazuko and Prince Mikasa's elder daughter, the former Princess Yasuko, married into Takatsukasa and Konoe families, respectively. Likewise a daughter of the last shōgun married a second cousin of Emperor Shōwa.",
"title": "Split and enduring influence"
}
] |
The Fujiwara clan was a powerful family of imperial regents in Japan, descending from the Nakatomi clan and, as legend held, through them their ancestral god Ame-no-Koyane. The Fujiwara prospered since the ancient times and dominated the imperial court until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. They held the title of Ason. The abbreviated form is Tōshi (藤氏). The 8th century clan history Tōshi Kaden (藤氏家伝) states the following at the biography of the clan's patriarch, Fujiwara no Kamatari (614–669): "Kamatari, the Inner Palace Minister who was also called ‘Chūrō,’ was a man of the Takechi district of Yamato Province. His forebears descended from Ame no Koyane no Mikoto; for generations they had administered the rites for Heaven and Earth, harmonizing the space between men and the gods. Therefore, it was ordered their clan was to be called Ōnakatomi" The clan originated when the founder, Nakatomi no Kamatari (614–669) of the Nakatomi clan, was rewarded by Emperor Tenji with the honorific "Fujiwara", which evolved as a surname for Kamatari and his descendants. In time, Fujiwara became known as a clan name. The Fujiwara dominated the Japanese politics of the Heian period (794–1185) through the monopoly of regent positions, Sesshō and Kampaku. The family's primary strategy for central influence was through the marrying of Fujiwara daughters to the Emperors. Through this, the Fujiwara would gain influence over the next emperor who would, according to family tradition of that time, be raised in the household of his mother's side and owe loyalty to his grandfather. As abdicated emperors took over power by exercising insei at the end of the 11th century, then followed by the rise of the warrior class, the Fujiwara gradually lost its control over mainstream politics. The Northern Fujiwara ruled the Tōhoku region of Japan during the 12th century. Beyond the 12th century, they continued to monopolize the titles of Sesshō and Kampaku for much of the time until the system was abolished in the Meiji era. Though their influence declined, the clan remained close advisors to the succeeding Emperors.
|
2001-11-21T19:14:33Z
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2023-11-28T00:46:44Z
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"Template:Nihongo",
"Template:Nihongo2",
"Template:Fujiwara family tree",
"Template:Cite book",
"Template:Google books",
"Template:Reflist",
"Template:More citations needed",
"Template:Japanese clan name",
"Template:ISBN",
"Template:OCLC",
"Template:Short description",
"Template:Main"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujiwara_clan
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Federalism
|
Federalism is a mode of government that combines a general government (the central or "federal" government) with regional governments (provincial, state, cantonal, territorial, or other sub-unit governments) in a single political system, dividing the powers between the two. Johannes Althusius is considered the father of modern federalism along with Montesquieu. He notably exposed the bases of this political philosophy in Politica Methodice Digesta, Atque Exemplis Sacris et Profanis Illustrata (1603). Montesquieu sees in the Spirit of Laws, examples of federalist republics in corporate societies, the polis bringing together villages, and the cities themselves forming confederations. Federalism in the modern era was first adopted in the unions of states during the Old Swiss Confederacy.
Federalism differs from confederalism, in which the general level of government is subordinate to the regional level, and from devolution within a unitary state, in which the regional level of government is subordinate to the general level. It represents the central form in the pathway of regional integration or separation, bounded on the less integrated side by confederalism and on the more integrated side by devolution within a unitary state.
Examples of a federation or federal province or state include Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Iraq, Malaysia, Mexico, Micronesia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Some characterize the European Union as the pioneering example of federalism in a multi-state setting, in a concept termed the "federal union of states".
The terms "federalism" and "confederalism" share a root in the Latin word foedus, meaning "treaty, pact or covenant". Their common early meaning until the late eighteenth century was a simple league or inter-governmental relationship among sovereign states based on a treaty. They were therefore initially synonyms. It was in this sense that James Madison in Federalist No.39 had referred to the new US Constitution as "neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both" (i.e. as constituting neither a single large unitary state nor a league/confederation among several small states, but a hybrid of the two). In the course of the nineteenth century United States, the meaning of federalism would come to shift, strengthening to refer uniquely to the novel compound political form established at the Philadelphia Convention, while the meaning of confederalism would remain at a league of states.
In the narrow sense, federalism refers to the mode in which the body politic of a state is organized internally, and this is the meaning most often used in modern times. Political scientists, however, use it in a much broader sense, referring instead to a "multi-layer or pluralistic concept of social and political life."
The first forms of federalism took place in ancient times, in the form of alliances between states. Some examples from the seventh to second century B.C. were the Archaic League, the Aetolic League, the Peloponnesian League, and the Delian League. An early ancestor of federalism was the Achaean League in Hellenistic Greece. Unlike the Greek city states of Classical Greece, each of which insisted on keeping its complete independence, changing conditions in the Hellenistic period drove many city states to band together even at the cost of losing part of their sovereignty. Subsequent unions of states included the first and second Swiss Confederations (1291–1798 and 1815–48), the United Provinces of the Netherlands (1579–1795), the German Bund (1815–66), the first American union known as the Confederation of the United States of America (1781–89), and second American union formed as the United States of America (1789–1865).
Modern federalism is a political system based upon democratic rules and institutions in which the power to govern is shared between national and provincial/state governments. The term federalist describes several political beliefs around the world depending on context. Since the term federalization also describes distinctive political processes, its use as well depends on the context.
In political theory, two main types of federalization are recognized:
According to Daniel Ziblatt, there are four competing theoretical explanations in the academic literature for the adoption of federal systems:
Immanuel Kant noted that "the problem of setting up a state can be solved even by a nation of devils" so long as they possess an appropriate constitution which pits opposing factions against each other with a system of checks and balances. In particular individual states required a federation as a safeguard against the possibility of war.
Proponents for federal systems have historically argued that the power-sharing inherent in federal systems reduces both domestic security threats and foreign threats. Federalism allows states to be large and diverse, mitigating the risk of a tyrannical government through centralization of powers.
Many countries have implemented federal systems of government with varying degree of central and regional sovereignty. The federal government of these countries can be divided into minimalistic federations, consisting of only two sub-federal units or multi-regional, those that consist of three to dozens of regional governments. They can also be grouped based on their body polity type, such as emirate, provincial, republican or state federal systems. Another way to study federated countries is by categorizing them into those whose entire territory is federated as opposed to only part of its territory comprising the federal portion of the country. Some federal systems are national systems while others, like the European Union are supra national.
In general, two extremes of federalism can be distinguished: at one extreme, the strong federal state is almost completely unitary, with few powers reserved for local governments; while at the other extreme, the national government may be a federal state in name only, being a confederation in actuality. Federalism may encompass as few as two or three internal divisions, as is the case in Belgium or Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The governments of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, India, and Mexico, among others, are also organized along federalist principles.
In Canada, federalism typically implies opposition to sovereigntist movements (most commonly Quebec separatism). In 1999, the Government of Canada established the Forum of Federations as an international network for exchange of best practices among federal and federalizing countries. Headquartered in Ottawa, the Forum of Federations partner governments include Australia, Brazil, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan and Switzerland.
In Europe, "federalist" is sometimes used to describe those who favor a common federal government, with distributed power at regional, national and supranational levels. The Union of European Federalists advocates for this development within the European Union, ultimately leading to the United States of Europe. Although there are medieval and early modern examples of European states which used confederal and federal systems, contemporary European federalism originated in post-war Europe; one of the more important initiatives was Winston Churchill's speech in Zürich in 1946.
In the United States, federalism originally referred to belief in a stronger central government. When the U.S. Constitution was being drafted, the Federalist Party supported a stronger central government, while "Anti-Federalists" wanted a weaker central government. This is very different from the modern usage of "federalism" in Europe and the United States. The distinction stems from the fact that "federalism" is situated in the middle of the political spectrum between a confederacy and a unitary state. The U.S. Constitution was written as a replacement for the Articles of Confederation, under which the United States was a loose confederation with a weak central government.
In contrast, Europe has a greater history of unitary states than North America, thus European "federalism" argues for a weaker central government, relative to a unitary state. The modern American usage of the word is much closer to the European sense. As the power of the U.S. federal government has increased, some people have perceived a much more unitary state than they believe the Founding Fathers intended. Most people politically advocating "federalism" in the United States argue in favor of limiting the powers of the federal government, especially the judiciary (see Federalist Society, New Federalism).
The contemporary concept of federalism came about with the creation of an entirely new system of government that provided for democratic representation at two governing levels simultaneously, which was implemented in the US Constitution. In the United States implementation of federalism, a bicameral general government, consisting of a chamber of popular representation proportional to population (the House of Representatives), and a chamber of equal State-based representation consisting of two delegates per State (the Senate), was overlaid upon the pre-existing regional governments of the thirteen independent States. With each level of government allocated a defined sphere of powers, under a written constitution and the rule of law (that is, subject to the independent third-party arbitration of a supreme court in competence disputes), the two levels were thus brought into a coordinate relationship for the first time.
In 1946, Kenneth Wheare observed that the two levels of government in the US were "co-equally supreme". In this, he echoed the perspective of American founding father James Madison who saw the several States as forming "distinct and independent portions of the supremacy" in relation to the general government.
In a federation, the division of power between federal and regional governments is usually outlined in the constitution. Almost every country allows some degree of regional self-government, but in federations the right to self-government of the component states is constitutionally entrenched. Component states often also possess their own constitutions which they may amend as they see fit, although in the event of conflict the federal constitution usually takes precedence.
In almost all federations the central government enjoys the powers of foreign policy and national defense as exclusive federal powers. Were this not the case a federation would not be a single sovereign state, per the UN definition. Notably, the states of Germany retain the right to act on their own behalf at an international level, a condition originally granted in exchange for the Kingdom of Bavaria's agreement to join the German Empire in 1871. The constitutions of Germany and the United States provide that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government are retained by the states. The Constitution of some countries, like Canada and India, state that powers not explicitly granted to the provincial/state governments are retained by the federal government. Much like the US system, the Australian Constitution allocates to the Federal government (the Commonwealth of Australia) the power to make laws about certain specified matters which were considered too difficult for the States to manage, so that the States retain all other areas of responsibility. Under the division of powers of the European Union in the Lisbon Treaty, powers which are not either exclusively of Union competence or shared between the Union and the Member States as concurrent powers are retained by the constituent States.
Where every component state of a federation possesses the same powers, we are said to find 'symmetric federalism'. Asymmetric federalism exists where states are granted different powers, or some possess greater autonomy than others do. This is often done in recognition of the existence of a distinct culture in a particular region or regions. In Spain, the Basques and Catalans, as well as the Galicians, spearheaded a historic movement to have their national specificity recognized, crystallizing in the "historical communities" such as Navarre, Galicia, Catalonia, and the Basque Country. They have more powers than the later expanded arrangement for other Spanish regions, or the Spain of the autonomous communities (called also the "coffee for everyone" arrangement), partly to deal with their separate identity and to appease peripheral nationalist leanings, partly out of respect to specific rights they had held earlier in history. However, strictly speaking Spain is not a federation, but a system of asymmetric devolved government within a unitary state.
It is common that during the historical evolution of a federation there is a gradual movement of power from the component states to the centre, as the federal government acquires additional powers, sometimes to deal with unforeseen circumstances. The acquisition of new powers by a federal government may occur through formal constitutional amendment or simply through a broadening of the interpretation of a government's existing constitutional powers given by the courts.
Usually, a federation is formed at two levels: the central government and the regions (states, provinces, territories), and little to nothing is said about second or third level administrative political entities. Brazil is an exception, because the 1988 Constitution included the municipalities as autonomous political entities making the federation tripartite, encompassing the Union, the States, and the municipalities. Each state is divided into municipalities (municípios) with their own legislative council (câmara de vereadores) and a mayor (prefeito), which are partly autonomous from both Federal and State Government. Each municipality has a "little constitution", called "organic law" (lei orgânica). Mexico is an intermediate case, in that municipalities are granted full-autonomy by the federal constitution and their existence as autonomous entities (municipio libre, "free municipality") is established by the federal government and cannot be revoked by the states' constitutions. Moreover, the federal constitution determines which powers and competencies belong exclusively to the municipalities and not to the constituent states. However, municipalities do not have an elected legislative assembly.
Federations often employ the paradox of being a union of states, while still being states (or having aspects of statehood) in themselves. For example, James Madison (author of the US Constitution) wrote in Federalist Paper No. 39 that the US Constitution "is in strictness neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both. In its foundation, it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the Government are drawn, it is partly federal, and partly national..." This stems from the fact that states in the US maintain all sovereignty that they do not yield to the federation by their own consent. This was reaffirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reserves all powers and rights that are not delegated to the Federal Government as left to the States and to the people.
The structures of most federal governments incorporate mechanisms to protect the rights of component states. One method, known as 'intrastate federalism', is to directly represent the governments of component states in federal political institutions. Where a federation has a bicameral legislature the upper house is often used to represent the component states while the lower house represents the people of the nation as a whole. A federal upper house may be based on a special scheme of apportionment, as is the case in the senates of the United States and Australia, where each state is represented by an equal number of senators irrespective of the size of its population.
Alternatively, or in addition to this practice, the members of an upper house may be indirectly elected by the government or legislature of the component states, as occurred in the United States prior to 1913, or be actual members or delegates of the state governments, as, for example, is the case in the German Bundesrat and in the Council of the European Union. The lower house of a federal legislature is usually directly elected, with apportionment in proportion to population, although states may sometimes still be guaranteed a certain minimum number of seats.
In Canada, the provincial governments represent regional interests and negotiate directly with the central government. A First Ministers conference of the prime minister and the provincial premiers is the de facto highest political forum in the land, although it is not mentioned in the constitution.
Federations often have special procedures for amendment of the federal constitution. As well as reflecting the federal structure of the state this may guarantee that the self-governing status of the component states cannot be abolished without their consent. An amendment to the constitution of the United States must be ratified by three-quarters of either the state legislatures, or of constitutional conventions specially elected in each of the states, before it can come into effect. In referendums to amend the constitutions of Australia and Switzerland it is required that a proposal be endorsed not just by an overall majority of the electorate in the nation as a whole, but also by separate majorities in each of a majority of the states or cantons. In Australia, this latter requirement is known as a double majority.
Some federal constitutions also provide that certain constitutional amendments cannot occur without the unanimous consent of all states or of a particular state. The US constitution provides that no state may be deprived of equal representation in the senate without its consent. In Australia, if a proposed amendment will specifically impact one or more states, then it must be endorsed in the referendum held in each of those states. Any amendment to the Canadian constitution that would modify the role of the monarchy would require unanimous consent of the provinces. The German Basic Law provides that no amendment is admissible at all that would abolish the federal system.
It has been argued that federalism and other forms of territorial autonomy are a useful way to structure political systems in order to prevent violence among different groups within countries because it allows certain groups to legislate at the subnational level. Some scholars have suggested, however, that federalism can divide countries and result in state collapse because it creates proto-states. Still others have shown that federalism is only divisive when it lacks mechanisms that encourage political parties to compete across regional boundaries.
Federalism is sometimes viewed in the context of international negotiation as "the best system for integrating diverse nations, ethnic groups, or combatant parties, all of whom may have cause to fear control by an overly powerful center." However, those skeptical of federal prescriptions sometimes believe that increased regional autonomy can lead to secession or dissolution of the nation. In Syria, for example, federalization proposals have failed in part because "Syrians fear that these borders could turn out to be the same as the ones that the fighting parties have currently carved out."
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Federalism is a mode of government that combines a general government (the central or \"federal\" government) with regional governments (provincial, state, cantonal, territorial, or other sub-unit governments) in a single political system, dividing the powers between the two. Johannes Althusius is considered the father of modern federalism along with Montesquieu. He notably exposed the bases of this political philosophy in Politica Methodice Digesta, Atque Exemplis Sacris et Profanis Illustrata (1603). Montesquieu sees in the Spirit of Laws, examples of federalist republics in corporate societies, the polis bringing together villages, and the cities themselves forming confederations. Federalism in the modern era was first adopted in the unions of states during the Old Swiss Confederacy.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Federalism differs from confederalism, in which the general level of government is subordinate to the regional level, and from devolution within a unitary state, in which the regional level of government is subordinate to the general level. It represents the central form in the pathway of regional integration or separation, bounded on the less integrated side by confederalism and on the more integrated side by devolution within a unitary state.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Examples of a federation or federal province or state include Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Iraq, Malaysia, Mexico, Micronesia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Some characterize the European Union as the pioneering example of federalism in a multi-state setting, in a concept termed the \"federal union of states\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The terms \"federalism\" and \"confederalism\" share a root in the Latin word foedus, meaning \"treaty, pact or covenant\". Their common early meaning until the late eighteenth century was a simple league or inter-governmental relationship among sovereign states based on a treaty. They were therefore initially synonyms. It was in this sense that James Madison in Federalist No.39 had referred to the new US Constitution as \"neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both\" (i.e. as constituting neither a single large unitary state nor a league/confederation among several small states, but a hybrid of the two). In the course of the nineteenth century United States, the meaning of federalism would come to shift, strengthening to refer uniquely to the novel compound political form established at the Philadelphia Convention, while the meaning of confederalism would remain at a league of states.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In the narrow sense, federalism refers to the mode in which the body politic of a state is organized internally, and this is the meaning most often used in modern times. Political scientists, however, use it in a much broader sense, referring instead to a \"multi-layer or pluralistic concept of social and political life.\"",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The first forms of federalism took place in ancient times, in the form of alliances between states. Some examples from the seventh to second century B.C. were the Archaic League, the Aetolic League, the Peloponnesian League, and the Delian League. An early ancestor of federalism was the Achaean League in Hellenistic Greece. Unlike the Greek city states of Classical Greece, each of which insisted on keeping its complete independence, changing conditions in the Hellenistic period drove many city states to band together even at the cost of losing part of their sovereignty. Subsequent unions of states included the first and second Swiss Confederations (1291–1798 and 1815–48), the United Provinces of the Netherlands (1579–1795), the German Bund (1815–66), the first American union known as the Confederation of the United States of America (1781–89), and second American union formed as the United States of America (1789–1865).",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Modern federalism is a political system based upon democratic rules and institutions in which the power to govern is shared between national and provincial/state governments. The term federalist describes several political beliefs around the world depending on context. Since the term federalization also describes distinctive political processes, its use as well depends on the context.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In political theory, two main types of federalization are recognized:",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "According to Daniel Ziblatt, there are four competing theoretical explanations in the academic literature for the adoption of federal systems:",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Immanuel Kant noted that \"the problem of setting up a state can be solved even by a nation of devils\" so long as they possess an appropriate constitution which pits opposing factions against each other with a system of checks and balances. In particular individual states required a federation as a safeguard against the possibility of war.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Proponents for federal systems have historically argued that the power-sharing inherent in federal systems reduces both domestic security threats and foreign threats. Federalism allows states to be large and diverse, mitigating the risk of a tyrannical government through centralization of powers.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Many countries have implemented federal systems of government with varying degree of central and regional sovereignty. The federal government of these countries can be divided into minimalistic federations, consisting of only two sub-federal units or multi-regional, those that consist of three to dozens of regional governments. They can also be grouped based on their body polity type, such as emirate, provincial, republican or state federal systems. Another way to study federated countries is by categorizing them into those whose entire territory is federated as opposed to only part of its territory comprising the federal portion of the country. Some federal systems are national systems while others, like the European Union are supra national.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In general, two extremes of federalism can be distinguished: at one extreme, the strong federal state is almost completely unitary, with few powers reserved for local governments; while at the other extreme, the national government may be a federal state in name only, being a confederation in actuality. Federalism may encompass as few as two or three internal divisions, as is the case in Belgium or Bosnia and Herzegovina.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The governments of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, India, and Mexico, among others, are also organized along federalist principles.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In Canada, federalism typically implies opposition to sovereigntist movements (most commonly Quebec separatism). In 1999, the Government of Canada established the Forum of Federations as an international network for exchange of best practices among federal and federalizing countries. Headquartered in Ottawa, the Forum of Federations partner governments include Australia, Brazil, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan and Switzerland.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In Europe, \"federalist\" is sometimes used to describe those who favor a common federal government, with distributed power at regional, national and supranational levels. The Union of European Federalists advocates for this development within the European Union, ultimately leading to the United States of Europe. Although there are medieval and early modern examples of European states which used confederal and federal systems, contemporary European federalism originated in post-war Europe; one of the more important initiatives was Winston Churchill's speech in Zürich in 1946.",
"title": "Europe vs. the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In the United States, federalism originally referred to belief in a stronger central government. When the U.S. Constitution was being drafted, the Federalist Party supported a stronger central government, while \"Anti-Federalists\" wanted a weaker central government. This is very different from the modern usage of \"federalism\" in Europe and the United States. The distinction stems from the fact that \"federalism\" is situated in the middle of the political spectrum between a confederacy and a unitary state. The U.S. Constitution was written as a replacement for the Articles of Confederation, under which the United States was a loose confederation with a weak central government.",
"title": "Europe vs. the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In contrast, Europe has a greater history of unitary states than North America, thus European \"federalism\" argues for a weaker central government, relative to a unitary state. The modern American usage of the word is much closer to the European sense. As the power of the U.S. federal government has increased, some people have perceived a much more unitary state than they believe the Founding Fathers intended. Most people politically advocating \"federalism\" in the United States argue in favor of limiting the powers of the federal government, especially the judiciary (see Federalist Society, New Federalism).",
"title": "Europe vs. the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The contemporary concept of federalism came about with the creation of an entirely new system of government that provided for democratic representation at two governing levels simultaneously, which was implemented in the US Constitution. In the United States implementation of federalism, a bicameral general government, consisting of a chamber of popular representation proportional to population (the House of Representatives), and a chamber of equal State-based representation consisting of two delegates per State (the Senate), was overlaid upon the pre-existing regional governments of the thirteen independent States. With each level of government allocated a defined sphere of powers, under a written constitution and the rule of law (that is, subject to the independent third-party arbitration of a supreme court in competence disputes), the two levels were thus brought into a coordinate relationship for the first time.",
"title": "Europe vs. the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In 1946, Kenneth Wheare observed that the two levels of government in the US were \"co-equally supreme\". In this, he echoed the perspective of American founding father James Madison who saw the several States as forming \"distinct and independent portions of the supremacy\" in relation to the general government.",
"title": "Europe vs. the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In a federation, the division of power between federal and regional governments is usually outlined in the constitution. Almost every country allows some degree of regional self-government, but in federations the right to self-government of the component states is constitutionally entrenched. Component states often also possess their own constitutions which they may amend as they see fit, although in the event of conflict the federal constitution usually takes precedence.",
"title": "Constitutional structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In almost all federations the central government enjoys the powers of foreign policy and national defense as exclusive federal powers. Were this not the case a federation would not be a single sovereign state, per the UN definition. Notably, the states of Germany retain the right to act on their own behalf at an international level, a condition originally granted in exchange for the Kingdom of Bavaria's agreement to join the German Empire in 1871. The constitutions of Germany and the United States provide that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government are retained by the states. The Constitution of some countries, like Canada and India, state that powers not explicitly granted to the provincial/state governments are retained by the federal government. Much like the US system, the Australian Constitution allocates to the Federal government (the Commonwealth of Australia) the power to make laws about certain specified matters which were considered too difficult for the States to manage, so that the States retain all other areas of responsibility. Under the division of powers of the European Union in the Lisbon Treaty, powers which are not either exclusively of Union competence or shared between the Union and the Member States as concurrent powers are retained by the constituent States.",
"title": "Constitutional structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Where every component state of a federation possesses the same powers, we are said to find 'symmetric federalism'. Asymmetric federalism exists where states are granted different powers, or some possess greater autonomy than others do. This is often done in recognition of the existence of a distinct culture in a particular region or regions. In Spain, the Basques and Catalans, as well as the Galicians, spearheaded a historic movement to have their national specificity recognized, crystallizing in the \"historical communities\" such as Navarre, Galicia, Catalonia, and the Basque Country. They have more powers than the later expanded arrangement for other Spanish regions, or the Spain of the autonomous communities (called also the \"coffee for everyone\" arrangement), partly to deal with their separate identity and to appease peripheral nationalist leanings, partly out of respect to specific rights they had held earlier in history. However, strictly speaking Spain is not a federation, but a system of asymmetric devolved government within a unitary state.",
"title": "Constitutional structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "It is common that during the historical evolution of a federation there is a gradual movement of power from the component states to the centre, as the federal government acquires additional powers, sometimes to deal with unforeseen circumstances. The acquisition of new powers by a federal government may occur through formal constitutional amendment or simply through a broadening of the interpretation of a government's existing constitutional powers given by the courts.",
"title": "Constitutional structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Usually, a federation is formed at two levels: the central government and the regions (states, provinces, territories), and little to nothing is said about second or third level administrative political entities. Brazil is an exception, because the 1988 Constitution included the municipalities as autonomous political entities making the federation tripartite, encompassing the Union, the States, and the municipalities. Each state is divided into municipalities (municípios) with their own legislative council (câmara de vereadores) and a mayor (prefeito), which are partly autonomous from both Federal and State Government. Each municipality has a \"little constitution\", called \"organic law\" (lei orgânica). Mexico is an intermediate case, in that municipalities are granted full-autonomy by the federal constitution and their existence as autonomous entities (municipio libre, \"free municipality\") is established by the federal government and cannot be revoked by the states' constitutions. Moreover, the federal constitution determines which powers and competencies belong exclusively to the municipalities and not to the constituent states. However, municipalities do not have an elected legislative assembly.",
"title": "Constitutional structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Federations often employ the paradox of being a union of states, while still being states (or having aspects of statehood) in themselves. For example, James Madison (author of the US Constitution) wrote in Federalist Paper No. 39 that the US Constitution \"is in strictness neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both. In its foundation, it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the Government are drawn, it is partly federal, and partly national...\" This stems from the fact that states in the US maintain all sovereignty that they do not yield to the federation by their own consent. This was reaffirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reserves all powers and rights that are not delegated to the Federal Government as left to the States and to the people.",
"title": "Constitutional structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The structures of most federal governments incorporate mechanisms to protect the rights of component states. One method, known as 'intrastate federalism', is to directly represent the governments of component states in federal political institutions. Where a federation has a bicameral legislature the upper house is often used to represent the component states while the lower house represents the people of the nation as a whole. A federal upper house may be based on a special scheme of apportionment, as is the case in the senates of the United States and Australia, where each state is represented by an equal number of senators irrespective of the size of its population.",
"title": "Constitutional structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Alternatively, or in addition to this practice, the members of an upper house may be indirectly elected by the government or legislature of the component states, as occurred in the United States prior to 1913, or be actual members or delegates of the state governments, as, for example, is the case in the German Bundesrat and in the Council of the European Union. The lower house of a federal legislature is usually directly elected, with apportionment in proportion to population, although states may sometimes still be guaranteed a certain minimum number of seats.",
"title": "Constitutional structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In Canada, the provincial governments represent regional interests and negotiate directly with the central government. A First Ministers conference of the prime minister and the provincial premiers is the de facto highest political forum in the land, although it is not mentioned in the constitution.",
"title": "Constitutional structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Federations often have special procedures for amendment of the federal constitution. As well as reflecting the federal structure of the state this may guarantee that the self-governing status of the component states cannot be abolished without their consent. An amendment to the constitution of the United States must be ratified by three-quarters of either the state legislatures, or of constitutional conventions specially elected in each of the states, before it can come into effect. In referendums to amend the constitutions of Australia and Switzerland it is required that a proposal be endorsed not just by an overall majority of the electorate in the nation as a whole, but also by separate majorities in each of a majority of the states or cantons. In Australia, this latter requirement is known as a double majority.",
"title": "Constitutional structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Some federal constitutions also provide that certain constitutional amendments cannot occur without the unanimous consent of all states or of a particular state. The US constitution provides that no state may be deprived of equal representation in the senate without its consent. In Australia, if a proposed amendment will specifically impact one or more states, then it must be endorsed in the referendum held in each of those states. Any amendment to the Canadian constitution that would modify the role of the monarchy would require unanimous consent of the provinces. The German Basic Law provides that no amendment is admissible at all that would abolish the federal system.",
"title": "Constitutional structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "It has been argued that federalism and other forms of territorial autonomy are a useful way to structure political systems in order to prevent violence among different groups within countries because it allows certain groups to legislate at the subnational level. Some scholars have suggested, however, that federalism can divide countries and result in state collapse because it creates proto-states. Still others have shown that federalism is only divisive when it lacks mechanisms that encourage political parties to compete across regional boundaries.",
"title": "In relation to conflict"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Federalism is sometimes viewed in the context of international negotiation as \"the best system for integrating diverse nations, ethnic groups, or combatant parties, all of whom may have cause to fear control by an overly powerful center.\" However, those skeptical of federal prescriptions sometimes believe that increased regional autonomy can lead to secession or dissolution of the nation. In Syria, for example, federalization proposals have failed in part because \"Syrians fear that these borders could turn out to be the same as the ones that the fighting parties have currently carved out.\"",
"title": "In relation to conflict"
}
] |
Federalism is a mode of government that combines a general government with regional governments in a single political system, dividing the powers between the two. Johannes Althusius is considered the father of modern federalism along with Montesquieu. He notably exposed the bases of this political philosophy in Politica Methodice Digesta, Atque Exemplis Sacris et Profanis Illustrata (1603). Montesquieu sees in the Spirit of Laws, examples of federalist republics in corporate societies, the polis bringing together villages, and the cities themselves forming confederations. Federalism in the modern era was first adopted in the unions of states during the Old Swiss Confederacy. Federalism differs from confederalism, in which the general level of government is subordinate to the regional level, and from devolution within a unitary state, in which the regional level of government is subordinate to the general level. It represents the central form in the pathway of regional integration or separation, bounded on the less integrated side by confederalism and on the more integrated side by devolution within a unitary state. Examples of a federation or federal province or state include Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Iraq, Malaysia, Mexico, Micronesia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Some characterize the European Union as the pioneering example of federalism in a multi-state setting, in a concept termed the "federal union of states".
|
2001-11-21T22:24:08Z
|
2023-12-29T02:49:37Z
|
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11,543 |
Firmin Abauzit
|
Firmin Abauzit (11 November 1679 – 20 March 1767) was a French scholar who worked on physics, theology and philosophy, and served as librarian in Geneva (Republic of Geneva) during his final 40 years. Abauzit is also notable for proofreading or correcting the writings of Isaac Newton and other scholars.
Firmin Abauzit was born of Huguenot parents on 11 November 1679 at Uzès, in Languedoc. His paternal family traces its origin to an Arab physician who settled in Toulouse during the 9th century. Accordingly, the name “Abauzit” is liked derived from the Arabic “Abu Zaid” (father of Zaid).
His father died when he was only two years of age; and when, on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the authorities took steps to have him educated in the Roman Catholic faith, his mother contrived his escape.
For two years his brother and he lived as fugitives in the mountains of the Cévennes, but they at last reached Geneva, where their mother afterwards joined them on escaping from the imprisonment in which she was held from the time of their flight. Abauzit at an early age acquired great proficiency in languages, physics, and theology.
In 1698, he traveled to Germany, then to Holland, where he became acquainted with Pierre Bayle, Pierre Jurieu and Jacques Basnage. Proceeding to England, he was introduced to Sir Isaac Newton, who found in him one of the earliest defenders of his discoveries against Castel. Newton corrected in the second edition of his Principia an error pointed out by Abauzit, and, when sending him the Commercium Epistolicum, said, "You are well worthy to judge between Leibnitz and me."
The reputation of Abauzit induced William III to request him to settle in England, but he did not accept the king's offer, preferring to return to Geneva. There from 1715 he rendered valuable assistance to a society that had been formed for translating the New Testament into French. He declined the offer of the chair of philosophy at the University of Geneva in 1723. He assisted in the French language New Testament in 1726. In 1727, he was granted citizenship in Geneva, and he accepted the office of honorary librarian to Geneva, the city of his adoption. It was while he was in Geneva in his later years that he authored many of his works. He died in Geneva at the age of 87, on 20 March 1767.
Abauzit was a man of great learning and of wonderful versatility. Whatever chanced to be discussed, it used to be said of Abauzit that he seemed to have made it a subject of particular study. Rousseau, who was jealously sparing of his praises, addressed to him, in his Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse, a fine panegyric; and when a stranger flatteringly told Voltaire he had come to see a great man, the philosopher asked him if he had seen Abauzit. Among his acquaintances, Abauzit claimed Rousseau, Voltaire, Newton, and Bayle.
Little remains of the labours of this intellectual giant, his heirs having, it is said, destroyed the papers that came into their possession, because their own religious opinions were different. A few theological, archaeological, and astronomical articles from his pen appeared in the Journal helvétique and elsewhere, and he contributed several papers to Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique (1767). He wrote a work throwing doubt on the canonical authority of the Apocalypse, which called forth a reply from Dr Leonard Twells, and was published in Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie. He also edited and made valuable additions to Jacob Spon's Histoire de la république de Genève. A collection of his writings was published at Geneva in 1770 (Œuvres de feu M. Abauzit), and another at London in 1773 (Œuvres diverses de M. Abauzit).
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Firmin Abauzit (11 November 1679 – 20 March 1767) was a French scholar who worked on physics, theology and philosophy, and served as librarian in Geneva (Republic of Geneva) during his final 40 years. Abauzit is also notable for proofreading or correcting the writings of Isaac Newton and other scholars.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Firmin Abauzit was born of Huguenot parents on 11 November 1679 at Uzès, in Languedoc. His paternal family traces its origin to an Arab physician who settled in Toulouse during the 9th century. Accordingly, the name “Abauzit” is liked derived from the Arabic “Abu Zaid” (father of Zaid).",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "His father died when he was only two years of age; and when, on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the authorities took steps to have him educated in the Roman Catholic faith, his mother contrived his escape.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "For two years his brother and he lived as fugitives in the mountains of the Cévennes, but they at last reached Geneva, where their mother afterwards joined them on escaping from the imprisonment in which she was held from the time of their flight. Abauzit at an early age acquired great proficiency in languages, physics, and theology.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1698, he traveled to Germany, then to Holland, where he became acquainted with Pierre Bayle, Pierre Jurieu and Jacques Basnage. Proceeding to England, he was introduced to Sir Isaac Newton, who found in him one of the earliest defenders of his discoveries against Castel. Newton corrected in the second edition of his Principia an error pointed out by Abauzit, and, when sending him the Commercium Epistolicum, said, \"You are well worthy to judge between Leibnitz and me.\"",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The reputation of Abauzit induced William III to request him to settle in England, but he did not accept the king's offer, preferring to return to Geneva. There from 1715 he rendered valuable assistance to a society that had been formed for translating the New Testament into French. He declined the offer of the chair of philosophy at the University of Geneva in 1723. He assisted in the French language New Testament in 1726. In 1727, he was granted citizenship in Geneva, and he accepted the office of honorary librarian to Geneva, the city of his adoption. It was while he was in Geneva in his later years that he authored many of his works. He died in Geneva at the age of 87, on 20 March 1767.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Abauzit was a man of great learning and of wonderful versatility. Whatever chanced to be discussed, it used to be said of Abauzit that he seemed to have made it a subject of particular study. Rousseau, who was jealously sparing of his praises, addressed to him, in his Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse, a fine panegyric; and when a stranger flatteringly told Voltaire he had come to see a great man, the philosopher asked him if he had seen Abauzit. Among his acquaintances, Abauzit claimed Rousseau, Voltaire, Newton, and Bayle.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Little remains of the labours of this intellectual giant, his heirs having, it is said, destroyed the papers that came into their possession, because their own religious opinions were different. A few theological, archaeological, and astronomical articles from his pen appeared in the Journal helvétique and elsewhere, and he contributed several papers to Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique (1767). He wrote a work throwing doubt on the canonical authority of the Apocalypse, which called forth a reply from Dr Leonard Twells, and was published in Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie. He also edited and made valuable additions to Jacob Spon's Histoire de la république de Genève. A collection of his writings was published at Geneva in 1770 (Œuvres de feu M. Abauzit), and another at London in 1773 (Œuvres diverses de M. Abauzit).",
"title": "Legacy"
}
] |
Firmin Abauzit was a French scholar who worked on physics, theology and philosophy, and served as librarian in Geneva during his final 40 years. Abauzit is also notable for proofreading or correcting the writings of Isaac Newton and other scholars.
|
2023-04-28T15:45:16Z
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|
11,544 |
French Foreign Legion
|
The French Foreign Legion (French: Légion étrangère) is a corps of the French Army that consists of several specialties: infantry, cavalry, engineers, airborne troops. It was created in 1831 to allow foreign nationals into the French Army. It formed part of the Armée d’Afrique, the French Army's units associated with France's colonial project in Africa, until the end of the Algerian war in 1962.
Legionnaires are highly trained soldiers and the Legion is unique in that it is open to foreign recruits willing to serve in the French Armed Forces. The Legion is known today as a unit whose training focuses on traditional military skills and on its strong esprit de corps, as its men come from different countries with different cultures. Consequently, training is often described as not only physically challenging, but also very stressful psychologically. Legionnaires may apply for French citizenship after three years' service, or immediately after being wounded during a battle for France under a provision known as "Français par le sang versé" ("French by spilled blood").
The Foreign Legion was created by Louis Philippe, the King of the French, on 10 March 1831 to allow the incorporation of foreign nationals into the French Army from the foreign regiments of the Kingdom of France. Recruits included soldiers from the recently disbanded Swiss and German foreign regiments of the Bourbon monarchy. The Royal Ordinance for the establishment of the new regiment specified that the foreigners recruited could only serve outside France. The French expeditionary force that had occupied Algiers in 1830 was in need of reinforcements and the Legion was accordingly transferred by sea in detachments from Toulon to Algeria. Since 1831, the Legion has consisted of hundreds of thousands in active service at its peak, and suffered the aggregated loss of nearly 40,000 men in France, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Madagascar, West Africa, Mexico, Italy, Crimea, Spain, Indo-China, Norway, Syria, Chad, Zaïre, Lebanon, Central Africa, Gabon, Kuwait, Rwanda, Djibouti, former Yugoslavia, Somalia, the Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Mali, as well as others. The Legion was primarily used to help protect and expand the French colonial empire during the 19th century. The Foreign Legion was initially stationed only in Algeria, where it took part in the pacification and development of the colony. Subsequently, the Foreign Legion was deployed in a number of conflicts, including the First Carlist War in 1835, the Crimean War in 1854, the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859, the French intervention in Mexico in 1863, the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the Tonkin Campaign and Sino-French War in 1883, supporting growth of the French colonial empire in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Second Franco-Dahomean War in 1892, the Second Madagascar expedition in 1895 and the Mandingo Wars in 1894. In World War I, the Foreign Legion fought in many critical battles on the Western Front. It played a smaller role in World War II than in World War I, though having a part in the Norwegian, Syrian and North African campaigns. During the First Indochina War (1946–1954), the Foreign Legion saw its numbers swell. The Legion lost a large number of men in the catastrophic Battle of Dien Bien Phu against forces of the Viet Minh.
Subsequent military campaigns included those during the Suez Crisis, the Battle of Algiers and various offensives in Algeria launched by General Maurice Challe including Operation Oranie and Operation Jumelles. During the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962), the Foreign Legion came close to being disbanded after some officers, men, and the highly decorated 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1 REP) took part in the Generals' putsch. In the 1960s and 1970s, Legion regiments had additional roles in sending units as a rapid deployment force to preserve French interests – in its former African colonies and in other nations as well; it also returned to its roots of being a unit always ready to be sent to conflict zones around the world.
Some notable operations include the Chadian–Libyan conflict in 1969–1972 (the first time that the Legion was sent in operations after the Algerian War), 1978–1979, and 1983–1987; Kolwezi in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo in May 1978. In 1981, the 1st Foreign Regiment and Foreign Legion regiments took part in the Multinational Force in Lebanon. In 1990, Foreign Legion regiments were sent to the Persian Gulf and participated in Opération Daguet, part of Division Daguet. Following the Gulf War in the 1990s, the Foreign Legion helped with the evacuation of French citizens and foreigners in Rwanda, Gabon and Zaire. The Foreign Legion was also deployed in Cambodia, Somalia, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the mid- to late 1990s, the Foreign Legion was deployed in the Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville and in Kosovo. The French Foreign Legion also took part in operations in Rwanda in 1990–1994; and the Ivory Coast in 2002 to the present. In the 2000s, the Foreign Legion was deployed in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, Opération Licorne in Ivory Coast, the EUFOR Tchad/RCA in Chad, and Operation Serval in the Northern Mali conflict.
As discussed below, other countries have tried to emulate the French Foreign Legion model. The Foreign Legion was primarily used, as part of the Armée d'Afrique, to protect and expand the French colonial empire during the 19th century, but it also fought in almost all French wars including the Franco-Prussian War, World War I and World War II. The Foreign Legion has remained an important part of the French Army and sea transport protected by the French Navy, surviving three Republics, the Second French Empire, two World Wars, the rise and fall of mass conscript armies, the dismantling of the French colonial empire, and the loss of the Foreign Legion's base, Algeria.
Created to fight "outside mainland France", the Foreign Legion was stationed in Algeria, where it took part in the pacification and development of the colony, notably by drying the marshes in the region of Algiers. The Foreign Legion was initially divided into six "national battalions" (Swiss, Poles, Germans, Italians, Spanish, and Dutch-Belgian). Smaller national groups, such as the ten Englishmen recorded in December 1832, appear to have been placed randomly.
In late 1831, the first legionnaires landed in Algeria, the country that would be the Foreign Legion's homeland for 130 years and shape its character. The early years in Algeria were hard on the legion because it was often sent to the worst postings and received the worst assignments, and its members were generally uninterested in the new colony of the French. The Legion served alongside the Battalions of Light Infantry of Africa, formed in 1832, which was a penal military unit made up of men with prison records who still had to do their military service or soldiers with serious disciplinary problems.
The Foreign Legion's first service in Algeria came to an end after only four years, as it was needed elsewhere.
To support Isabella's claim to the Spanish throne against her uncle, the French government decided to send the Foreign Legion to Spain. On 28 June 1835, the unit was handed over to the Spanish government. The Foreign Legion landed via sea at Tarragona on 17 August with around 1,400 who were quickly dubbed Los Argelinos (the Algerians) by locals because of their previous posting.
The Foreign Legion's commander immediately dissolved the national battalions to improve the esprit de corps. Later, he also created three squadrons of lancers and an artillery battery from the existing force to increase independence and flexibility. The Foreign Legion was dissolved on 8 December 1838, when it had dropped to only 500 men. The survivors returned to France, many reenlisting in the new Foreign Legion along with many of their former Carlist enemies.
On 9 June 1854, the French ship Jean Bart embarked four battalions of the Foreign Legion for the Crimean Peninsula. A further battalion was stationed at Gallipoli as brigade depot. Eight companies drawn from both regiments of the Foreign Legion took part in the Battle of Alma (20 September 1854). Reinforcements by sea brought the Legion contingent up to brigade strength. As the "Foreign Brigade", it served in the Siege of Sevastopol, during the winter of 1854–1855.
The lack of equipment was particularly challenging and cholera hit the Allied expeditionary force. Nevertheless, the "leather bellies" (the nickname given to the legionnaires by the Russians because of the large cartridge pouches that they wore attached to their waist-belts), performed well. On 21 June 1855, the Third Battalion, left Corsica for Crimea.
On 8 September the final assault was launched on Sevastopol. Two days later, the Second Foreign Regiment with flags and band playing ahead, marched through the streets of Sevastopol. Although initial reservations had been expressed about whether the Legion should be used outside Africa, the Crimean experience established its suitability for service in European warfare, as well as making a cohesive single entity of what had previously been two separate foreign regiments. Legion casualties in the Crimea were 1,703 killed and wounded out of total French losses by battle and disease of 95,615.
Like the rest of the "Army of Africa", the Foreign Legion provided detachments in the campaign of Italy. Two foreign regiments, grouped with the 2nd Regiment of Zouaves, were part of the Second Brigade of the Second Division of Mac Mahon's Corps. The Foreign Legion acquitted itself particularly well against the Austrians at the battle of Magenta (4 June 1859) and at the Battle of Solferino (24 June). Legion losses were significant and the 2nd Foreign Regiment lost Colonel Chabrière, its commanding officer. In gratitude, the city of Milan awarded, in 1909, the "commemorative medal of deliverance", which still adorns the regimental flags of the Second Regiment.
The 38,000 strong French expeditionary force dispatched to Mexico via sea between 1862 and 1863 included two battalions of the Foreign Legion, increased to six battalions by 1866. Small cavalry and artillery units were raised from legionnaires serving in Mexico. The original intention was that Foreign Legion units should remain in Mexico for up to six years to provide a core for the Imperial Mexican Army. However the Legion was withdrawn with the other French forces during February–March 1867.
It was in Mexico on 30 April 1863 that the Legion earned its legendary status. A company led by Captain Jean Danjou, numbering 62 Legionnaires and 3 Legion officers, was escorting a convoy to the besieged city of Puebla when it was attacked and besieged by three thousand Mexican loyalists, organised in two battalions of infantry and cavalry, numbering 2,200 and 800 respectively. The Legion detachment under Danjou, Sous-Lieutenant Jean Vilain, and Sous-Lieutenant Clément Maudet made a stand in the Hacienda de la Trinidad – a farm near the village of Camarone. When only six survivors remained, out of ammunition, a bayonet assault was launched in which three of the six were killed. The remaining three wounded men were brought before the Mexican commander Colonel Milan, who allowed them to return to the French lines as an honor guard for the body of Danjou. The captain had a wooden hand, which was later returned to the Legion and is now kept in a case in the Legion Museum at Aubagne and paraded annually on Camerone Day. It is the Foreign Legion's most precious relic.
During the Mexican Campaign, 6,654 French died. Of these, 1,918 were from a single regiment of the Legion.
According to French law, the Foreign Legion was not to be used within Metropolitan France except in the case of a national invasion, and was consequently not a part of Napoleon III's Imperial Army that capitulated at Sedan. With the defeat of the Imperial Army, the Second French Empire fell and the Third Republic was created.
The new Third Republic was desperately short of trained soldiers following Sedan, so the Foreign Legion was ordered to provide a contingent. On 11 October 1870 two provisional battalions disembarked via sea at Toulon, the first time the Foreign Legion had been deployed in France itself. It attempted to lift the Siege of Paris by breaking through the German lines. It succeeded in retaking Orléans, but failed to break the siege. In January 1871, France capitulated but civil war soon broke out, which led to revolution and the short-lived Paris Commune. The Foreign Legion participated in the suppression of the Commune, which was crushed with great bloodshed.
The Foreign Legion's First Battalion (Lieutenant-Colonel Donnier) sailed to Tonkin in late 1883, during the period of undeclared hostilities that preceded the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885), and formed part of the attack column that stormed the western gate of Sơn Tây on 16 December. The Second and Third Infantry Battalions (chef de bataillon Diguet and Lieutenant-Colonel Schoeffer) were also deployed to Tonkin shortly afterwards, and were present in all the major campaigns of the Sino-French War. Two Foreign Legion companies led the defence at the celebrated Siege of Tuyên Quang (24 November 1884 to 3 March 1885). In January 1885 the Foreign Legion's 4th Battalion (chef de bataillon Vitalis) was deployed to the French bridgehead at Keelung (Jilong) in Formosa (Taiwan), where it took part in the later battles of the Keelung Campaign. The battalion played an important role in Colonel Jacques Duchesne's offensive in March 1885 that captured the key Chinese positions of La Table and Fort Bamboo and disengaged Keelung.
In December 1883, during a review of the Second Legion Battalion on the eve of its departure for Tonkin to take part in the Bắc Ninh Campaign, General François de Négrier pronounced a famous mot: Vous, légionnaires, vous êtes soldats pour mourir, et je vous envoie où l'on meurt! ('You, Legionnaires, you are soldiers in order to die, and I'm sending you to where one dies!')
As part of the Army of Africa, the Foreign Legion contributed to the growth of the French colonial empire in Sub-Saharan Africa. Simultaneously, the Legion took part to the pacification of Algeria, suppressing various tribal rebellions and razzias.
In 1892, King Behanzin was threatening the French protectorate of Porto-Novo in modern-day Benin and France decided to intervene. A battalion, led by commandant Faurax Montier, was formed from two companies of the First Foreign Regiment and two others from the second regiment. From Cotonou, the legionnaires marched to seize Abomey, the capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey. Two and a half months were needed to reach the city, at the cost of repeated battles against the Dahomean warriors, especially the Amazons of the King. King Behanzin surrendered and was captured by the legionnaires in January 1894.
In 1895, a battalion, formed by the First and Second Foreign Regiments, was sent to the Kingdom of Madagascar, as part of an expeditionary force whose mission was to conquer the island. The foreign battalion formed the backbone of the column launched on Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar. After a few skirmishes, the Queen Ranavalona III promptly surrendered. The Foreign Legion lost 226 men, of whom only a tenth died in actual fighting. Others, like much of the expeditionary force, died from tropical diseases. Despite the success of the expedition, the quelling of sporadic rebellions would take another eight years until 1905, when the island was completely pacified by the French under Joseph Gallieni. During that time, insurrections against the Malagasy Christians of the island, missionaries and foreigners were particularly terrible. Queen Ranavalona III was deposed in January 1897 and was exiled to Algiers in Algeria, where she died in 1917.
From 1882 until his capture, Samori Ture, ruler of the Wassoulou Empire, fought the French colonial army, defeating them on several occasions, including a notable victory at Woyowayanko (2 April 1882), in the face of French heavy artillery. Nonetheless, Samori was forced to sign several treaties ceding territory to the French between 1886 and 1889. Samori began a steady retreat, but the fall of other resistance armies, particularly Babemba Traoré at Sikasso, permitted the colonial army to launch a concentrated assault against his forces. A battalion of two companies from the 2nd Foreign Regiment was created in early 1894 to pacify the Niger. The Legionnaires' victory at the fortress of Ouilla and police patrols in the region accelerated the submission of the tribes. On 29 September 1898, Samori Ture was captured by the French Commandant Gouraud and exiled to Gabon, marking the end of the Wassoulou Empire.
The annexation of Alsace and Lorraine by Germany in 1871 led to numerous volunteers from the two regions enlisting in the Foreign Legion, which gave them the option of French citizenship at the end of their service.
With the declaration of war on 29 July 1914, a call was made for foreigners residing in France to support their adopted country. While many would have preferred direct enlistment in the regular French Army, the only option immediately available was that of the Foreign Legion. On one day only (3 August 1914) a reported 8,000 volunteers applied to enlist in the Paris recruiting office of the Legion.
In World War I, the Foreign Legion fought in many critical battles on the Western Front, including Artois, Champagne, Somme, Aisne, and Verdun (in 1917), and also suffered heavy casualties during 1918. The Foreign Legion was also in the Dardanelles and Macedonian front, and was highly decorated for its efforts. Many young foreigners volunteered for the Foreign Legion when the war broke out in 1914. There were marked differences between the idealistic volunteers of 1914 and the hardened men of the old Legion, making assimilation difficult. Nevertheless, the old and the new men of the Foreign Legion fought and died in vicious battles on the Western front, including Belloy-en-Santerre during the Battle of the Somme, where the poet Alan Seeger, after being mortally wounded by machine-gun fire, cheered on the rest of his advancing battalion.
While suffering heavy casualties on the Western Front the Legion had emerged from World War I with an enhanced reputation and as one of the most highly decorated units in the French Army. In 1919, the government of Spain raised the Spanish Foreign Legion and modeled it after the French Foreign Legion. General Jean Mordacq intended to rebuild the Foreign Legion as a larger military formation, doing away with the legion's traditional role as a solely infantry formation. General Mordacq envisioned a Foreign Legion consisting not of regiments, but of divisions with cavalry, engineer, and artillery regiments in addition to the legion's infantry mainstay. In 1920, decrees ordained the establishment of regiments of cavalry and artillery. Immediately following the armistice the Foreign Legion experienced an increase of enlistments. The Foreign Legion began the process of reorganizing and redeploying to Algeria.
The Legion played a major part in the Rif War of 1920–25. In 1932, the Foreign Legion consisted of 30,000 men, serving in six multi-battalion regiments including the 1st Foreign Infantry Regiment 1 REI – Algeria, Syria and Lebanon; 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment 2 REI, 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment 3 REI, and 4th Foreign Infantry Regiment 4 REI – Morocco, Lebanon; 5th Foreign Infantry 5 REI – Indochina; and 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment 1 REC – Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco. In 1931, Général Paul-Frédéric Rollet assumed the role of 1st Inspector of the Foreign Legion, a post created at his initiative. While serving as colonel of the 1st Foreign Infantry Regiment (1925–1931), Rollet was responsible for planning the centennial celebrations of the Legion's foundation; scheduling this event for Camarón Day 30 April 1931. He was subsequently credited with creating much of the modern mystique of the Legion by restoring or creating many of its traditions.
The Foreign Legion played a smaller role in World War II in mainland Europe than in World War I, though it saw involvement in many exterior theatres of operations, notably sea-transport protection through to the Norwegian, Syria-Lebanon, and North African campaigns. The 13th Demi-Brigade, formed for service in Norway, found itself in the UK at the time of the French Armistice (June 1940), was deployed to the British 8th Army in North Africa and distinguished itself in the Battle of Bir Hakeim (1942). Reflecting the divisions of the time, part of the Foreign Legion joined the Free French movement while another part served the Vichy government. Germany incorporated German legionnaires into the Wehrmacht's 90th Light Infantry Division in North Africa.
The Syria–Lebanon Campaign of June 1941 saw legionnaire fighting legionnaire as the 13 D.B.L.E clashed with the 6th Foreign Infantry Regiment 6 REI at Damascus. Nevertheless, many legionnaires of the 6th Foreign Infantry Regiment 6 (dissolved on 31 December 1941) integrated into the Marching Regiment of the Foreign Legion R.M.L.E in 1942. Later, a thousand of the rank-and-file of the Vichy Legion unit joined the 13 D.B.L.E. of the Free French forces which were also part (as of September 1944) of Jean de Lattre de Tassigny's successful amalgam of the French Liberation Army (French: Armée française de la Libération), the (400,000 men) amalgam consisted of the Armistice Army, the Free French Forces and the French Forces of the Interior which formed Army B and later became part of the French 1st Army with forces also issued from the French Resistance.
Following World War II, many French-speaking former German soldiers joined the Foreign Legion to pursue a military career, an option no longer possible in Germany, including French German soldiers of Malgré-nous. It would have been considered problematic if the men from Alsace-Lorraine had not spoken French. These French-speaking former German soldiers made up as much as 60 percent of the Legion during the war in Indochina. Contrary to popular belief however, French policy was to exclude former members of the Waffen-SS, and candidates for induction were refused if they exhibited the tell-tale blood type tattoo, or even a scar that might be masking it.
The high percentage of Germans was contrary to normal policy concerning a single dominant nationality, and in more recent times Germans have made up a much smaller percentage of the Foreign Legion's composition.
During the First Indochina War (1946–54) the Foreign Legion saw its numbers swell due to the incorporation of World War II veterans. Although the Foreign Legion distinguished itself in a territory where it had served since the 1880s, it also suffered a heavy toll during this war. Constantly being deployed in operations, units of the Legion suffered particularly heavy losses in the climactic Battle of Dien Bien Phu, before the fortified valley finally fell on 7 May 1954. No fewer than 72,833 served in Indochina during the eight-year war. The Legion suffered the loss of 10,283 of its own men in combat: 309 officers, 1082 sous-officiers and 9092 legionnaires.
While only one of several Legion units involved in Indochina, the 1st Foreign Parachute Battalion (1 BEP) particularly distinguished itself, while being annihilated twice. It was renamed the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1 REP) after its third reformation.
The 1 BEP sailed to Indochina on 12 November and was then engaged in combat operations in Tonkin. On 17 November 1950 the battalion parachuted into That Khé and suffered heavy losses at Coc Xa. Reconstituted on 1 March 1951, the battalion participated in combat operations at Cho Ben, on the Black River and in Annam. On 21 November 1953 the reconstituted 1 BEP was parachuted into Dien Bien Phu. In this battle, the unit lost 575 killed and missing. Reconstituted for the third time on 19 May 1954, the battalion left Indochina on 8 February 1955. The 1 BEP received five citations and the fourragère of the colors of the Médaille militaire for its service in Indochina. The 1 BEP became the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1 REP) in Algeria on 1 September 1955.
Dien Bien Phu fell on 7 May 1954 at 17:30. The couple of hectares that were the battlefield today are corn fields surrounding a stele which commemorates the sacrifices of those who died there. While the garrison of Dien Bien Phu included French regular, North African, and locally recruited (Indochinese) units, the battle has become associated particularly with the paratroops of the Foreign Legion.
During the Indochina War, the Legion operated several armoured trains which were an enduring Rolling Symbol during the chartered course duration of French Indochina. The Legion also operated various Passage Companies relative to the continental conflicts at hand.
The legion was heavily engaged in fighting against the National Liberation Front and the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN). The main activity during the period 1954–1962 was as part of the operations of the 10th Parachute Division and 25th Parachute Division. The 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment, 1 REP, was under the command of the 10th Parachute Division (France), 10 DP, and the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment, 2 REP, was under the command of the 25th Parachute Division (France), 25 DP. While both the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1 REP), and the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2 REP), were part of the operations of French parachute divisions (10 DP and 25 DP established in 1956), the Legion's 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1 REP), and the Legion's 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2 REP), are older than the French divisions. The 1 REP was the former thrice-reconstituted 1st Foreign Parachute Battalion (1 BEP) and the 2 REP was the former 2nd Foreign Parachute Battalion (2 BEP). Both battalions were renamed and their Legionnaires transferred from Indochina on 1 August 1954 to Algeria by 1 November 1954. Both traced their origins to the Parachute Company of the 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment commanded by Legion Lieutenant Jacques Morin attached to the III/1 R.C.P.
With the start of the War in Algeria on 1 November 1954, the two foreign participating parachute battalions back from Indochina, the 1st Foreign Parachute Battalion (1 BEP, III Formation) and the 2nd Foreign Parachute Battalion (2 BEP), were not part of any French parachute divisions yet and were not designated as regiments until September and 1 December 1955 respectively.
Main operations during the Algerian War included the Battle of Algiers and the Bataille of the Frontiers, fought by 60,000 soldiers including French and Legion paratroopers. For paratroopers of the Legion, the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1 REP) and 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2 REP), were the only known foreign active parachute regiments, exclusively commanded by Pierre Paul Jeanpierre for the 1 REP and the paratrooper commanders of the 2 REP. The remainder of French paratrooper units of the French Armed Forces were commanded by Jacques Massu, Buchond, Marcel Bigeard, Paul Aussaresses. Other Legion offensives in the mountains in 1959 included operations Jumelles, Cigales, and Ariège in the Aures and the last in Kabylie.
The image of the Legion as a professional and non-political force was tarnished when the elite 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment 1 REP, which was also part of the 10th Parachute Division played a leading role in the generals' putsch of 1961 and was subsequently disbanded.
Coming out of a difficult Indochinese conflict, the Foreign Legion reinforced cohesion by extending the duration of basic training. Efforts exerted were successful during this transit; however, entering into December 1960 and the generals' putsch, a crisis hit the legion putting its faith at the corps of the Army.
For having rallied to the generals' putsch of April 1961, the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment of the 10th Parachute Division was dissolved on 30 April 1961 at Zeralda.
In 1961, at the issue of the putsch, the 1st Mounted Saharan Squadron of the Foreign Legion (French: 1 Escadron Saharien Porté de la Légion Etrangère, 1 ESPLE) received the missions to assure surveillance and policing.
The independence of Algeria from the French in 1962 was traumatising since it ended with the enforced abandonment of the barracks command center at Sidi Bel Abbès established in 1842. Upon being notified that the elite regiment was to be disbanded and that they were to be reassigned, legionnaires of the 1 REP burned the Chinese pavilion acquired following the Siege of Tuyên Quang in 1884. The relics from the Legion's history museum, including the wooden hand of Captain Jean Danjou, subsequently accompanied the Legion to France. Also removed from Sidi Bel Abbès were the symbolic Legion remains of General Paul-Frédéric Rollet ( The Father of the Legion ), Legion officer Prince Count Aage of Rosenborg, and Legionnaire Heinz Zimmermann (last fatal casualty in Algeria).
The Legion acquired its parade song "Non, je ne regrette rien" ("No, I regret nothing"), a 1960 Édith Piaf song sung by Sous-Officiers and legionnaires as they left their barracks for re-deployment following the Algiers putsch of 1961. The song has remained a part of Legion heritage since.
The 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment 1 REP was disbanded on 30 April 1961. However, the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment 2 REP prevailed in existence, while most of the personnel of the Saharan Companies were integrated into the 1st Foreign Infantry Regiment, 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment and 4th Foreign Infantry Regiment respectively.
By the mid-1960s the Legion had lost its traditional and spiritual home in French Algeria and elite units had been dissolved. President de Gaulle considered disbanding it altogether but, being reminded of the Marching Regiments, and that the 13th Demi-Brigade was one of the first units to declare for him in 1940 and taking also into consideration the effective service of various Saharan units and performances of other Legions units, he chose instead to downsize the Legion from 40,000 to 8,000 men and relocate it to metropolitan France. Legion units continued to be assigned to overseas service, although not in North Africa (see below).
In the early 1960s, and besides ongoing global rapid deployments, the Legion also stationed forces on various continents while operating different function units.
The main Disciplinary Company of the Foreign Legion (CDLE), based on rules and regulations set by général Rollet in 1931, received serious offenders sent from Legion regiments garrisoned or operating in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, the Levant and Tonkin (special section of the 5th Foreign Infantry Regiment and later in 1963, part of a Saharan disciplinary section unit of the 5e REI and 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment). It was dissolved on July 1, 1964.
From 1965 to 1967, the Legion operated several companies, including the 5th Heavy Weight Transport Company (CTGP), mainly in charge of evacuating the Sahara. The area of responsibility of some of these units extended from the confines of the in-between of the Sahara to the Mediterranean. Ongoing interventions and rapid deployments two years later and the following years included in part:
In September 1990, the 1st Foreign Regiment, the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment, the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment, the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment, and the 6th Foreign Engineer Regiment were sent to the Persian Gulf as a part of Opération Daguet along with the 1st Spahi Regiment, the 11th Marine Artillery Regiment, the 3rd Marine Infantry Regiment, the 21st Marine Infantry Regiment, the French Army Light Aviation, the Régiment d'infanterie-chars de marine, and components of the 35th Parachute Artillery Regiment, the 1st Parachute Hussard Regiment, and the 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment. Division Daguet was commanded by Général de brigade Bernard Janvier.
The Legion force, made up of 27 different nationalities, was attached to the French 6th Light Armoured Division whose mission was to protect the Coalition's left flank.
After the four-week air campaign, coalition forces launched the ground offensive. They quickly penetrated deep into Iraq, with the Legion taking the As-Salman Airport, meeting little resistance. The war ended after a hundred hours of fighting on the ground, which resulted in very light casualties for the Legion. During war, French Foreign Legion engineers operated in support of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division, and provided the EOD services to the division. After the ceasefire, they conducted a joint mine clearing operation with a Royal Australian Navy clearance divers.
Regarding the operational aspect, the units of the Legion belong to different brigades or territorial commands of the French Army. On the other hand, with regard to the administrative management (including recruitment, traditions and training), these units depend on the Foreign Legion Command (COMLE), which itself is subordinate to the Army.
The regiments are now mainly stationed in Metropolitan France, with some units in the overseas departments and territories (mainly in French Guiana).
These are the following deployments:
Note: English names for countries or territories are in parentheses.
The legionnaires are an integral part of the French Army. Today, they constitute some 7–8% of its strength (or 11% of the Ground Operational Forces, FOT, French Army operational units).
The Foreign Legion is the only unit of the French Army open to people of any nationality. Most legionnaires still come from European countries but a growing percentage comes from Latin America and Asia. Most of the Foreign Legion's commissioned officers are French with approximately 10% being Legionnaires who have risen through the ranks.
As of 2021, members come from 140 countries. Legionnaires were, in the past, forced to enlist under a pseudonym ("declared identity"). This policy existed in order to allow recruits who wanted to restart their lives to enlist. The Legion held the belief that it was fairer to make all new recruits use declared identities. French citizens can enlist under a declared, fictitious, foreign citizenship (generally, a francophone one, often that of Belgium, Canada, or Switzerland). As of 20 September 2010, new recruits may enlist under their real identities or under declared identities. Recruits who do enlist with declared identities may, after one year's service, regularise their situations under their true identities. After serving in the Foreign Legion for three years, a legionnaire may apply for French citizenship. He must be serving under his real name, must have no problems with the authorities, and must have served with "honour and fidelity".
While the Foreign Legion historically did not accept women in its ranks, there was one official female member, Susan Travers, an Englishwoman who joined Free French Forces during World War II and became a member of the Foreign Legion after the war, serving in Vietnam during the First Indochina War. Women were barred from service until 2000.
As of 2008, legionnaires came from 140 countries. The majority of enlisted men originate from outside France, while the majority of the officer corps consists of Frenchmen. Many recruits originate from Eastern Europe and Latin America. Neil Tweedie of The Daily Telegraph said that Germany traditionally provided many recruits, "somewhat ironically given the Legion's bloody role in two world wars."
Original nationalities of the Foreign Legion reflect the events in history at the time they join. Many former Wehrmacht personnel joined in the wake of World War II as many soldiers returning to civilian life found it hard to find reliable employment. Jean-Denis Lepage reports that "The Foreign Legion discreetly recruited from German P.O.W. camps", but adds that the number of these recruits has been subsequently exaggerated. Bernard B. Fall, who was a supporter of the French government, writing in the context of the First Indochina War, questioned the notion that the Foreign Legion was mainly German at that time, calling it:
[a] canard...with the sub-variant that all those Germans were at least SS generals and other much wanted war criminals. As a rule, and in order to prevent any particular nation from making the Foreign Legion into a Praetorian Guard, any particular national component is kept at about 25 percent of the total. Even supposing (and this was the case, of course) that the French recruiters, in the eagerness for candidates would sign up Germans enlisting as Swiss, Austrian, Scandinavian and other nationalities of related ethnic background, it is unlikely that the number of Germans in the Foreign Legion ever exceeded 35 percent. Thus, without making an allowance for losses, rotation, discharges, etc., the maximum number of Germans fighting in Indochina at any one time reached perhaps 7,000 out of 278,000. As to the ex-Nazis, the early arrivals contained a number of them, none of whom were known to be war criminals. French intelligence saw to that. Since, in view of the rugged Indochinese climate, older men without previous tropical experience constituted more a liability than an asset, the average age of the Foreign Legion enlistees was about 23. At the time of the battle of Dien Bien Phu, any legionnaire of that age group was at the worst, in his "Hitler Youth" shorts when the [Third] Reich collapsed.
The Foreign Legion accepts people enlisting under a nationality that is not their own. A proportion of the Swiss and Belgians are actually likely to be Frenchmen who wish to avoid detection. In addition many Alsatians are said to have joined the Foreign Legion when Alsace was part of the German Empire, and may have been recorded as German while considering themselves French.
Regarding recruitment conditions within the Foreign Legion, see the official page (in English) dedicated to the subject: With regard to age limits, recruits can be accepted from ages ranging from 17½ (with parental consent) to 39½ years old.
In the European Union framework, post Legion enlistment is less clear. Denmark, Norway, Germany and Portugal allow post-Legion enlistment while The Netherlands has constitutional articles that forbid it. [Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap, Artikel 15, lid 1e, (In Dutch:)] (that is: one can lose his Dutch nationality by accepting a foreign nationality or can lose his Dutch nationality by serving in the army of a foreign state that is engaged in a conflict against the Dutch Kingdom or one of its allies). The European Union twin threads seem to be recognized dual nationality status or restricting constitutional article.
The United States allows post-Legion enlistment in its National Guard of career soldiers (up to the rank of captain) who are Green Card holders.
Israel allows post-Legion enlistment.
One of the biggest national groups in the Legion are Poles. Polish law allows service in a foreign army, but only after written permission from the Polish Ministry of National Defence.
While all rank and file members of the Legion are required to serve under "Foreign Status" (à titre étranger), even if they are French nationals, non-commissioned and commissioned officers can serve under either French or Foreign Status. Foreign Status NCOs and officers are exclusively promoted from the ranks and represent 10% of the officers corps of the Legion. French Status officers are either members of other units of the French Army attached to the Legion or promoted Legionnaires who have chosen to become French nationals.
Basic training for the Foreign Legion is conducted in the 4th Foreign Regiment. This is an operational combat regiment which provides a training course of 15–17 weeks, before recruits are assigned to their operational units:
Education in the French language (reading, writing and pronunciation) is taught on a daily basis throughout all of basic training.
As the Foreign Legion is composed of soldiers of different nationalities and backgrounds, it is necessary to develop an intense esprit de corps, which is achieved through the development of camaraderie, specific traditions, the loyalty of its legionnaires, the quality of their training, and the pride of being a soldier in an elite unit.
The "Legionnaire's Code of Honour" is the Legion's creed, recited in French only. The Code of Honour was adopted in the 1980s.
In contrast to all other French Army units, the motto embroidered on the Foreign Legion's regimental flags is not Honneur et Patrie (Honour and Fatherland) but Honneur et Fidélité (Honour and Fidelity).
Legio Patria Nostra (in French La Légion est notre Patrie, in English The Legion is our Fatherland) is the Latin motto of the Foreign Legion. The adoption of the Foreign Legion as a new "Fatherland" does not imply the repudiation by the legionnaire of his original nationality. The Foreign Legion is required to obtain the agreement of any legionnaire before he is placed in any situation where he might have to serve against his country of birth.
"Le Boudin" is the marching song of the Foreign Legion.
All volunteers in the Foreign Legion begin their careers as basic legionnaires with one in four eventually becoming a sous-officier (non-commissioned officer). On joining, a new recruit receives a monthly salary of €1,380 in addition to food and lodgings. He is also given his own new rifle, which according to the lore of the Legion must never be left on a battlefield. Promotion is concurrent with the ranks in the French Army.
A dress uniform's insignia is composed of three components; rank emblem, regimental patch, and seniority chevrons. In the one pictured, the three upward pointing gold chevrons indicate a Sergent-chef. The diamond-shaped regimental patch (Écusson) is formed of three green diamond shapes surrounding a grenade emblem, with the three diamonds indicating a Colonial unit, in comparison to one diamond for a unit of Regulars, or two diamonds for a Reserves unit. The Légion grenade emblem has seven flames rather than the usual five, and the two downward pointing seniority chevrons indicate at least 10 years of service. Some Caporals-Chef may have as many as six seniority chevrons for 30 or more years of service. This style of insignia is worn only on the left sleeve of the dress uniform, while a similar-sized insignia without the regimental diamond and seniority chevrons is worn on the right sleeve. An exception exists for the right sleeve insignia for the Pioneer units, which incorporates a gold or green Pioneer emblem, depending on rank, but not the seniority chevrons, which are worn on the left sleeve insignia below the regimental diamond as previously described.
Sous-officiers (NCOs) including warrant officers account for 25% of the current Foreign Legion's total manpower.
Most officers are regulars of the French Army though roughly 10% are former non-commissioned officers promoted from the ranks.
The Foreign Legion uses gold coloured chevrons (chevrons d'ancienneté) pointed downward to indicate seniority. Worn by ordinary legionnaires and non-commissioned officers beneath the rank insignia and regimental emblem only on the left sleeve of the dress uniform, each chevron denotes five years of service in the Legion. Seniority chevrons are not worn by commissioned officers.
Honorary ranks have been awarded by the French Army to individuals credited with exceptional acts of courage since 1796. In the Foreign Legion, General Paul-Frédéric Rollet introduced the practice of awarding honorary Legion ranks to distinguished individuals, both civilian and military, in the early 20th century.
Recipients of these honorary appointments had participated with units of the Legion on active service in an exemplary manner, or had rendered exceptional service to the Legion in non-combat situations. More than 1,200 individuals have been granted honorary ranks in the Legion pour services éminent. The majority of these awards have been made to military personnel in wartime, earning titles such as Legionnaire d'Honneur or Sergent-Chef de Légion d'honneur, while other recipients have included nurses, journalists, painters, and ministers who have rendered meritorious service to the Foreign Legion.
The Pionniers (pioneers) are the combat engineers and a traditional unit of the Foreign Legion. The sapper traditionally sport large beards, wear leather aprons and gloves and hold axes. The sappers were very common in European armies during the Napoleonic Era but progressively disappeared during the 19th century. The French Army, including the Legion disbanded its regimental sapper platoons in 1870. However, in 1931 one of a number of traditions restored to mark the hundredth anniversary of the Legion's founding was the reestablishment of its bearded Pionniers.
In the French Army, since the 18th century, every infantry regiment included a small detachment of pioneers. In addition to undertaking road building and entrenchment work, such units were tasked with using their axes and shovels to clear obstacles under enemy fire opening the way for the rest of the infantry. The danger of such missions was recognised by allowing certain privileges, such as being authorised to wear beards.
The current pioneer platoon of the Foreign Legion is provided by the Legion depot and headquarters regiment for public ceremonies. The unit has reintroduced the symbols of the Napoleonic sappers: the beard, the axe, the leather apron, the crossed-axes insignia and the leather gloves. When parades of the Foreign Legion are opened by this unit, it is to commemorate the traditional role of the sappers "opening the way" for the troops.
Also notable is the marching pace of the Foreign Legion. In comparison to the 116-step-per-minute pace of other French units, the Foreign Legion has an 88-step-per-minute marching speed. It is also referred to by Legionnaires as the "crawl". This can be seen at ceremonial parades and public displays attended by the Foreign Legion, particularly while parading in Paris on 14 July (Bastille Day Military Parade). Because of the impressively slow pace, the Foreign Legion is always the last unit marching in any parade. The Foreign Legion is normally accompanied by its own band, which traditionally plays the march of any one of the Foreign Legion's regiments, except that of the unit actually on parade. The regimental song of each unit and "Le Boudin" is sung by legionnaires standing at attention. Also, because the Foreign Legion must always stay together, it does not break formation into two when approaching the presidential grandstand, as other French military units do, in order to preserve the unity of the legion.
Contrary to popular belief, the adoption of the Foreign Legion's slow marching speed was not due to a need to preserve energy and fluids during long marches under the hot Algerian sun. Its exact origins are unclear, but the official explanation is that although the pace regulation does not seem to have been instituted before 1945, it hails back to the slow marching pace of the Ancien Régime, and its reintroduction was a "return to traditional roots". This was in fact, the march step of the Foreign Legion's ancestor units – the Régiments Étrangers or Foreign Regiments of the Ancien Régime French Army, the Grande Armée's foreign units, and the pre-1831 foreign regiments.
From its foundation until World War I the Foreign Legion normally wore the uniform of the French line infantry for parade with a few special distinctions. Essentially this consisted of a dark blue coat (later tunic) worn with red trousers. The field uniform was often modified under the influence of the extremes of climate and terrain in which the Foreign Legion served. Shakos were soon replaced by the light cloth kepi, which was far more suitable for North African conditions. The practice of wearing heavy capotes (greatcoats) on the march and vestes (short hip-length jackets) as working dress in barracks was followed by the Foreign Legion from its establishment. One short lived aberration was the wearing of green uniforms in 1856 by Foreign Legion units recruited in Switzerland for service in the Crimean War. In the Crimea itself (1854–59) a hooded coat and red or blue waist sashes were adopted for winter dress, while during the Mexican Intervention (1863–65) straw hats or sombreros were sometimes substituted for the kepi. When the latter was worn it was usually covered with a white "havelock" (linen cover) – the predecessor of the white kepi that was to become a symbol of the Foreign Legion. Foreign Legion units serving in France during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 were distinguishable only by minor details of insignia from the bulk of the French infantry. However subsequent colonial campaigns saw an increasing use of special garments for hot weather wear such as collarless keo blouses in Tonkin 1884–85, khaki drill jackets in Dahomey (1892) and drab covered topees worn with all-white fatigue dress in Madagascar (1895).
In the early 20th century the legionnaire wore a red kepi with blue band and piping, dark blue tunic with red collar, red cuff patches, and red trousers. Distinctive features were the green epaulettes (replacing the red of the line) worn with red woollen fringes; plus the embroidered Legion badge of a red flaming grenade, worn on the kepi front instead of a regimental number. In the field a light khaki cover was worn over the kepi, sometimes with a protective neck curtain attached. The standard medium-blue double breasted greatcoat (capote) of the French infantry was worn, usually buttoned back to free the legs for marching. From the 1830s the legionnaires had worn a broad blue woollen sash around the waist, like other European units of the French Army of Africa (such as the Zouaves or the Chasseurs d'Afrique), while indigenous units of the Army of Africa (spahis and tirailleurs) wore red sashes. White linen trousers tucked into short leather leggings were substituted for red serge in hot weather. This was the origin of the "Beau Geste" image.
In barracks a white bleached kepi cover was often worn together with a short dark blue jacket ("veste") or white blouse plus white trousers. The original kepi cover was khaki and due to constant washing turned white quickly. The white or khaki kepi cover was not unique to the Foreign Legion at this stage but was commonly seen amongst other French units in North Africa. It later became particularly identified with the Foreign Legion as the unit most likely to serve at remote frontier posts (other than locally recruited tirailleurs who wore fezzes or turbans). The variances of climate in North Africa led the French Army to the sensible expedient of letting local commanders decide on the appropriate "tenue de jour" (uniform of the day) according to circumstances. Thus a legionnaire might parade or walk out in blue tunic and white trousers in hot weather, blue tunic and red trousers in normal temperatures or wear the blue greatcoat with red trousers under colder conditions. The sash could be worn with greatcoat, blouse or veste but not with the tunic. Epaulettes were a detachable dress item worn only with tunic or greatcoat for parade or off duty wear.
Officers wore the same dark blue (almost black) tunics as those of their colleagues in the French line regiments, except that black replaced red as a facing colour on collar and cuffs. Gold fringed epaulettes were worn for full dress and rank was shown by the number of gold rings on both kepi and cuffs. Trousers were red with black stripes or white according to occasion or conditions. All-white or light khaki uniforms (from as early as the 1890s) were often worn in the field or for ordinary duties in barracks. Non-commissioned officers were distinguished by red or gold diagonal stripes on the lower sleeves of tunics, vestes and greatcoats. Small detachable stripes were buttoned on to the front of the white shirt-like blouse.
Prior to 1914 units in Indo-China wore white or khaki Colonial Infantry uniforms with Foreign Legion insignia, to overcome supply difficulties. This dress included a white sun helmet of a model that was also issued to Foreign Legion units serving in the outposts of Southern Algeria, though never popular with its wearers. During the initial months of World War I, Foreign Legion units serving in France wore the standard blue greatcoat and red trousers of the French line infantry, distinguished only by collar patches of the same blue as the capote, instead of red. After a short period in sky-blue the Foreign Legion adopted khaki, in common with other units of the Armée d'Afrique, with steel helmets, from early 1916. A mustard shade of khaki drill had been worn on active service in Morocco from 1909, replacing the classic blue and white. The latter continued to be worn in the relatively peaceful conditions of Algeria throughout World War I, although increasingly replaced by khaki drill. The pre-1914 blue and red uniforms could still be occasionally seen as garrison dress in Algeria until stocks were used up about 1919.
During the early 1920s plain khaki drill uniforms of a standard pattern became universal issue for the Foreign Legion with only the red and blue kepi (with or without a cover) and green collar braiding to distinguish the Legionnaire from other French soldiers serving in North African and Indo-China. The neck curtain ceased to be worn from about 1915, although it survived in the newly raised Foreign Legion Cavalry Regiment into the 1920s. The white blouse (bourgeron) and trousers dating from 1882 were retained for fatigue wear until the 1930s.
At the time of the Foreign Legion's centennial in 1931, a number of traditional features were reintroduced at the initiative of the then commander Colonel Rollet. These included the blue sash and green/red epaulettes. In 1939 the white covered kepi won recognition as the official headdress of the Foreign Legion to be worn on most occasions, rather than simply as a means of reflecting heat and protecting the blue and red material underneath. The Third Foreign Infantry Regiment adopted white tunics and trousers for walking-out dress during the 1930s and all Foreign Legion officers were required to obtain full dress uniforms in the pre-war colours of black and red from 1932 to 1939.
During World War II the Foreign Legion wore a wide range of uniform styles depending on supply sources. These ranged from the heavy capotes and Adrian helmets of 1940 through to British battledress and American field uniforms from 1943 to 1945. The white kepi was stubbornly retained whenever possible.
From 1940 until 1963 the Foreign Legion maintained four Saharan Companies (Compagnies Sahariennes) as part of the French forces used to patrol and police the desert regions to the south of Morocco and Algeria. Special uniforms were developed for these units, modeled on those of the French officered Camel Corps (Méharistes) having prime responsibility for the Sahara. In full dress these included black or white zouave style trousers, worn with white tunics and long flowing cloaks. The Legion companies maintained their separate identity by retaining their distinctive kepis, sashes and fringed epaulettes.
The white kepis, together with the sash and epaulettes survive in the Foreign Legion's modern parade dress. Since the 1990s the modern kepi has been made wholly of white material rather than simply worn with a white cover. Officers and senior noncommissioned officers still wear their kepis in the pre-1939 colours of dark blue and red. A green tie and (for officers) a green waistcoat recall the traditional branch colour of the Foreign Legion. From 1959 a green beret (previously worn only by the legion's paratroopers) became the universal ordinary duty headdress, with the kepi reserved for parade and off duty wear. Other items of currently worn dress are the standard issue of the French Army.
The Legion is basically equipped with the same equipment as similar units elsewhere in the French Army. These include:
Beyond its reputation as an elite unit often engaged in serious fighting, the recruitment practices of the Foreign Legion have also led to a somewhat romanticised view of it being a place for disgraced or "wronged" men looking to leave behind their old lives and start new ones. This view of the legion is common in literature, and has been used for dramatic effect in many films, not the least of which are the several versions of Beau Geste. Three songs by Edith Piaf, most notably "Non, je ne regrette rien" (No, I regret nothing), became associated with the legion, during the 1960s when members of the Legion were accused of being implicated in a failed coup d'état during the Algerian War. Today it is still a popular Legion "chant" sung when on parade, adapting it to their unique marching cadence of 88 steps to the minute. Various fictional portrayals and references to the legion have been made over the years, such as in film, television, music, video games and art. The comic strip Crock, which depicted life in the legion, ran from 1975 to 2012.
The Ever Victorious Army was the name given to a Chinese imperial army in the late 19th century. Commanded by Frederick Townsend Ward, the new force originally comprised about 200 mostly European mercenaries, recruited in the Shanghai area from sailors, deserters and adventurers. Many were dismissed in the summer of 1861, but the remainder became the officers of the Chinese soldiers recruited mainly in and around Sungkiang (Songjiang). The Chinese troops were increased to 3,000 by May 1862, all equipped with Western firearms and equipment by the British authorities in Shanghai. Throughout its four-year existence the Ever Victorious Army was mainly to operate within a thirty-mile radius of Shanghai. It was disbanded in May 1864 with 104 foreign officers and 2,288 Chinese soldiers being paid off. The bulk of the artillery and some infantry transferred to the Chinese Imperial forces. It was the first Chinese army trained in European techniques, tactics, and strategy.
In Israel, Mahal (Hebrew: מח"ל, an acronym for Mitnadvei Ḥutz LaAretz, which means Volunteers from outside the Land [of Israel]) is a term designating non-Israelis serving in the Israeli military. The term originates with the approximately 4,000 both Jewish and non-Jewish volunteers who went to Israel to fight in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War including Aliyah Bet. The original Mahalniks were mostly World War II veterans who had previously served in the American and British armed forces.
Today, there is a program, Garin Tzabar, within the Israeli Ministry of Defense that administers the enlistment of non-Israeli citizens in the country's armed forces. Programs enable foreigners to join the Israel Defense Forces if they are of Jewish descent (which is defined as at least one grandparent).
Though not named "Foreign Legion", the Dutch Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indische Leger (KNIL), or Royal Dutch (East) Indies Army (in reference to the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia), was created in 1830, a year before the French Foreign Legion, and is therefore not an emulation but an entirely original idea and had a similar recruitment policy. It stopped being an army of foreigners around 1900 when recruitment was restricted to Dutch citizens and to the indigenous peoples of the Dutch East Indies. The KNIL was finally disbanded on 26 July 1950, seven months after the Netherlands formally recognised Indonesia as a sovereign state, and almost five years after Indonesia declared its independence.
During the Rhodesian Bush War of the 1960s and 1970s, the Rhodesian Security Forces enlisted volunteers from overseas on the same pay and conditions of service as locally based regulars. The vast majority of the Rhodesian Army's foreigners joined the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI), a heliborne commando regiment with a glamorous international reputation; this unit became colloquially known as the "Rhodesian foreign legion" as a result, even though foreigners never made up more than about a third of its men. According to Chris Cocks, an RLI veteran, "the RLI was a mirror of the French Foreign Legion, in that recruiters paid little heed as to a man's past and asked no questions. ... And like the Foreign Legion, once in the ranks, a man's past was irrelevant." Just as French Foreign Legionnaires must speak French, the Rhodesian Army required its foreigners to be English-speakers. Many of them were professional soldiers, attracted by the regiment's reputation—mostly former British soldiers, or Vietnam veterans from the United States, Australian and New Zealand forces—and these became a key part of the unit. Others, with no military experience, were often motivated to join the Rhodesian Army by their opposition to communism, or a desire for adventure or to escape the past.
After the Rhodesians' overseas recruiting campaign for English-speakers, started in 1974, proved successful, they began recruiting French-speakers as well, in 1977. These francophone recruits were placed in their own unit, 7 Independent Company, Rhodesia Regiment, which was commanded by French-speaking officers and operated entirely in French. The experiment was not generally considered a success by the Rhodesian commanders, however, and the company was disbanded in early 1978.
In 2010 the service conditions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation changed to allow foreigners. The actual term Russian "Foreign Legion" is a colloquial expression without any official recognition. Under the plan, foreigners without dual citizenship are able to sign up for five-year contracts and will be eligible for Russian citizenship after serving three years. Experts say the change opens the way for Commonwealth of Independent States citizens to get fast-track Russian citizenship, and counter the effects of Russia's demographic crisis on its army recruitment.
Donetsk & Luhansk Peoples Republic "Novo-Russia Foreign Legion"
After the 2014 Russian Annexation of Crimea and the succeeding war in the Donbass, the separatist states of Donetsk and Luhansk peoples republics had a manpower shortage in their army which resulted in a campaign to recruit foreigners who were ideologically aligned to Russia to come fight for them. this resulted in the formation of the Novo-Russia Foreign legion which was made as "the new French foreign legion" and resulted in "Hundreds flocking" to the Donbass to fight, prominent separatist figure and American, Russell Bentley or "Tex", stated that "We have Spaniards, we have guys from Colombia, India, Italy, France. I'm not the only American here either. There are also many Serbian fighters". Ukraine reported that in 2015 around 30,000 foreign fighters were fighting for the separatist with the main nationalities being Russian and Serbian, with westerners making up a minority of fighters. many of whom have faced prosecution upon returning to their home countries such as in February 2015 eight Spanish's nationals were arrested upon returning to Spain from the Donbass. after the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine it is unclear if this unit still exists.
The Spanish Tercio de Extranjeros was created in 1920, in direct emulation of the French Foreign Legion. It subsequently had a significant role in Spain's colonial wars in Morocco and in the Spanish Civil War on the Nationalist side. The Spanish Foreign Legion recruited foreigners until 1986 but unlike its French model, the number of non-Spanish recruits never exceeded 25%, most of these from Latin America. It is now called the Spanish Legion and has been involved in several modern conflicts and operations, including Afghanistan and the UN Mission in Lebanon UNIFIL .
The Georgian Legion was formed fighting on the side of Ukraine in the war in Donbas and the Russo-Ukrainian War. The unit was organized in 2014, and in 2016 it was transferred under the control of the Ukrainian Army, under the 25th Mechanized Infantry Battalion "Kyiv Rus". Although formed by mostly ethnic Georgian volunteers, and commanded by veteran Georgian officer Mamuka Mamulashvili, the legion was noted as being particularly good at recruiting Americans; before the formation of the International Legion of Ukraine in 2022, most foreign fighters served the Georgian Legion.
In response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the government of Ukraine quickly established a component of its Territorial Defense Forces consisting of volunteers from foreign countries. Within the International Legion, some single nationality battalions were established to avoid language barriers in order to facilitate their rapid response to the invasion.
The following is a list of notable people who are or were members of the Foreign Legion:
43°17′33″N 5°33′12″E / 43.2925°N 5.5534°E / 43.2925; 5.5534
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[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The French Foreign Legion (French: Légion étrangère) is a corps of the French Army that consists of several specialties: infantry, cavalry, engineers, airborne troops. It was created in 1831 to allow foreign nationals into the French Army. It formed part of the Armée d’Afrique, the French Army's units associated with France's colonial project in Africa, until the end of the Algerian war in 1962.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Legionnaires are highly trained soldiers and the Legion is unique in that it is open to foreign recruits willing to serve in the French Armed Forces. The Legion is known today as a unit whose training focuses on traditional military skills and on its strong esprit de corps, as its men come from different countries with different cultures. Consequently, training is often described as not only physically challenging, but also very stressful psychologically. Legionnaires may apply for French citizenship after three years' service, or immediately after being wounded during a battle for France under a provision known as \"Français par le sang versé\" (\"French by spilled blood\").",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The Foreign Legion was created by Louis Philippe, the King of the French, on 10 March 1831 to allow the incorporation of foreign nationals into the French Army from the foreign regiments of the Kingdom of France. Recruits included soldiers from the recently disbanded Swiss and German foreign regiments of the Bourbon monarchy. The Royal Ordinance for the establishment of the new regiment specified that the foreigners recruited could only serve outside France. The French expeditionary force that had occupied Algiers in 1830 was in need of reinforcements and the Legion was accordingly transferred by sea in detachments from Toulon to Algeria. Since 1831, the Legion has consisted of hundreds of thousands in active service at its peak, and suffered the aggregated loss of nearly 40,000 men in France, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Madagascar, West Africa, Mexico, Italy, Crimea, Spain, Indo-China, Norway, Syria, Chad, Zaïre, Lebanon, Central Africa, Gabon, Kuwait, Rwanda, Djibouti, former Yugoslavia, Somalia, the Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Mali, as well as others. The Legion was primarily used to help protect and expand the French colonial empire during the 19th century. The Foreign Legion was initially stationed only in Algeria, where it took part in the pacification and development of the colony. Subsequently, the Foreign Legion was deployed in a number of conflicts, including the First Carlist War in 1835, the Crimean War in 1854, the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859, the French intervention in Mexico in 1863, the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the Tonkin Campaign and Sino-French War in 1883, supporting growth of the French colonial empire in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Second Franco-Dahomean War in 1892, the Second Madagascar expedition in 1895 and the Mandingo Wars in 1894. In World War I, the Foreign Legion fought in many critical battles on the Western Front. It played a smaller role in World War II than in World War I, though having a part in the Norwegian, Syrian and North African campaigns. During the First Indochina War (1946–1954), the Foreign Legion saw its numbers swell. The Legion lost a large number of men in the catastrophic Battle of Dien Bien Phu against forces of the Viet Minh.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Subsequent military campaigns included those during the Suez Crisis, the Battle of Algiers and various offensives in Algeria launched by General Maurice Challe including Operation Oranie and Operation Jumelles. During the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962), the Foreign Legion came close to being disbanded after some officers, men, and the highly decorated 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1 REP) took part in the Generals' putsch. In the 1960s and 1970s, Legion regiments had additional roles in sending units as a rapid deployment force to preserve French interests – in its former African colonies and in other nations as well; it also returned to its roots of being a unit always ready to be sent to conflict zones around the world.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Some notable operations include the Chadian–Libyan conflict in 1969–1972 (the first time that the Legion was sent in operations after the Algerian War), 1978–1979, and 1983–1987; Kolwezi in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo in May 1978. In 1981, the 1st Foreign Regiment and Foreign Legion regiments took part in the Multinational Force in Lebanon. In 1990, Foreign Legion regiments were sent to the Persian Gulf and participated in Opération Daguet, part of Division Daguet. Following the Gulf War in the 1990s, the Foreign Legion helped with the evacuation of French citizens and foreigners in Rwanda, Gabon and Zaire. The Foreign Legion was also deployed in Cambodia, Somalia, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the mid- to late 1990s, the Foreign Legion was deployed in the Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville and in Kosovo. The French Foreign Legion also took part in operations in Rwanda in 1990–1994; and the Ivory Coast in 2002 to the present. In the 2000s, the Foreign Legion was deployed in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, Opération Licorne in Ivory Coast, the EUFOR Tchad/RCA in Chad, and Operation Serval in the Northern Mali conflict.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "As discussed below, other countries have tried to emulate the French Foreign Legion model. The Foreign Legion was primarily used, as part of the Armée d'Afrique, to protect and expand the French colonial empire during the 19th century, but it also fought in almost all French wars including the Franco-Prussian War, World War I and World War II. The Foreign Legion has remained an important part of the French Army and sea transport protected by the French Navy, surviving three Republics, the Second French Empire, two World Wars, the rise and fall of mass conscript armies, the dismantling of the French colonial empire, and the loss of the Foreign Legion's base, Algeria.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Created to fight \"outside mainland France\", the Foreign Legion was stationed in Algeria, where it took part in the pacification and development of the colony, notably by drying the marshes in the region of Algiers. The Foreign Legion was initially divided into six \"national battalions\" (Swiss, Poles, Germans, Italians, Spanish, and Dutch-Belgian). Smaller national groups, such as the ten Englishmen recorded in December 1832, appear to have been placed randomly.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In late 1831, the first legionnaires landed in Algeria, the country that would be the Foreign Legion's homeland for 130 years and shape its character. The early years in Algeria were hard on the legion because it was often sent to the worst postings and received the worst assignments, and its members were generally uninterested in the new colony of the French. The Legion served alongside the Battalions of Light Infantry of Africa, formed in 1832, which was a penal military unit made up of men with prison records who still had to do their military service or soldiers with serious disciplinary problems.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Foreign Legion's first service in Algeria came to an end after only four years, as it was needed elsewhere.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "To support Isabella's claim to the Spanish throne against her uncle, the French government decided to send the Foreign Legion to Spain. On 28 June 1835, the unit was handed over to the Spanish government. The Foreign Legion landed via sea at Tarragona on 17 August with around 1,400 who were quickly dubbed Los Argelinos (the Algerians) by locals because of their previous posting.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Foreign Legion's commander immediately dissolved the national battalions to improve the esprit de corps. Later, he also created three squadrons of lancers and an artillery battery from the existing force to increase independence and flexibility. The Foreign Legion was dissolved on 8 December 1838, when it had dropped to only 500 men. The survivors returned to France, many reenlisting in the new Foreign Legion along with many of their former Carlist enemies.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "On 9 June 1854, the French ship Jean Bart embarked four battalions of the Foreign Legion for the Crimean Peninsula. A further battalion was stationed at Gallipoli as brigade depot. Eight companies drawn from both regiments of the Foreign Legion took part in the Battle of Alma (20 September 1854). Reinforcements by sea brought the Legion contingent up to brigade strength. As the \"Foreign Brigade\", it served in the Siege of Sevastopol, during the winter of 1854–1855.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The lack of equipment was particularly challenging and cholera hit the Allied expeditionary force. Nevertheless, the \"leather bellies\" (the nickname given to the legionnaires by the Russians because of the large cartridge pouches that they wore attached to their waist-belts), performed well. On 21 June 1855, the Third Battalion, left Corsica for Crimea.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "On 8 September the final assault was launched on Sevastopol. Two days later, the Second Foreign Regiment with flags and band playing ahead, marched through the streets of Sevastopol. Although initial reservations had been expressed about whether the Legion should be used outside Africa, the Crimean experience established its suitability for service in European warfare, as well as making a cohesive single entity of what had previously been two separate foreign regiments. Legion casualties in the Crimea were 1,703 killed and wounded out of total French losses by battle and disease of 95,615.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Like the rest of the \"Army of Africa\", the Foreign Legion provided detachments in the campaign of Italy. Two foreign regiments, grouped with the 2nd Regiment of Zouaves, were part of the Second Brigade of the Second Division of Mac Mahon's Corps. The Foreign Legion acquitted itself particularly well against the Austrians at the battle of Magenta (4 June 1859) and at the Battle of Solferino (24 June). Legion losses were significant and the 2nd Foreign Regiment lost Colonel Chabrière, its commanding officer. In gratitude, the city of Milan awarded, in 1909, the \"commemorative medal of deliverance\", which still adorns the regimental flags of the Second Regiment.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The 38,000 strong French expeditionary force dispatched to Mexico via sea between 1862 and 1863 included two battalions of the Foreign Legion, increased to six battalions by 1866. Small cavalry and artillery units were raised from legionnaires serving in Mexico. The original intention was that Foreign Legion units should remain in Mexico for up to six years to provide a core for the Imperial Mexican Army. However the Legion was withdrawn with the other French forces during February–March 1867.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "It was in Mexico on 30 April 1863 that the Legion earned its legendary status. A company led by Captain Jean Danjou, numbering 62 Legionnaires and 3 Legion officers, was escorting a convoy to the besieged city of Puebla when it was attacked and besieged by three thousand Mexican loyalists, organised in two battalions of infantry and cavalry, numbering 2,200 and 800 respectively. The Legion detachment under Danjou, Sous-Lieutenant Jean Vilain, and Sous-Lieutenant Clément Maudet made a stand in the Hacienda de la Trinidad – a farm near the village of Camarone. When only six survivors remained, out of ammunition, a bayonet assault was launched in which three of the six were killed. The remaining three wounded men were brought before the Mexican commander Colonel Milan, who allowed them to return to the French lines as an honor guard for the body of Danjou. The captain had a wooden hand, which was later returned to the Legion and is now kept in a case in the Legion Museum at Aubagne and paraded annually on Camerone Day. It is the Foreign Legion's most precious relic.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "During the Mexican Campaign, 6,654 French died. Of these, 1,918 were from a single regiment of the Legion.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "According to French law, the Foreign Legion was not to be used within Metropolitan France except in the case of a national invasion, and was consequently not a part of Napoleon III's Imperial Army that capitulated at Sedan. With the defeat of the Imperial Army, the Second French Empire fell and the Third Republic was created.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The new Third Republic was desperately short of trained soldiers following Sedan, so the Foreign Legion was ordered to provide a contingent. On 11 October 1870 two provisional battalions disembarked via sea at Toulon, the first time the Foreign Legion had been deployed in France itself. It attempted to lift the Siege of Paris by breaking through the German lines. It succeeded in retaking Orléans, but failed to break the siege. In January 1871, France capitulated but civil war soon broke out, which led to revolution and the short-lived Paris Commune. The Foreign Legion participated in the suppression of the Commune, which was crushed with great bloodshed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Foreign Legion's First Battalion (Lieutenant-Colonel Donnier) sailed to Tonkin in late 1883, during the period of undeclared hostilities that preceded the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885), and formed part of the attack column that stormed the western gate of Sơn Tây on 16 December. The Second and Third Infantry Battalions (chef de bataillon Diguet and Lieutenant-Colonel Schoeffer) were also deployed to Tonkin shortly afterwards, and were present in all the major campaigns of the Sino-French War. Two Foreign Legion companies led the defence at the celebrated Siege of Tuyên Quang (24 November 1884 to 3 March 1885). In January 1885 the Foreign Legion's 4th Battalion (chef de bataillon Vitalis) was deployed to the French bridgehead at Keelung (Jilong) in Formosa (Taiwan), where it took part in the later battles of the Keelung Campaign. The battalion played an important role in Colonel Jacques Duchesne's offensive in March 1885 that captured the key Chinese positions of La Table and Fort Bamboo and disengaged Keelung.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In December 1883, during a review of the Second Legion Battalion on the eve of its departure for Tonkin to take part in the Bắc Ninh Campaign, General François de Négrier pronounced a famous mot: Vous, légionnaires, vous êtes soldats pour mourir, et je vous envoie où l'on meurt! ('You, Legionnaires, you are soldiers in order to die, and I'm sending you to where one dies!')",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "As part of the Army of Africa, the Foreign Legion contributed to the growth of the French colonial empire in Sub-Saharan Africa. Simultaneously, the Legion took part to the pacification of Algeria, suppressing various tribal rebellions and razzias.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 1892, King Behanzin was threatening the French protectorate of Porto-Novo in modern-day Benin and France decided to intervene. A battalion, led by commandant Faurax Montier, was formed from two companies of the First Foreign Regiment and two others from the second regiment. From Cotonou, the legionnaires marched to seize Abomey, the capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey. Two and a half months were needed to reach the city, at the cost of repeated battles against the Dahomean warriors, especially the Amazons of the King. King Behanzin surrendered and was captured by the legionnaires in January 1894.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In 1895, a battalion, formed by the First and Second Foreign Regiments, was sent to the Kingdom of Madagascar, as part of an expeditionary force whose mission was to conquer the island. The foreign battalion formed the backbone of the column launched on Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar. After a few skirmishes, the Queen Ranavalona III promptly surrendered. The Foreign Legion lost 226 men, of whom only a tenth died in actual fighting. Others, like much of the expeditionary force, died from tropical diseases. Despite the success of the expedition, the quelling of sporadic rebellions would take another eight years until 1905, when the island was completely pacified by the French under Joseph Gallieni. During that time, insurrections against the Malagasy Christians of the island, missionaries and foreigners were particularly terrible. Queen Ranavalona III was deposed in January 1897 and was exiled to Algiers in Algeria, where she died in 1917.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "From 1882 until his capture, Samori Ture, ruler of the Wassoulou Empire, fought the French colonial army, defeating them on several occasions, including a notable victory at Woyowayanko (2 April 1882), in the face of French heavy artillery. Nonetheless, Samori was forced to sign several treaties ceding territory to the French between 1886 and 1889. Samori began a steady retreat, but the fall of other resistance armies, particularly Babemba Traoré at Sikasso, permitted the colonial army to launch a concentrated assault against his forces. A battalion of two companies from the 2nd Foreign Regiment was created in early 1894 to pacify the Niger. The Legionnaires' victory at the fortress of Ouilla and police patrols in the region accelerated the submission of the tribes. On 29 September 1898, Samori Ture was captured by the French Commandant Gouraud and exiled to Gabon, marking the end of the Wassoulou Empire.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The annexation of Alsace and Lorraine by Germany in 1871 led to numerous volunteers from the two regions enlisting in the Foreign Legion, which gave them the option of French citizenship at the end of their service.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "With the declaration of war on 29 July 1914, a call was made for foreigners residing in France to support their adopted country. While many would have preferred direct enlistment in the regular French Army, the only option immediately available was that of the Foreign Legion. On one day only (3 August 1914) a reported 8,000 volunteers applied to enlist in the Paris recruiting office of the Legion.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In World War I, the Foreign Legion fought in many critical battles on the Western Front, including Artois, Champagne, Somme, Aisne, and Verdun (in 1917), and also suffered heavy casualties during 1918. The Foreign Legion was also in the Dardanelles and Macedonian front, and was highly decorated for its efforts. Many young foreigners volunteered for the Foreign Legion when the war broke out in 1914. There were marked differences between the idealistic volunteers of 1914 and the hardened men of the old Legion, making assimilation difficult. Nevertheless, the old and the new men of the Foreign Legion fought and died in vicious battles on the Western front, including Belloy-en-Santerre during the Battle of the Somme, where the poet Alan Seeger, after being mortally wounded by machine-gun fire, cheered on the rest of his advancing battalion.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "While suffering heavy casualties on the Western Front the Legion had emerged from World War I with an enhanced reputation and as one of the most highly decorated units in the French Army. In 1919, the government of Spain raised the Spanish Foreign Legion and modeled it after the French Foreign Legion. General Jean Mordacq intended to rebuild the Foreign Legion as a larger military formation, doing away with the legion's traditional role as a solely infantry formation. General Mordacq envisioned a Foreign Legion consisting not of regiments, but of divisions with cavalry, engineer, and artillery regiments in addition to the legion's infantry mainstay. In 1920, decrees ordained the establishment of regiments of cavalry and artillery. Immediately following the armistice the Foreign Legion experienced an increase of enlistments. The Foreign Legion began the process of reorganizing and redeploying to Algeria.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The Legion played a major part in the Rif War of 1920–25. In 1932, the Foreign Legion consisted of 30,000 men, serving in six multi-battalion regiments including the 1st Foreign Infantry Regiment 1 REI – Algeria, Syria and Lebanon; 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment 2 REI, 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment 3 REI, and 4th Foreign Infantry Regiment 4 REI – Morocco, Lebanon; 5th Foreign Infantry 5 REI – Indochina; and 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment 1 REC – Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco. In 1931, Général Paul-Frédéric Rollet assumed the role of 1st Inspector of the Foreign Legion, a post created at his initiative. While serving as colonel of the 1st Foreign Infantry Regiment (1925–1931), Rollet was responsible for planning the centennial celebrations of the Legion's foundation; scheduling this event for Camarón Day 30 April 1931. He was subsequently credited with creating much of the modern mystique of the Legion by restoring or creating many of its traditions.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The Foreign Legion played a smaller role in World War II in mainland Europe than in World War I, though it saw involvement in many exterior theatres of operations, notably sea-transport protection through to the Norwegian, Syria-Lebanon, and North African campaigns. The 13th Demi-Brigade, formed for service in Norway, found itself in the UK at the time of the French Armistice (June 1940), was deployed to the British 8th Army in North Africa and distinguished itself in the Battle of Bir Hakeim (1942). Reflecting the divisions of the time, part of the Foreign Legion joined the Free French movement while another part served the Vichy government. Germany incorporated German legionnaires into the Wehrmacht's 90th Light Infantry Division in North Africa.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The Syria–Lebanon Campaign of June 1941 saw legionnaire fighting legionnaire as the 13 D.B.L.E clashed with the 6th Foreign Infantry Regiment 6 REI at Damascus. Nevertheless, many legionnaires of the 6th Foreign Infantry Regiment 6 (dissolved on 31 December 1941) integrated into the Marching Regiment of the Foreign Legion R.M.L.E in 1942. Later, a thousand of the rank-and-file of the Vichy Legion unit joined the 13 D.B.L.E. of the Free French forces which were also part (as of September 1944) of Jean de Lattre de Tassigny's successful amalgam of the French Liberation Army (French: Armée française de la Libération), the (400,000 men) amalgam consisted of the Armistice Army, the Free French Forces and the French Forces of the Interior which formed Army B and later became part of the French 1st Army with forces also issued from the French Resistance.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Following World War II, many French-speaking former German soldiers joined the Foreign Legion to pursue a military career, an option no longer possible in Germany, including French German soldiers of Malgré-nous. It would have been considered problematic if the men from Alsace-Lorraine had not spoken French. These French-speaking former German soldiers made up as much as 60 percent of the Legion during the war in Indochina. Contrary to popular belief however, French policy was to exclude former members of the Waffen-SS, and candidates for induction were refused if they exhibited the tell-tale blood type tattoo, or even a scar that might be masking it.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The high percentage of Germans was contrary to normal policy concerning a single dominant nationality, and in more recent times Germans have made up a much smaller percentage of the Foreign Legion's composition.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "During the First Indochina War (1946–54) the Foreign Legion saw its numbers swell due to the incorporation of World War II veterans. Although the Foreign Legion distinguished itself in a territory where it had served since the 1880s, it also suffered a heavy toll during this war. Constantly being deployed in operations, units of the Legion suffered particularly heavy losses in the climactic Battle of Dien Bien Phu, before the fortified valley finally fell on 7 May 1954. No fewer than 72,833 served in Indochina during the eight-year war. The Legion suffered the loss of 10,283 of its own men in combat: 309 officers, 1082 sous-officiers and 9092 legionnaires.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "While only one of several Legion units involved in Indochina, the 1st Foreign Parachute Battalion (1 BEP) particularly distinguished itself, while being annihilated twice. It was renamed the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1 REP) after its third reformation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The 1 BEP sailed to Indochina on 12 November and was then engaged in combat operations in Tonkin. On 17 November 1950 the battalion parachuted into That Khé and suffered heavy losses at Coc Xa. Reconstituted on 1 March 1951, the battalion participated in combat operations at Cho Ben, on the Black River and in Annam. On 21 November 1953 the reconstituted 1 BEP was parachuted into Dien Bien Phu. In this battle, the unit lost 575 killed and missing. Reconstituted for the third time on 19 May 1954, the battalion left Indochina on 8 February 1955. The 1 BEP received five citations and the fourragère of the colors of the Médaille militaire for its service in Indochina. The 1 BEP became the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1 REP) in Algeria on 1 September 1955.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Dien Bien Phu fell on 7 May 1954 at 17:30. The couple of hectares that were the battlefield today are corn fields surrounding a stele which commemorates the sacrifices of those who died there. While the garrison of Dien Bien Phu included French regular, North African, and locally recruited (Indochinese) units, the battle has become associated particularly with the paratroops of the Foreign Legion.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "During the Indochina War, the Legion operated several armoured trains which were an enduring Rolling Symbol during the chartered course duration of French Indochina. The Legion also operated various Passage Companies relative to the continental conflicts at hand.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The legion was heavily engaged in fighting against the National Liberation Front and the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN). The main activity during the period 1954–1962 was as part of the operations of the 10th Parachute Division and 25th Parachute Division. The 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment, 1 REP, was under the command of the 10th Parachute Division (France), 10 DP, and the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment, 2 REP, was under the command of the 25th Parachute Division (France), 25 DP. While both the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1 REP), and the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2 REP), were part of the operations of French parachute divisions (10 DP and 25 DP established in 1956), the Legion's 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1 REP), and the Legion's 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2 REP), are older than the French divisions. The 1 REP was the former thrice-reconstituted 1st Foreign Parachute Battalion (1 BEP) and the 2 REP was the former 2nd Foreign Parachute Battalion (2 BEP). Both battalions were renamed and their Legionnaires transferred from Indochina on 1 August 1954 to Algeria by 1 November 1954. Both traced their origins to the Parachute Company of the 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment commanded by Legion Lieutenant Jacques Morin attached to the III/1 R.C.P.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "With the start of the War in Algeria on 1 November 1954, the two foreign participating parachute battalions back from Indochina, the 1st Foreign Parachute Battalion (1 BEP, III Formation) and the 2nd Foreign Parachute Battalion (2 BEP), were not part of any French parachute divisions yet and were not designated as regiments until September and 1 December 1955 respectively.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Main operations during the Algerian War included the Battle of Algiers and the Bataille of the Frontiers, fought by 60,000 soldiers including French and Legion paratroopers. For paratroopers of the Legion, the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1 REP) and 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2 REP), were the only known foreign active parachute regiments, exclusively commanded by Pierre Paul Jeanpierre for the 1 REP and the paratrooper commanders of the 2 REP. The remainder of French paratrooper units of the French Armed Forces were commanded by Jacques Massu, Buchond, Marcel Bigeard, Paul Aussaresses. Other Legion offensives in the mountains in 1959 included operations Jumelles, Cigales, and Ariège in the Aures and the last in Kabylie.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The image of the Legion as a professional and non-political force was tarnished when the elite 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment 1 REP, which was also part of the 10th Parachute Division played a leading role in the generals' putsch of 1961 and was subsequently disbanded.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Coming out of a difficult Indochinese conflict, the Foreign Legion reinforced cohesion by extending the duration of basic training. Efforts exerted were successful during this transit; however, entering into December 1960 and the generals' putsch, a crisis hit the legion putting its faith at the corps of the Army.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "For having rallied to the generals' putsch of April 1961, the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment of the 10th Parachute Division was dissolved on 30 April 1961 at Zeralda.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "In 1961, at the issue of the putsch, the 1st Mounted Saharan Squadron of the Foreign Legion (French: 1 Escadron Saharien Porté de la Légion Etrangère, 1 ESPLE) received the missions to assure surveillance and policing.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The independence of Algeria from the French in 1962 was traumatising since it ended with the enforced abandonment of the barracks command center at Sidi Bel Abbès established in 1842. Upon being notified that the elite regiment was to be disbanded and that they were to be reassigned, legionnaires of the 1 REP burned the Chinese pavilion acquired following the Siege of Tuyên Quang in 1884. The relics from the Legion's history museum, including the wooden hand of Captain Jean Danjou, subsequently accompanied the Legion to France. Also removed from Sidi Bel Abbès were the symbolic Legion remains of General Paul-Frédéric Rollet ( The Father of the Legion ), Legion officer Prince Count Aage of Rosenborg, and Legionnaire Heinz Zimmermann (last fatal casualty in Algeria).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The Legion acquired its parade song \"Non, je ne regrette rien\" (\"No, I regret nothing\"), a 1960 Édith Piaf song sung by Sous-Officiers and legionnaires as they left their barracks for re-deployment following the Algiers putsch of 1961. The song has remained a part of Legion heritage since.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment 1 REP was disbanded on 30 April 1961. However, the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment 2 REP prevailed in existence, while most of the personnel of the Saharan Companies were integrated into the 1st Foreign Infantry Regiment, 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment and 4th Foreign Infantry Regiment respectively.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "By the mid-1960s the Legion had lost its traditional and spiritual home in French Algeria and elite units had been dissolved. President de Gaulle considered disbanding it altogether but, being reminded of the Marching Regiments, and that the 13th Demi-Brigade was one of the first units to declare for him in 1940 and taking also into consideration the effective service of various Saharan units and performances of other Legions units, he chose instead to downsize the Legion from 40,000 to 8,000 men and relocate it to metropolitan France. Legion units continued to be assigned to overseas service, although not in North Africa (see below).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "In the early 1960s, and besides ongoing global rapid deployments, the Legion also stationed forces on various continents while operating different function units.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The main Disciplinary Company of the Foreign Legion (CDLE), based on rules and regulations set by général Rollet in 1931, received serious offenders sent from Legion regiments garrisoned or operating in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, the Levant and Tonkin (special section of the 5th Foreign Infantry Regiment and later in 1963, part of a Saharan disciplinary section unit of the 5e REI and 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment). It was dissolved on July 1, 1964.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "From 1965 to 1967, the Legion operated several companies, including the 5th Heavy Weight Transport Company (CTGP), mainly in charge of evacuating the Sahara. The area of responsibility of some of these units extended from the confines of the in-between of the Sahara to the Mediterranean. Ongoing interventions and rapid deployments two years later and the following years included in part:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In September 1990, the 1st Foreign Regiment, the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment, the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment, the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment, and the 6th Foreign Engineer Regiment were sent to the Persian Gulf as a part of Opération Daguet along with the 1st Spahi Regiment, the 11th Marine Artillery Regiment, the 3rd Marine Infantry Regiment, the 21st Marine Infantry Regiment, the French Army Light Aviation, the Régiment d'infanterie-chars de marine, and components of the 35th Parachute Artillery Regiment, the 1st Parachute Hussard Regiment, and the 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment. Division Daguet was commanded by Général de brigade Bernard Janvier.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The Legion force, made up of 27 different nationalities, was attached to the French 6th Light Armoured Division whose mission was to protect the Coalition's left flank.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "After the four-week air campaign, coalition forces launched the ground offensive. They quickly penetrated deep into Iraq, with the Legion taking the As-Salman Airport, meeting little resistance. The war ended after a hundred hours of fighting on the ground, which resulted in very light casualties for the Legion. During war, French Foreign Legion engineers operated in support of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division, and provided the EOD services to the division. After the ceasefire, they conducted a joint mine clearing operation with a Royal Australian Navy clearance divers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Regarding the operational aspect, the units of the Legion belong to different brigades or territorial commands of the French Army. On the other hand, with regard to the administrative management (including recruitment, traditions and training), these units depend on the Foreign Legion Command (COMLE), which itself is subordinate to the Army.",
"title": "Organization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The regiments are now mainly stationed in Metropolitan France, with some units in the overseas departments and territories (mainly in French Guiana).",
"title": "Organization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "These are the following deployments:",
"title": "Organization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Note: English names for countries or territories are in parentheses.",
"title": "Organization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The legionnaires are an integral part of the French Army. Today, they constitute some 7–8% of its strength (or 11% of the Ground Operational Forces, FOT, French Army operational units).",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "The Foreign Legion is the only unit of the French Army open to people of any nationality. Most legionnaires still come from European countries but a growing percentage comes from Latin America and Asia. Most of the Foreign Legion's commissioned officers are French with approximately 10% being Legionnaires who have risen through the ranks.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "As of 2021, members come from 140 countries. Legionnaires were, in the past, forced to enlist under a pseudonym (\"declared identity\"). This policy existed in order to allow recruits who wanted to restart their lives to enlist. The Legion held the belief that it was fairer to make all new recruits use declared identities. French citizens can enlist under a declared, fictitious, foreign citizenship (generally, a francophone one, often that of Belgium, Canada, or Switzerland). As of 20 September 2010, new recruits may enlist under their real identities or under declared identities. Recruits who do enlist with declared identities may, after one year's service, regularise their situations under their true identities. After serving in the Foreign Legion for three years, a legionnaire may apply for French citizenship. He must be serving under his real name, must have no problems with the authorities, and must have served with \"honour and fidelity\".",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "While the Foreign Legion historically did not accept women in its ranks, there was one official female member, Susan Travers, an Englishwoman who joined Free French Forces during World War II and became a member of the Foreign Legion after the war, serving in Vietnam during the First Indochina War. Women were barred from service until 2000.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "As of 2008, legionnaires came from 140 countries. The majority of enlisted men originate from outside France, while the majority of the officer corps consists of Frenchmen. Many recruits originate from Eastern Europe and Latin America. Neil Tweedie of The Daily Telegraph said that Germany traditionally provided many recruits, \"somewhat ironically given the Legion's bloody role in two world wars.\"",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Original nationalities of the Foreign Legion reflect the events in history at the time they join. Many former Wehrmacht personnel joined in the wake of World War II as many soldiers returning to civilian life found it hard to find reliable employment. Jean-Denis Lepage reports that \"The Foreign Legion discreetly recruited from German P.O.W. camps\", but adds that the number of these recruits has been subsequently exaggerated. Bernard B. Fall, who was a supporter of the French government, writing in the context of the First Indochina War, questioned the notion that the Foreign Legion was mainly German at that time, calling it:",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "[a] canard...with the sub-variant that all those Germans were at least SS generals and other much wanted war criminals. As a rule, and in order to prevent any particular nation from making the Foreign Legion into a Praetorian Guard, any particular national component is kept at about 25 percent of the total. Even supposing (and this was the case, of course) that the French recruiters, in the eagerness for candidates would sign up Germans enlisting as Swiss, Austrian, Scandinavian and other nationalities of related ethnic background, it is unlikely that the number of Germans in the Foreign Legion ever exceeded 35 percent. Thus, without making an allowance for losses, rotation, discharges, etc., the maximum number of Germans fighting in Indochina at any one time reached perhaps 7,000 out of 278,000. As to the ex-Nazis, the early arrivals contained a number of them, none of whom were known to be war criminals. French intelligence saw to that. Since, in view of the rugged Indochinese climate, older men without previous tropical experience constituted more a liability than an asset, the average age of the Foreign Legion enlistees was about 23. At the time of the battle of Dien Bien Phu, any legionnaire of that age group was at the worst, in his \"Hitler Youth\" shorts when the [Third] Reich collapsed.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "The Foreign Legion accepts people enlisting under a nationality that is not their own. A proportion of the Swiss and Belgians are actually likely to be Frenchmen who wish to avoid detection. In addition many Alsatians are said to have joined the Foreign Legion when Alsace was part of the German Empire, and may have been recorded as German while considering themselves French.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Regarding recruitment conditions within the Foreign Legion, see the official page (in English) dedicated to the subject: With regard to age limits, recruits can be accepted from ages ranging from 17½ (with parental consent) to 39½ years old.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "In the European Union framework, post Legion enlistment is less clear. Denmark, Norway, Germany and Portugal allow post-Legion enlistment while The Netherlands has constitutional articles that forbid it. [Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap, Artikel 15, lid 1e, (In Dutch:)] (that is: one can lose his Dutch nationality by accepting a foreign nationality or can lose his Dutch nationality by serving in the army of a foreign state that is engaged in a conflict against the Dutch Kingdom or one of its allies). The European Union twin threads seem to be recognized dual nationality status or restricting constitutional article.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "The United States allows post-Legion enlistment in its National Guard of career soldiers (up to the rank of captain) who are Green Card holders.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Israel allows post-Legion enlistment.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "One of the biggest national groups in the Legion are Poles. Polish law allows service in a foreign army, but only after written permission from the Polish Ministry of National Defence.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "While all rank and file members of the Legion are required to serve under \"Foreign Status\" (à titre étranger), even if they are French nationals, non-commissioned and commissioned officers can serve under either French or Foreign Status. Foreign Status NCOs and officers are exclusively promoted from the ranks and represent 10% of the officers corps of the Legion. French Status officers are either members of other units of the French Army attached to the Legion or promoted Legionnaires who have chosen to become French nationals.",
"title": "Recruitment process"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Basic training for the Foreign Legion is conducted in the 4th Foreign Regiment. This is an operational combat regiment which provides a training course of 15–17 weeks, before recruits are assigned to their operational units:",
"title": "Recruitment process"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Education in the French language (reading, writing and pronunciation) is taught on a daily basis throughout all of basic training.",
"title": "Recruitment process"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "As the Foreign Legion is composed of soldiers of different nationalities and backgrounds, it is necessary to develop an intense esprit de corps, which is achieved through the development of camaraderie, specific traditions, the loyalty of its legionnaires, the quality of their training, and the pride of being a soldier in an elite unit.",
"title": "Traditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "The \"Legionnaire's Code of Honour\" is the Legion's creed, recited in French only. The Code of Honour was adopted in the 1980s.",
"title": "Traditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "In contrast to all other French Army units, the motto embroidered on the Foreign Legion's regimental flags is not Honneur et Patrie (Honour and Fatherland) but Honneur et Fidélité (Honour and Fidelity).",
"title": "Traditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Legio Patria Nostra (in French La Légion est notre Patrie, in English The Legion is our Fatherland) is the Latin motto of the Foreign Legion. The adoption of the Foreign Legion as a new \"Fatherland\" does not imply the repudiation by the legionnaire of his original nationality. The Foreign Legion is required to obtain the agreement of any legionnaire before he is placed in any situation where he might have to serve against his country of birth.",
"title": "Traditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "\"Le Boudin\" is the marching song of the Foreign Legion.",
"title": "Marching songs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "All volunteers in the Foreign Legion begin their careers as basic legionnaires with one in four eventually becoming a sous-officier (non-commissioned officer). On joining, a new recruit receives a monthly salary of €1,380 in addition to food and lodgings. He is also given his own new rifle, which according to the lore of the Legion must never be left on a battlefield. Promotion is concurrent with the ranks in the French Army.",
"title": "Ranks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "A dress uniform's insignia is composed of three components; rank emblem, regimental patch, and seniority chevrons. In the one pictured, the three upward pointing gold chevrons indicate a Sergent-chef. The diamond-shaped regimental patch (Écusson) is formed of three green diamond shapes surrounding a grenade emblem, with the three diamonds indicating a Colonial unit, in comparison to one diamond for a unit of Regulars, or two diamonds for a Reserves unit. The Légion grenade emblem has seven flames rather than the usual five, and the two downward pointing seniority chevrons indicate at least 10 years of service. Some Caporals-Chef may have as many as six seniority chevrons for 30 or more years of service. This style of insignia is worn only on the left sleeve of the dress uniform, while a similar-sized insignia without the regimental diamond and seniority chevrons is worn on the right sleeve. An exception exists for the right sleeve insignia for the Pioneer units, which incorporates a gold or green Pioneer emblem, depending on rank, but not the seniority chevrons, which are worn on the left sleeve insignia below the regimental diamond as previously described.",
"title": "Ranks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "Sous-officiers (NCOs) including warrant officers account for 25% of the current Foreign Legion's total manpower.",
"title": "Ranks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Most officers are regulars of the French Army though roughly 10% are former non-commissioned officers promoted from the ranks.",
"title": "Ranks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "The Foreign Legion uses gold coloured chevrons (chevrons d'ancienneté) pointed downward to indicate seniority. Worn by ordinary legionnaires and non-commissioned officers beneath the rank insignia and regimental emblem only on the left sleeve of the dress uniform, each chevron denotes five years of service in the Legion. Seniority chevrons are not worn by commissioned officers.",
"title": "Ranks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Honorary ranks have been awarded by the French Army to individuals credited with exceptional acts of courage since 1796. In the Foreign Legion, General Paul-Frédéric Rollet introduced the practice of awarding honorary Legion ranks to distinguished individuals, both civilian and military, in the early 20th century.",
"title": "Ranks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Recipients of these honorary appointments had participated with units of the Legion on active service in an exemplary manner, or had rendered exceptional service to the Legion in non-combat situations. More than 1,200 individuals have been granted honorary ranks in the Legion pour services éminent. The majority of these awards have been made to military personnel in wartime, earning titles such as Legionnaire d'Honneur or Sergent-Chef de Légion d'honneur, while other recipients have included nurses, journalists, painters, and ministers who have rendered meritorious service to the Foreign Legion.",
"title": "Ranks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "The Pionniers (pioneers) are the combat engineers and a traditional unit of the Foreign Legion. The sapper traditionally sport large beards, wear leather aprons and gloves and hold axes. The sappers were very common in European armies during the Napoleonic Era but progressively disappeared during the 19th century. The French Army, including the Legion disbanded its regimental sapper platoons in 1870. However, in 1931 one of a number of traditions restored to mark the hundredth anniversary of the Legion's founding was the reestablishment of its bearded Pionniers.",
"title": "Pioneers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "In the French Army, since the 18th century, every infantry regiment included a small detachment of pioneers. In addition to undertaking road building and entrenchment work, such units were tasked with using their axes and shovels to clear obstacles under enemy fire opening the way for the rest of the infantry. The danger of such missions was recognised by allowing certain privileges, such as being authorised to wear beards.",
"title": "Pioneers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "The current pioneer platoon of the Foreign Legion is provided by the Legion depot and headquarters regiment for public ceremonies. The unit has reintroduced the symbols of the Napoleonic sappers: the beard, the axe, the leather apron, the crossed-axes insignia and the leather gloves. When parades of the Foreign Legion are opened by this unit, it is to commemorate the traditional role of the sappers \"opening the way\" for the troops.",
"title": "Pioneers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "Also notable is the marching pace of the Foreign Legion. In comparison to the 116-step-per-minute pace of other French units, the Foreign Legion has an 88-step-per-minute marching speed. It is also referred to by Legionnaires as the \"crawl\". This can be seen at ceremonial parades and public displays attended by the Foreign Legion, particularly while parading in Paris on 14 July (Bastille Day Military Parade). Because of the impressively slow pace, the Foreign Legion is always the last unit marching in any parade. The Foreign Legion is normally accompanied by its own band, which traditionally plays the march of any one of the Foreign Legion's regiments, except that of the unit actually on parade. The regimental song of each unit and \"Le Boudin\" is sung by legionnaires standing at attention. Also, because the Foreign Legion must always stay together, it does not break formation into two when approaching the presidential grandstand, as other French military units do, in order to preserve the unity of the legion.",
"title": "Cadences and marching steps"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "Contrary to popular belief, the adoption of the Foreign Legion's slow marching speed was not due to a need to preserve energy and fluids during long marches under the hot Algerian sun. Its exact origins are unclear, but the official explanation is that although the pace regulation does not seem to have been instituted before 1945, it hails back to the slow marching pace of the Ancien Régime, and its reintroduction was a \"return to traditional roots\". This was in fact, the march step of the Foreign Legion's ancestor units – the Régiments Étrangers or Foreign Regiments of the Ancien Régime French Army, the Grande Armée's foreign units, and the pre-1831 foreign regiments.",
"title": "Cadences and marching steps"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "From its foundation until World War I the Foreign Legion normally wore the uniform of the French line infantry for parade with a few special distinctions. Essentially this consisted of a dark blue coat (later tunic) worn with red trousers. The field uniform was often modified under the influence of the extremes of climate and terrain in which the Foreign Legion served. Shakos were soon replaced by the light cloth kepi, which was far more suitable for North African conditions. The practice of wearing heavy capotes (greatcoats) on the march and vestes (short hip-length jackets) as working dress in barracks was followed by the Foreign Legion from its establishment. One short lived aberration was the wearing of green uniforms in 1856 by Foreign Legion units recruited in Switzerland for service in the Crimean War. In the Crimea itself (1854–59) a hooded coat and red or blue waist sashes were adopted for winter dress, while during the Mexican Intervention (1863–65) straw hats or sombreros were sometimes substituted for the kepi. When the latter was worn it was usually covered with a white \"havelock\" (linen cover) – the predecessor of the white kepi that was to become a symbol of the Foreign Legion. Foreign Legion units serving in France during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 were distinguishable only by minor details of insignia from the bulk of the French infantry. However subsequent colonial campaigns saw an increasing use of special garments for hot weather wear such as collarless keo blouses in Tonkin 1884–85, khaki drill jackets in Dahomey (1892) and drab covered topees worn with all-white fatigue dress in Madagascar (1895).",
"title": "Uniform"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "In the early 20th century the legionnaire wore a red kepi with blue band and piping, dark blue tunic with red collar, red cuff patches, and red trousers. Distinctive features were the green epaulettes (replacing the red of the line) worn with red woollen fringes; plus the embroidered Legion badge of a red flaming grenade, worn on the kepi front instead of a regimental number. In the field a light khaki cover was worn over the kepi, sometimes with a protective neck curtain attached. The standard medium-blue double breasted greatcoat (capote) of the French infantry was worn, usually buttoned back to free the legs for marching. From the 1830s the legionnaires had worn a broad blue woollen sash around the waist, like other European units of the French Army of Africa (such as the Zouaves or the Chasseurs d'Afrique), while indigenous units of the Army of Africa (spahis and tirailleurs) wore red sashes. White linen trousers tucked into short leather leggings were substituted for red serge in hot weather. This was the origin of the \"Beau Geste\" image.",
"title": "Uniform"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "In barracks a white bleached kepi cover was often worn together with a short dark blue jacket (\"veste\") or white blouse plus white trousers. The original kepi cover was khaki and due to constant washing turned white quickly. The white or khaki kepi cover was not unique to the Foreign Legion at this stage but was commonly seen amongst other French units in North Africa. It later became particularly identified with the Foreign Legion as the unit most likely to serve at remote frontier posts (other than locally recruited tirailleurs who wore fezzes or turbans). The variances of climate in North Africa led the French Army to the sensible expedient of letting local commanders decide on the appropriate \"tenue de jour\" (uniform of the day) according to circumstances. Thus a legionnaire might parade or walk out in blue tunic and white trousers in hot weather, blue tunic and red trousers in normal temperatures or wear the blue greatcoat with red trousers under colder conditions. The sash could be worn with greatcoat, blouse or veste but not with the tunic. Epaulettes were a detachable dress item worn only with tunic or greatcoat for parade or off duty wear.",
"title": "Uniform"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "Officers wore the same dark blue (almost black) tunics as those of their colleagues in the French line regiments, except that black replaced red as a facing colour on collar and cuffs. Gold fringed epaulettes were worn for full dress and rank was shown by the number of gold rings on both kepi and cuffs. Trousers were red with black stripes or white according to occasion or conditions. All-white or light khaki uniforms (from as early as the 1890s) were often worn in the field or for ordinary duties in barracks. Non-commissioned officers were distinguished by red or gold diagonal stripes on the lower sleeves of tunics, vestes and greatcoats. Small detachable stripes were buttoned on to the front of the white shirt-like blouse.",
"title": "Uniform"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "Prior to 1914 units in Indo-China wore white or khaki Colonial Infantry uniforms with Foreign Legion insignia, to overcome supply difficulties. This dress included a white sun helmet of a model that was also issued to Foreign Legion units serving in the outposts of Southern Algeria, though never popular with its wearers. During the initial months of World War I, Foreign Legion units serving in France wore the standard blue greatcoat and red trousers of the French line infantry, distinguished only by collar patches of the same blue as the capote, instead of red. After a short period in sky-blue the Foreign Legion adopted khaki, in common with other units of the Armée d'Afrique, with steel helmets, from early 1916. A mustard shade of khaki drill had been worn on active service in Morocco from 1909, replacing the classic blue and white. The latter continued to be worn in the relatively peaceful conditions of Algeria throughout World War I, although increasingly replaced by khaki drill. The pre-1914 blue and red uniforms could still be occasionally seen as garrison dress in Algeria until stocks were used up about 1919.",
"title": "Uniform"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "During the early 1920s plain khaki drill uniforms of a standard pattern became universal issue for the Foreign Legion with only the red and blue kepi (with or without a cover) and green collar braiding to distinguish the Legionnaire from other French soldiers serving in North African and Indo-China. The neck curtain ceased to be worn from about 1915, although it survived in the newly raised Foreign Legion Cavalry Regiment into the 1920s. The white blouse (bourgeron) and trousers dating from 1882 were retained for fatigue wear until the 1930s.",
"title": "Uniform"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "At the time of the Foreign Legion's centennial in 1931, a number of traditional features were reintroduced at the initiative of the then commander Colonel Rollet. These included the blue sash and green/red epaulettes. In 1939 the white covered kepi won recognition as the official headdress of the Foreign Legion to be worn on most occasions, rather than simply as a means of reflecting heat and protecting the blue and red material underneath. The Third Foreign Infantry Regiment adopted white tunics and trousers for walking-out dress during the 1930s and all Foreign Legion officers were required to obtain full dress uniforms in the pre-war colours of black and red from 1932 to 1939.",
"title": "Uniform"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "During World War II the Foreign Legion wore a wide range of uniform styles depending on supply sources. These ranged from the heavy capotes and Adrian helmets of 1940 through to British battledress and American field uniforms from 1943 to 1945. The white kepi was stubbornly retained whenever possible.",
"title": "Uniform"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "From 1940 until 1963 the Foreign Legion maintained four Saharan Companies (Compagnies Sahariennes) as part of the French forces used to patrol and police the desert regions to the south of Morocco and Algeria. Special uniforms were developed for these units, modeled on those of the French officered Camel Corps (Méharistes) having prime responsibility for the Sahara. In full dress these included black or white zouave style trousers, worn with white tunics and long flowing cloaks. The Legion companies maintained their separate identity by retaining their distinctive kepis, sashes and fringed epaulettes.",
"title": "Uniform"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "The white kepis, together with the sash and epaulettes survive in the Foreign Legion's modern parade dress. Since the 1990s the modern kepi has been made wholly of white material rather than simply worn with a white cover. Officers and senior noncommissioned officers still wear their kepis in the pre-1939 colours of dark blue and red. A green tie and (for officers) a green waistcoat recall the traditional branch colour of the Foreign Legion. From 1959 a green beret (previously worn only by the legion's paratroopers) became the universal ordinary duty headdress, with the kepi reserved for parade and off duty wear. Other items of currently worn dress are the standard issue of the French Army.",
"title": "Uniform"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "The Legion is basically equipped with the same equipment as similar units elsewhere in the French Army. These include:",
"title": "Equipment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "Beyond its reputation as an elite unit often engaged in serious fighting, the recruitment practices of the Foreign Legion have also led to a somewhat romanticised view of it being a place for disgraced or \"wronged\" men looking to leave behind their old lives and start new ones. This view of the legion is common in literature, and has been used for dramatic effect in many films, not the least of which are the several versions of Beau Geste. Three songs by Edith Piaf, most notably \"Non, je ne regrette rien\" (No, I regret nothing), became associated with the legion, during the 1960s when members of the Legion were accused of being implicated in a failed coup d'état during the Algerian War. Today it is still a popular Legion \"chant\" sung when on parade, adapting it to their unique marching cadence of 88 steps to the minute. Various fictional portrayals and references to the legion have been made over the years, such as in film, television, music, video games and art. The comic strip Crock, which depicted life in the legion, ran from 1975 to 2012.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "The Ever Victorious Army was the name given to a Chinese imperial army in the late 19th century. Commanded by Frederick Townsend Ward, the new force originally comprised about 200 mostly European mercenaries, recruited in the Shanghai area from sailors, deserters and adventurers. Many were dismissed in the summer of 1861, but the remainder became the officers of the Chinese soldiers recruited mainly in and around Sungkiang (Songjiang). The Chinese troops were increased to 3,000 by May 1862, all equipped with Western firearms and equipment by the British authorities in Shanghai. Throughout its four-year existence the Ever Victorious Army was mainly to operate within a thirty-mile radius of Shanghai. It was disbanded in May 1864 with 104 foreign officers and 2,288 Chinese soldiers being paid off. The bulk of the artillery and some infantry transferred to the Chinese Imperial forces. It was the first Chinese army trained in European techniques, tactics, and strategy.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "In Israel, Mahal (Hebrew: מח\"ל, an acronym for Mitnadvei Ḥutz LaAretz, which means Volunteers from outside the Land [of Israel]) is a term designating non-Israelis serving in the Israeli military. The term originates with the approximately 4,000 both Jewish and non-Jewish volunteers who went to Israel to fight in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War including Aliyah Bet. The original Mahalniks were mostly World War II veterans who had previously served in the American and British armed forces.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "Today, there is a program, Garin Tzabar, within the Israeli Ministry of Defense that administers the enlistment of non-Israeli citizens in the country's armed forces. Programs enable foreigners to join the Israel Defense Forces if they are of Jewish descent (which is defined as at least one grandparent).",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "Though not named \"Foreign Legion\", the Dutch Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indische Leger (KNIL), or Royal Dutch (East) Indies Army (in reference to the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia), was created in 1830, a year before the French Foreign Legion, and is therefore not an emulation but an entirely original idea and had a similar recruitment policy. It stopped being an army of foreigners around 1900 when recruitment was restricted to Dutch citizens and to the indigenous peoples of the Dutch East Indies. The KNIL was finally disbanded on 26 July 1950, seven months after the Netherlands formally recognised Indonesia as a sovereign state, and almost five years after Indonesia declared its independence.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "During the Rhodesian Bush War of the 1960s and 1970s, the Rhodesian Security Forces enlisted volunteers from overseas on the same pay and conditions of service as locally based regulars. The vast majority of the Rhodesian Army's foreigners joined the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI), a heliborne commando regiment with a glamorous international reputation; this unit became colloquially known as the \"Rhodesian foreign legion\" as a result, even though foreigners never made up more than about a third of its men. According to Chris Cocks, an RLI veteran, \"the RLI was a mirror of the French Foreign Legion, in that recruiters paid little heed as to a man's past and asked no questions. ... And like the Foreign Legion, once in the ranks, a man's past was irrelevant.\" Just as French Foreign Legionnaires must speak French, the Rhodesian Army required its foreigners to be English-speakers. Many of them were professional soldiers, attracted by the regiment's reputation—mostly former British soldiers, or Vietnam veterans from the United States, Australian and New Zealand forces—and these became a key part of the unit. Others, with no military experience, were often motivated to join the Rhodesian Army by their opposition to communism, or a desire for adventure or to escape the past.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "After the Rhodesians' overseas recruiting campaign for English-speakers, started in 1974, proved successful, they began recruiting French-speakers as well, in 1977. These francophone recruits were placed in their own unit, 7 Independent Company, Rhodesia Regiment, which was commanded by French-speaking officers and operated entirely in French. The experiment was not generally considered a success by the Rhodesian commanders, however, and the company was disbanded in early 1978.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "In 2010 the service conditions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation changed to allow foreigners. The actual term Russian \"Foreign Legion\" is a colloquial expression without any official recognition. Under the plan, foreigners without dual citizenship are able to sign up for five-year contracts and will be eligible for Russian citizenship after serving three years. Experts say the change opens the way for Commonwealth of Independent States citizens to get fast-track Russian citizenship, and counter the effects of Russia's demographic crisis on its army recruitment.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "Donetsk & Luhansk Peoples Republic \"Novo-Russia Foreign Legion\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "After the 2014 Russian Annexation of Crimea and the succeeding war in the Donbass, the separatist states of Donetsk and Luhansk peoples republics had a manpower shortage in their army which resulted in a campaign to recruit foreigners who were ideologically aligned to Russia to come fight for them. this resulted in the formation of the Novo-Russia Foreign legion which was made as \"the new French foreign legion\" and resulted in \"Hundreds flocking\" to the Donbass to fight, prominent separatist figure and American, Russell Bentley or \"Tex\", stated that \"We have Spaniards, we have guys from Colombia, India, Italy, France. I'm not the only American here either. There are also many Serbian fighters\". Ukraine reported that in 2015 around 30,000 foreign fighters were fighting for the separatist with the main nationalities being Russian and Serbian, with westerners making up a minority of fighters. many of whom have faced prosecution upon returning to their home countries such as in February 2015 eight Spanish's nationals were arrested upon returning to Spain from the Donbass. after the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine it is unclear if this unit still exists.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "The Spanish Tercio de Extranjeros was created in 1920, in direct emulation of the French Foreign Legion. It subsequently had a significant role in Spain's colonial wars in Morocco and in the Spanish Civil War on the Nationalist side. The Spanish Foreign Legion recruited foreigners until 1986 but unlike its French model, the number of non-Spanish recruits never exceeded 25%, most of these from Latin America. It is now called the Spanish Legion and has been involved in several modern conflicts and operations, including Afghanistan and the UN Mission in Lebanon UNIFIL .",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "The Georgian Legion was formed fighting on the side of Ukraine in the war in Donbas and the Russo-Ukrainian War. The unit was organized in 2014, and in 2016 it was transferred under the control of the Ukrainian Army, under the 25th Mechanized Infantry Battalion \"Kyiv Rus\". Although formed by mostly ethnic Georgian volunteers, and commanded by veteran Georgian officer Mamuka Mamulashvili, the legion was noted as being particularly good at recruiting Americans; before the formation of the International Legion of Ukraine in 2022, most foreign fighters served the Georgian Legion.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "In response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the government of Ukraine quickly established a component of its Territorial Defense Forces consisting of volunteers from foreign countries. Within the International Legion, some single nationality battalions were established to avoid language barriers in order to facilitate their rapid response to the invasion.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "The following is a list of notable people who are or were members of the Foreign Legion:",
"title": "Notable members"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "43°17′33″N 5°33′12″E / 43.2925°N 5.5534°E / 43.2925; 5.5534",
"title": "External links"
}
] |
The French Foreign Legion is a corps of the French Army that consists of several specialties: infantry, cavalry, engineers, airborne troops. It was created in 1831 to allow foreign nationals into the French Army. It formed part of the Armée d’Afrique, the French Army's units associated with France's colonial project in Africa, until the end of the Algerian war in 1962. Legionnaires are highly trained soldiers and the Legion is unique in that it is open to foreign recruits willing to serve in the French Armed Forces. The Legion is known today as a unit whose training focuses on traditional military skills and on its strong esprit de corps, as its men come from different countries with different cultures. Consequently, training is often described as not only physically challenging, but also very stressful psychologically. Legionnaires may apply for French citizenship after three years' service, or immediately after being wounded during a battle for France under a provision known as "Français par le sang versé".
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2001-11-22T11:45:33Z
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2023-12-27T18:02:17Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion
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Feedback
|
Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to feed back into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled carefully when applied to feedback systems:
Simple causal reasoning about a feedback system is difficult because the first system influences the second and second system influences the first, leading to a circular argument. This makes reasoning based upon cause and effect tricky, and it is necessary to analyze the system as a whole. As provided by Webster, feedback in business is the transmission of evaluative or corrective information about an action, event, or process to the original or controlling source.
Self-regulating mechanisms have existed since antiquity, and the idea of feedback had started to enter economic theory in Britain by the 18th century, but it was not at that time recognized as a universal abstraction and so did not have a name.
The first ever known artificial feedback device was a float valve, for maintaining water at a constant level, invented in 270 BC in Alexandria, Egypt. This device illustrated the principle of feedback: a low water level opens the valve, the rising water then provides feedback into the system, closing the valve when the required level is reached. This then reoccurs in a circular fashion as the water level fluctuates.
Centrifugal governors were used to regulate the distance and pressure between millstones in windmills since the 17th century. In 1788, James Watt designed his first centrifugal governor following a suggestion from his business partner Matthew Boulton, for use in the steam engines of their production. Early steam engines employed a purely reciprocating motion, and were used for pumping water – an application that could tolerate variations in the working speed, but the use of steam engines for other applications called for more precise control of the speed.
In 1868, James Clerk Maxwell wrote a famous paper, "On governors", that is widely considered a classic in feedback control theory. This was a landmark paper on control theory and the mathematics of feedback.
The verb phrase to feed back, in the sense of returning to an earlier position in a mechanical process, was in use in the US by the 1860s, and in 1909, Nobel laureate Karl Ferdinand Braun used the term "feed-back" as a noun to refer to (undesired) coupling between components of an electronic circuit.
By the end of 1912, researchers using early electronic amplifiers (audions) had discovered that deliberately coupling part of the output signal back to the input circuit would boost the amplification (through regeneration), but would also cause the audion to howl or sing. This action of feeding back of the signal from output to input gave rise to the use of the term "feedback" as a distinct word by 1920.
The development of cybernetics from the 1940s onwards was centred around the study of circular causal feedback mechanisms.
Over the years there has been some dispute as to the best definition of feedback. According to cybernetician Ashby (1956), mathematicians and theorists interested in the principles of feedback mechanisms prefer the definition of "circularity of action", which keeps the theory simple and consistent. For those with more practical aims, feedback should be a deliberate effect via some more tangible connection.
[Practical experimenters] object to the mathematician's definition, pointing out that this would force them to say that feedback was present in the ordinary pendulum ... between its position and its momentum—a "feedback" that, from the practical point of view, is somewhat mystical. To this the mathematician retorts that if feedback is to be considered present only when there is an actual wire or nerve to represent it, then the theory becomes chaotic and riddled with irrelevancies.
Focusing on uses in management theory, Ramaprasad (1983) defines feedback generally as "...information about the gap between the actual level and the reference level of a system parameter" that is used to "alter the gap in some way". He emphasizes that the information by itself is not feedback unless translated into action.
Positive feedback: If the signal feedback from output is in phase with the input signal, the feedback is called positive feedback.
Negative feedback: If the signal feedback is out of phase by 180° with respect to the input signal, the feedback is called negative feedback.
As an example of negative feedback, the diagram might represent a cruise control system in a car that matches a target speed such as the speed limit. The controlled system is the car; its input includes the combined torque from the engine and from the changing slope of the road (the disturbance). The car's speed (status) is measured by a speedometer. The error signal is the difference of the speed as measured by the speedometer from the target speed (set point). The controller interprets the speed to adjust the accelerator, commanding the fuel flow to the engine (the effector). The resulting change in engine torque, the feedback, combines with the torque exerted by the change of road grade to reduce the error in speed, minimising the changing slope.
The terms "positive" and "negative" were first applied to feedback prior to WWII. The idea of positive feedback already existed in the 1920s when the regenerative circuit was made. Friis and Jensen (1924) described this circuit in a set of electronic amplifiers as a case where the "feed-back" action is positive in contrast to negative feed-back action, which they mentioned only in passing. Harold Stephen Black's classic 1934 paper first details the use of negative feedback in electronic amplifiers. According to Black:
Positive feed-back increases the gain of the amplifier, negative feed-back reduces it.
According to Mindell (2002) confusion in the terms arose shortly after this:
... Friis and Jensen had made the same distinction Black used between "positive feed-back" and "negative feed-back", based not on the sign of the feedback itself but rather on its effect on the amplifier's gain. In contrast, Nyquist and Bode, when they built on Black's work, referred to negative feedback as that with the sign reversed. Black had trouble convincing others of the utility of his invention in part because confusion existed over basic matters of definition.
Even before these terms were being used, James Clerk Maxwell had described their concept through several kinds of "component motions" associated with the centrifugal governors used in steam engines. He distinguished those that lead to a continued increase in a disturbance or the amplitude of a wave or oscillation, from those that lead to a decrease of the same quality.
The terms positive and negative feedback are defined in different ways within different disciplines.
The two definitions may be confusing, like when an incentive (reward) is used to boost poor performance (narrow a gap). Referring to definition 1, some authors use alternative terms, replacing positive and negative with self-reinforcing and self-correcting, reinforcing and balancing, discrepancy-enhancing and discrepancy-reducing or regenerative and degenerative respectively. And for definition 2, some authors promote describing the action or effect as positive and negative reinforcement or punishment rather than feedback. Yet even within a single discipline an example of feedback can be called either positive or negative, depending on how values are measured or referenced.
This confusion may arise because feedback can be used to provide information or motivate, and often has both a qualitative and a quantitative component. As Connellan and Zemke (1993) put it:
Quantitative feedback tells us how much and how many. Qualitative feedback tells us how good, bad or indifferent.
While simple systems can sometimes be described as one or the other type, many systems with feedback loops cannot be shoehorned into either type, and this is especially true when multiple loops are present.
When there are only two parts joined so that each affects the other, the properties of the feedback give important and useful information about the properties of the whole. But when the parts rise to even as few as four, if every one affects the other three, then twenty circuits can be traced through them; and knowing the properties of all the twenty circuits does not give complete information about the system.
In general, feedback systems can have many signals fed back and the feedback loop frequently contain mixtures of positive and negative feedback where positive and negative feedback can dominate at different frequencies or different points in the state space of a system.
The term bipolar feedback has been coined to refer to biological systems where positive and negative feedback systems can interact, the output of one affecting the input of another, and vice versa.
Some systems with feedback can have very complex behaviors such as chaotic behaviors in non-linear systems, while others have much more predictable behaviors, such as those that are used to make and design digital systems.
Feedback is used extensively in digital systems. For example, binary counters and similar devices employ feedback where the current state and inputs are used to calculate a new state which is then fed back and clocked back into the device to update it.
By using feedback properties, the behavior of a system can be altered to meet the needs of an application; systems can be made stable, responsive or held constant. It is shown that dynamical systems with a feedback experience an adaptation to the edge of chaos.
Physical systems present feedback through the mutual interactions of its parts. Feedback is also relevant for the regulation of experimental conditions, noise reduction, and signal control. The thermodynamics of feedback-controlled systems has intrigued physicist since the Maxwell's demon, with recent advances on the consequences for entropy reduction and performance increase.
In biological systems such as organisms, ecosystems, or the biosphere, most parameters must stay under control within a narrow range around a certain optimal level under certain environmental conditions. The deviation of the optimal value of the controlled parameter can result from the changes in internal and external environments. A change of some of the environmental conditions may also require change of that range to change for the system to function. The value of the parameter to maintain is recorded by a reception system and conveyed to a regulation module via an information channel. An example of this is insulin oscillations.
Biological systems contain many types of regulatory circuits, both positive and negative. As in other contexts, positive and negative do not imply that the feedback causes good or bad effects. A negative feedback loop is one that tends to slow down a process, whereas the positive feedback loop tends to accelerate it. The mirror neurons are part of a social feedback system, when an observed action is "mirrored" by the brain—like a self-performed action.
Normal tissue integrity is preserved by feedback interactions between diverse cell types mediated by adhesion molecules and secreted molecules that act as mediators; failure of key feedback mechanisms in cancer disrupts tissue function. In an injured or infected tissue, inflammatory mediators elicit feedback responses in cells, which alter gene expression, and change the groups of molecules expressed and secreted, including molecules that induce diverse cells to cooperate and restore tissue structure and function. This type of feedback is important because it enables coordination of immune responses and recovery from infections and injuries. During cancer, key elements of this feedback fail. This disrupts tissue function and immunity.
Mechanisms of feedback were first elucidated in bacteria, where a nutrient elicits changes in some of their metabolic functions. Feedback is also central to the operations of genes and gene regulatory networks. Repressor (see Lac repressor) and activator proteins are used to create genetic operons, which were identified by François Jacob and Jacques Monod in 1961 as feedback loops. These feedback loops may be positive (as in the case of the coupling between a sugar molecule and the proteins that import sugar into a bacterial cell), or negative (as is often the case in metabolic consumption).
On a larger scale, feedback can have a stabilizing effect on animal populations even when profoundly affected by external changes, although time lags in feedback response can give rise to predator-prey cycles.
In zymology, feedback serves as regulation of activity of an enzyme by its direct product(s) or downstream metabolite(s) in the metabolic pathway (see Allosteric regulation).
The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis is largely controlled by positive and negative feedback, much of which is still unknown.
In psychology, the body receives a stimulus from the environment or internally that causes the release of hormones. Release of hormones then may cause more of those hormones to be released, causing a positive feedback loop. This cycle is also found in certain behaviour. For example, "shame loops" occur in people who blush easily. When they realize that they are blushing, they become even more embarrassed, which leads to further blushing, and so on.
The climate system is characterized by strong positive and negative feedback loops between processes that affect the state of the atmosphere, ocean, and land. A simple example is the ice–albedo positive feedback loop whereby melting snow exposes more dark ground (of lower albedo), which in turn absorbs heat and causes more snow to melt.
Feedback is extensively used in control theory, using a variety of methods including state space (controls), full state feedback, and so forth. In the context of control theory, "feedback" is traditionally assumed to specify "negative feedback".
The most common general-purpose controller using a control-loop feedback mechanism is a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller. Heuristically, the terms of a PID controller can be interpreted as corresponding to time: the proportional term depends on the present error, the integral term on the accumulation of past errors, and the derivative term is a prediction of future error, based on current rate of change.
For feedback in the educational context, see corrective feedback.
In ancient times, the float valve was used to regulate the flow of water in Greek and Roman water clocks; similar float valves are used to regulate fuel in a carburettor and also used to regulate tank water level in the flush toilet.
The Dutch inventor Cornelius Drebbel (1572-1633) built thermostats (c1620) to control the temperature of chicken incubators and chemical furnaces. In 1745, the windmill was improved by blacksmith Edmund Lee, who added a fantail to keep the face of the windmill pointing into the wind. In 1787, Tom Mead regulated the rotation speed of a windmill by using a centrifugal pendulum to adjust the distance between the bedstone and the runner stone (i.e., to adjust the load).
The use of the centrifugal governor by James Watt in 1788 to regulate the speed of his steam engine was one factor leading to the Industrial Revolution. Steam engines also use float valves and pressure release valves as mechanical regulation devices. A mathematical analysis of Watt's governor was done by James Clerk Maxwell in 1868.
The Great Eastern was one of the largest steamships of its time and employed a steam powered rudder with feedback mechanism designed in 1866 by John McFarlane Gray. Joseph Farcot coined the word servo in 1873 to describe steam-powered steering systems. Hydraulic servos were later used to position guns. Elmer Ambrose Sperry of the Sperry Corporation designed the first autopilot in 1912. Nicolas Minorsky published a theoretical analysis of automatic ship steering in 1922 and described the PID controller.
Internal combustion engines of the late 20th century employed mechanical feedback mechanisms such as the vacuum timing advance but mechanical feedback was replaced by electronic engine management systems once small, robust and powerful single-chip microcontrollers became affordable.
The use of feedback is widespread in the design of electronic components such as amplifiers, oscillators, and stateful logic circuit elements such as flip-flops and counters. Electronic feedback systems are also very commonly used to control mechanical, thermal and other physical processes.
If the signal is inverted on its way round the control loop, the system is said to have negative feedback; otherwise, the feedback is said to be positive. Negative feedback is often deliberately introduced to increase the stability and accuracy of a system by correcting or reducing the influence of unwanted changes. This scheme can fail if the input changes faster than the system can respond to it. When this happens, the lag in arrival of the correcting signal can result in over-correction, causing the output to oscillate or "hunt". While often an unwanted consequence of system behaviour, this effect is used deliberately in electronic oscillators.
Harry Nyquist at Bell Labs derived the Nyquist stability criterion for determining the stability of feedback systems. An easier method, but less general, is to use Bode plots developed by Hendrik Bode to determine the gain margin and phase margin. Design to ensure stability often involves frequency compensation to control the location of the poles of the amplifier.
Electronic feedback loops are used to control the output of electronic devices, such as amplifiers. A feedback loop is created when all or some portion of the output is fed back to the input. A device is said to be operating open loop if no output feedback is being employed and closed loop if feedback is being used.
When two or more amplifiers are cross-coupled using positive feedback, complex behaviors can be created. These multivibrators are widely used and include:
Negative feedback occurs when the fed-back output signal has a relative phase of 180° with respect to the input signal (upside down). This situation is sometimes referred to as being out of phase, but that term also is used to indicate other phase separations, as in "90° out of phase". Negative feedback can be used to correct output errors or to desensitize a system to unwanted fluctuations. In feedback amplifiers, this correction is generally for waveform distortion reduction or to establish a specified gain level. A general expression for the gain of a negative feedback amplifier is the asymptotic gain model.
Positive feedback occurs when the fed-back signal is in phase with the input signal. Under certain gain conditions, positive feedback reinforces the input signal to the point where the output of the device oscillates between its maximum and minimum possible states. Positive feedback may also introduce hysteresis into a circuit. This can cause the circuit to ignore small signals and respond only to large ones. It is sometimes used to eliminate noise from a digital signal. Under some circumstances, positive feedback may cause a device to latch, i.e., to reach a condition in which the output is locked to its maximum or minimum state. This fact is very widely used in digital electronics to make bistable circuits for volatile storage of information.
The loud squeals that sometimes occurs in audio systems, PA systems, and rock music are known as audio feedback. If a microphone is in front of a loudspeaker that it is connected to, sound that the microphone picks up comes out of the speaker, and is picked up by the microphone and re-amplified. If the loop gain is sufficient, howling or squealing at the maximum power of the amplifier is possible.
An electronic oscillator is an electronic circuit that produces a periodic, oscillating electronic signal, often a sine wave or a square wave. Oscillators convert direct current (DC) from a power supply to an alternating current signal. They are widely used in many electronic devices. Common examples of signals generated by oscillators include signals broadcast by radio and television transmitters, clock signals that regulate computers and quartz clocks, and the sounds produced by electronic beepers and video games.
Oscillators are often characterized by the frequency of their output signal:
Oscillators designed to produce a high-power AC output from a DC supply are usually called inverters.
There are two main types of electronic oscillator: the linear or harmonic oscillator and the nonlinear or relaxation oscillator.
A latch or a flip-flop is a circuit that has two stable states and can be used to store state information. They typically constructed using feedback that crosses over between two arms of the circuit, to provide the circuit with a state. The circuit can be made to change state by signals applied to one or more control inputs and will have one or two outputs. It is the basic storage element in sequential logic. Latches and flip-flops are fundamental building blocks of digital electronics systems used in computers, communications, and many other types of systems.
Latches and flip-flops are used as data storage elements. Such data storage can be used for storage of state, and such a circuit is described as sequential logic. When used in a finite-state machine, the output and next state depend not only on its current input, but also on its current state (and hence, previous inputs). It can also be used for counting of pulses, and for synchronizing variably-timed input signals to some reference timing signal.
Flip-flops can be either simple (transparent or opaque) or clocked (synchronous or edge-triggered). Although the term flip-flop has historically referred generically to both simple and clocked circuits, in modern usage it is common to reserve the term flip-flop exclusively for discussing clocked circuits; the simple ones are commonly called latches.
Using this terminology, a latch is level-sensitive, whereas a flip-flop is edge-sensitive. That is, when a latch is enabled it becomes transparent, while a flip flop's output only changes on a single type (positive going or negative going) of clock edge.
Feedback loops provide generic mechanisms for controlling the running, maintenance, and evolution of software and computing systems. Feedback-loops are important models in the engineering of adaptive software, as they define the behaviour of the interactions among the control elements over the adaptation process, to guarantee system properties at run-time. Feedback loops and foundations of control theory have been successfully applied to computing systems. In particular, they have been applied to the development of products such as IBM Db2 and IBM Tivoli. From a software perspective, the autonomic (MAPE, monitor analyze plan execute) loop proposed by researchers of IBM is another valuable contribution to the application of feedback loops to the control of dynamic properties and the design and evolution of autonomic software systems.
Feedback is also a useful design principle for designing user interfaces.
Video feedback is the video equivalent of acoustic feedback. It involves a loop between a video camera input and a video output, e.g., a television screen or monitor. Aiming the camera at the display produces a complex video image based on the feedback.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to feed back into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled carefully when applied to feedback systems:",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Simple causal reasoning about a feedback system is difficult because the first system influences the second and second system influences the first, leading to a circular argument. This makes reasoning based upon cause and effect tricky, and it is necessary to analyze the system as a whole. As provided by Webster, feedback in business is the transmission of evaluative or corrective information about an action, event, or process to the original or controlling source.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Self-regulating mechanisms have existed since antiquity, and the idea of feedback had started to enter economic theory in Britain by the 18th century, but it was not at that time recognized as a universal abstraction and so did not have a name.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The first ever known artificial feedback device was a float valve, for maintaining water at a constant level, invented in 270 BC in Alexandria, Egypt. This device illustrated the principle of feedback: a low water level opens the valve, the rising water then provides feedback into the system, closing the valve when the required level is reached. This then reoccurs in a circular fashion as the water level fluctuates.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Centrifugal governors were used to regulate the distance and pressure between millstones in windmills since the 17th century. In 1788, James Watt designed his first centrifugal governor following a suggestion from his business partner Matthew Boulton, for use in the steam engines of their production. Early steam engines employed a purely reciprocating motion, and were used for pumping water – an application that could tolerate variations in the working speed, but the use of steam engines for other applications called for more precise control of the speed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1868, James Clerk Maxwell wrote a famous paper, \"On governors\", that is widely considered a classic in feedback control theory. This was a landmark paper on control theory and the mathematics of feedback.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The verb phrase to feed back, in the sense of returning to an earlier position in a mechanical process, was in use in the US by the 1860s, and in 1909, Nobel laureate Karl Ferdinand Braun used the term \"feed-back\" as a noun to refer to (undesired) coupling between components of an electronic circuit.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "By the end of 1912, researchers using early electronic amplifiers (audions) had discovered that deliberately coupling part of the output signal back to the input circuit would boost the amplification (through regeneration), but would also cause the audion to howl or sing. This action of feeding back of the signal from output to input gave rise to the use of the term \"feedback\" as a distinct word by 1920.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The development of cybernetics from the 1940s onwards was centred around the study of circular causal feedback mechanisms.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Over the years there has been some dispute as to the best definition of feedback. According to cybernetician Ashby (1956), mathematicians and theorists interested in the principles of feedback mechanisms prefer the definition of \"circularity of action\", which keeps the theory simple and consistent. For those with more practical aims, feedback should be a deliberate effect via some more tangible connection.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "[Practical experimenters] object to the mathematician's definition, pointing out that this would force them to say that feedback was present in the ordinary pendulum ... between its position and its momentum—a \"feedback\" that, from the practical point of view, is somewhat mystical. To this the mathematician retorts that if feedback is to be considered present only when there is an actual wire or nerve to represent it, then the theory becomes chaotic and riddled with irrelevancies.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Focusing on uses in management theory, Ramaprasad (1983) defines feedback generally as \"...information about the gap between the actual level and the reference level of a system parameter\" that is used to \"alter the gap in some way\". He emphasizes that the information by itself is not feedback unless translated into action.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Positive feedback: If the signal feedback from output is in phase with the input signal, the feedback is called positive feedback.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Negative feedback: If the signal feedback is out of phase by 180° with respect to the input signal, the feedback is called negative feedback.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "As an example of negative feedback, the diagram might represent a cruise control system in a car that matches a target speed such as the speed limit. The controlled system is the car; its input includes the combined torque from the engine and from the changing slope of the road (the disturbance). The car's speed (status) is measured by a speedometer. The error signal is the difference of the speed as measured by the speedometer from the target speed (set point). The controller interprets the speed to adjust the accelerator, commanding the fuel flow to the engine (the effector). The resulting change in engine torque, the feedback, combines with the torque exerted by the change of road grade to reduce the error in speed, minimising the changing slope.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The terms \"positive\" and \"negative\" were first applied to feedback prior to WWII. The idea of positive feedback already existed in the 1920s when the regenerative circuit was made. Friis and Jensen (1924) described this circuit in a set of electronic amplifiers as a case where the \"feed-back\" action is positive in contrast to negative feed-back action, which they mentioned only in passing. Harold Stephen Black's classic 1934 paper first details the use of negative feedback in electronic amplifiers. According to Black:",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Positive feed-back increases the gain of the amplifier, negative feed-back reduces it.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "According to Mindell (2002) confusion in the terms arose shortly after this:",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "... Friis and Jensen had made the same distinction Black used between \"positive feed-back\" and \"negative feed-back\", based not on the sign of the feedback itself but rather on its effect on the amplifier's gain. In contrast, Nyquist and Bode, when they built on Black's work, referred to negative feedback as that with the sign reversed. Black had trouble convincing others of the utility of his invention in part because confusion existed over basic matters of definition.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Even before these terms were being used, James Clerk Maxwell had described their concept through several kinds of \"component motions\" associated with the centrifugal governors used in steam engines. He distinguished those that lead to a continued increase in a disturbance or the amplitude of a wave or oscillation, from those that lead to a decrease of the same quality.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The terms positive and negative feedback are defined in different ways within different disciplines.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The two definitions may be confusing, like when an incentive (reward) is used to boost poor performance (narrow a gap). Referring to definition 1, some authors use alternative terms, replacing positive and negative with self-reinforcing and self-correcting, reinforcing and balancing, discrepancy-enhancing and discrepancy-reducing or regenerative and degenerative respectively. And for definition 2, some authors promote describing the action or effect as positive and negative reinforcement or punishment rather than feedback. Yet even within a single discipline an example of feedback can be called either positive or negative, depending on how values are measured or referenced.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "This confusion may arise because feedback can be used to provide information or motivate, and often has both a qualitative and a quantitative component. As Connellan and Zemke (1993) put it:",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Quantitative feedback tells us how much and how many. Qualitative feedback tells us how good, bad or indifferent.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "While simple systems can sometimes be described as one or the other type, many systems with feedback loops cannot be shoehorned into either type, and this is especially true when multiple loops are present.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "When there are only two parts joined so that each affects the other, the properties of the feedback give important and useful information about the properties of the whole. But when the parts rise to even as few as four, if every one affects the other three, then twenty circuits can be traced through them; and knowing the properties of all the twenty circuits does not give complete information about the system.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In general, feedback systems can have many signals fed back and the feedback loop frequently contain mixtures of positive and negative feedback where positive and negative feedback can dominate at different frequencies or different points in the state space of a system.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The term bipolar feedback has been coined to refer to biological systems where positive and negative feedback systems can interact, the output of one affecting the input of another, and vice versa.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Some systems with feedback can have very complex behaviors such as chaotic behaviors in non-linear systems, while others have much more predictable behaviors, such as those that are used to make and design digital systems.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Feedback is used extensively in digital systems. For example, binary counters and similar devices employ feedback where the current state and inputs are used to calculate a new state which is then fed back and clocked back into the device to update it.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "By using feedback properties, the behavior of a system can be altered to meet the needs of an application; systems can be made stable, responsive or held constant. It is shown that dynamical systems with a feedback experience an adaptation to the edge of chaos.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Physical systems present feedback through the mutual interactions of its parts. Feedback is also relevant for the regulation of experimental conditions, noise reduction, and signal control. The thermodynamics of feedback-controlled systems has intrigued physicist since the Maxwell's demon, with recent advances on the consequences for entropy reduction and performance increase.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In biological systems such as organisms, ecosystems, or the biosphere, most parameters must stay under control within a narrow range around a certain optimal level under certain environmental conditions. The deviation of the optimal value of the controlled parameter can result from the changes in internal and external environments. A change of some of the environmental conditions may also require change of that range to change for the system to function. The value of the parameter to maintain is recorded by a reception system and conveyed to a regulation module via an information channel. An example of this is insulin oscillations.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Biological systems contain many types of regulatory circuits, both positive and negative. As in other contexts, positive and negative do not imply that the feedback causes good or bad effects. A negative feedback loop is one that tends to slow down a process, whereas the positive feedback loop tends to accelerate it. The mirror neurons are part of a social feedback system, when an observed action is \"mirrored\" by the brain—like a self-performed action.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Normal tissue integrity is preserved by feedback interactions between diverse cell types mediated by adhesion molecules and secreted molecules that act as mediators; failure of key feedback mechanisms in cancer disrupts tissue function. In an injured or infected tissue, inflammatory mediators elicit feedback responses in cells, which alter gene expression, and change the groups of molecules expressed and secreted, including molecules that induce diverse cells to cooperate and restore tissue structure and function. This type of feedback is important because it enables coordination of immune responses and recovery from infections and injuries. During cancer, key elements of this feedback fail. This disrupts tissue function and immunity.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Mechanisms of feedback were first elucidated in bacteria, where a nutrient elicits changes in some of their metabolic functions. Feedback is also central to the operations of genes and gene regulatory networks. Repressor (see Lac repressor) and activator proteins are used to create genetic operons, which were identified by François Jacob and Jacques Monod in 1961 as feedback loops. These feedback loops may be positive (as in the case of the coupling between a sugar molecule and the proteins that import sugar into a bacterial cell), or negative (as is often the case in metabolic consumption).",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "On a larger scale, feedback can have a stabilizing effect on animal populations even when profoundly affected by external changes, although time lags in feedback response can give rise to predator-prey cycles.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In zymology, feedback serves as regulation of activity of an enzyme by its direct product(s) or downstream metabolite(s) in the metabolic pathway (see Allosteric regulation).",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis is largely controlled by positive and negative feedback, much of which is still unknown.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In psychology, the body receives a stimulus from the environment or internally that causes the release of hormones. Release of hormones then may cause more of those hormones to be released, causing a positive feedback loop. This cycle is also found in certain behaviour. For example, \"shame loops\" occur in people who blush easily. When they realize that they are blushing, they become even more embarrassed, which leads to further blushing, and so on.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The climate system is characterized by strong positive and negative feedback loops between processes that affect the state of the atmosphere, ocean, and land. A simple example is the ice–albedo positive feedback loop whereby melting snow exposes more dark ground (of lower albedo), which in turn absorbs heat and causes more snow to melt.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Feedback is extensively used in control theory, using a variety of methods including state space (controls), full state feedback, and so forth. In the context of control theory, \"feedback\" is traditionally assumed to specify \"negative feedback\".",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The most common general-purpose controller using a control-loop feedback mechanism is a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller. Heuristically, the terms of a PID controller can be interpreted as corresponding to time: the proportional term depends on the present error, the integral term on the accumulation of past errors, and the derivative term is a prediction of future error, based on current rate of change.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "For feedback in the educational context, see corrective feedback.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In ancient times, the float valve was used to regulate the flow of water in Greek and Roman water clocks; similar float valves are used to regulate fuel in a carburettor and also used to regulate tank water level in the flush toilet.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The Dutch inventor Cornelius Drebbel (1572-1633) built thermostats (c1620) to control the temperature of chicken incubators and chemical furnaces. In 1745, the windmill was improved by blacksmith Edmund Lee, who added a fantail to keep the face of the windmill pointing into the wind. In 1787, Tom Mead regulated the rotation speed of a windmill by using a centrifugal pendulum to adjust the distance between the bedstone and the runner stone (i.e., to adjust the load).",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The use of the centrifugal governor by James Watt in 1788 to regulate the speed of his steam engine was one factor leading to the Industrial Revolution. Steam engines also use float valves and pressure release valves as mechanical regulation devices. A mathematical analysis of Watt's governor was done by James Clerk Maxwell in 1868.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The Great Eastern was one of the largest steamships of its time and employed a steam powered rudder with feedback mechanism designed in 1866 by John McFarlane Gray. Joseph Farcot coined the word servo in 1873 to describe steam-powered steering systems. Hydraulic servos were later used to position guns. Elmer Ambrose Sperry of the Sperry Corporation designed the first autopilot in 1912. Nicolas Minorsky published a theoretical analysis of automatic ship steering in 1922 and described the PID controller.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Internal combustion engines of the late 20th century employed mechanical feedback mechanisms such as the vacuum timing advance but mechanical feedback was replaced by electronic engine management systems once small, robust and powerful single-chip microcontrollers became affordable.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The use of feedback is widespread in the design of electronic components such as amplifiers, oscillators, and stateful logic circuit elements such as flip-flops and counters. Electronic feedback systems are also very commonly used to control mechanical, thermal and other physical processes.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "If the signal is inverted on its way round the control loop, the system is said to have negative feedback; otherwise, the feedback is said to be positive. Negative feedback is often deliberately introduced to increase the stability and accuracy of a system by correcting or reducing the influence of unwanted changes. This scheme can fail if the input changes faster than the system can respond to it. When this happens, the lag in arrival of the correcting signal can result in over-correction, causing the output to oscillate or \"hunt\". While often an unwanted consequence of system behaviour, this effect is used deliberately in electronic oscillators.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Harry Nyquist at Bell Labs derived the Nyquist stability criterion for determining the stability of feedback systems. An easier method, but less general, is to use Bode plots developed by Hendrik Bode to determine the gain margin and phase margin. Design to ensure stability often involves frequency compensation to control the location of the poles of the amplifier.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Electronic feedback loops are used to control the output of electronic devices, such as amplifiers. A feedback loop is created when all or some portion of the output is fed back to the input. A device is said to be operating open loop if no output feedback is being employed and closed loop if feedback is being used.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "When two or more amplifiers are cross-coupled using positive feedback, complex behaviors can be created. These multivibrators are widely used and include:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Negative feedback occurs when the fed-back output signal has a relative phase of 180° with respect to the input signal (upside down). This situation is sometimes referred to as being out of phase, but that term also is used to indicate other phase separations, as in \"90° out of phase\". Negative feedback can be used to correct output errors or to desensitize a system to unwanted fluctuations. In feedback amplifiers, this correction is generally for waveform distortion reduction or to establish a specified gain level. A general expression for the gain of a negative feedback amplifier is the asymptotic gain model.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Positive feedback occurs when the fed-back signal is in phase with the input signal. Under certain gain conditions, positive feedback reinforces the input signal to the point where the output of the device oscillates between its maximum and minimum possible states. Positive feedback may also introduce hysteresis into a circuit. This can cause the circuit to ignore small signals and respond only to large ones. It is sometimes used to eliminate noise from a digital signal. Under some circumstances, positive feedback may cause a device to latch, i.e., to reach a condition in which the output is locked to its maximum or minimum state. This fact is very widely used in digital electronics to make bistable circuits for volatile storage of information.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The loud squeals that sometimes occurs in audio systems, PA systems, and rock music are known as audio feedback. If a microphone is in front of a loudspeaker that it is connected to, sound that the microphone picks up comes out of the speaker, and is picked up by the microphone and re-amplified. If the loop gain is sufficient, howling or squealing at the maximum power of the amplifier is possible.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "An electronic oscillator is an electronic circuit that produces a periodic, oscillating electronic signal, often a sine wave or a square wave. Oscillators convert direct current (DC) from a power supply to an alternating current signal. They are widely used in many electronic devices. Common examples of signals generated by oscillators include signals broadcast by radio and television transmitters, clock signals that regulate computers and quartz clocks, and the sounds produced by electronic beepers and video games.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Oscillators are often characterized by the frequency of their output signal:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Oscillators designed to produce a high-power AC output from a DC supply are usually called inverters.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "There are two main types of electronic oscillator: the linear or harmonic oscillator and the nonlinear or relaxation oscillator.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "A latch or a flip-flop is a circuit that has two stable states and can be used to store state information. They typically constructed using feedback that crosses over between two arms of the circuit, to provide the circuit with a state. The circuit can be made to change state by signals applied to one or more control inputs and will have one or two outputs. It is the basic storage element in sequential logic. Latches and flip-flops are fundamental building blocks of digital electronics systems used in computers, communications, and many other types of systems.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Latches and flip-flops are used as data storage elements. Such data storage can be used for storage of state, and such a circuit is described as sequential logic. When used in a finite-state machine, the output and next state depend not only on its current input, but also on its current state (and hence, previous inputs). It can also be used for counting of pulses, and for synchronizing variably-timed input signals to some reference timing signal.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Flip-flops can be either simple (transparent or opaque) or clocked (synchronous or edge-triggered). Although the term flip-flop has historically referred generically to both simple and clocked circuits, in modern usage it is common to reserve the term flip-flop exclusively for discussing clocked circuits; the simple ones are commonly called latches.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Using this terminology, a latch is level-sensitive, whereas a flip-flop is edge-sensitive. That is, when a latch is enabled it becomes transparent, while a flip flop's output only changes on a single type (positive going or negative going) of clock edge.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Feedback loops provide generic mechanisms for controlling the running, maintenance, and evolution of software and computing systems. Feedback-loops are important models in the engineering of adaptive software, as they define the behaviour of the interactions among the control elements over the adaptation process, to guarantee system properties at run-time. Feedback loops and foundations of control theory have been successfully applied to computing systems. In particular, they have been applied to the development of products such as IBM Db2 and IBM Tivoli. From a software perspective, the autonomic (MAPE, monitor analyze plan execute) loop proposed by researchers of IBM is another valuable contribution to the application of feedback loops to the control of dynamic properties and the design and evolution of autonomic software systems.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Feedback is also a useful design principle for designing user interfaces.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Video feedback is the video equivalent of acoustic feedback. It involves a loop between a video camera input and a video output, e.g., a television screen or monitor. Aiming the camera at the display produces a complex video image based on the feedback.",
"title": "Applications"
}
] |
Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to feed back into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled carefully when applied to feedback systems:
|
2001-11-22T20:03:47Z
|
2023-12-15T22:08:49Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedback
|
11,547 |
Furigana
|
Furigana (振り仮名, Japanese pronunciation: [ɸɯɾigaꜜna] or [ɸɯɾigana]) is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana (syllabic characters) printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also known as yomigana (読み仮名) and rubi (ルビ, [ɾɯꜜbi]) in Japanese. In modern Japanese, it is usually used to gloss rare kanji, to clarify rare, nonstandard or ambiguous kanji readings, or in children's or learners' materials. Before the post-World War II script reforms, it was more widespread.
Furigana is most often written in hiragana, though in certain cases it may be written in katakana, Roman alphabet letters or in other, simpler kanji. In vertical text, tategaki, the furigana is placed to the right of the line of text; in horizontal text, yokogaki, it is placed above the line of text, as illustrated below.
These examples spell the word kanji, which is made up of two kanji characters: 漢 (kan, written in hiragana as かん) and 字 (ji, written in hiragana as じ).
Furigana may be added by character, in which case the furigana character(s) that correspond to a kanji are centered over that kanji; or by word or phrase, in which case the entire furigana text is centered over several kanji characters, even if the kanji do not represent equal shares of the kana needed to write them. The latter method is more common, especially since some words in Japanese have unique pronunciations (jukujikun) that are not related to readings of any of the characters the word is written with.
Furigana fonts are generally sized so that two kana characters fit naturally over one kanji; when more kana are required, this is resolved either by adjusting the furigana by using a condensed font (narrowing the kana), or by adjusting the kanji by intercharacter spacing (adding spaces around the kanji). In case an isolated kanji character has a long reading—for example 〜に携わる (where 携 reads たずさ, tazusa)—the furigana may instead spill over into the space next to the neighboring kana characters, without condensing or changing spacing. Three-kana readings are not uncommon, particularly due to yōon with a long vowel, such as ryō (りょう); five kana are required for kokorozashi (志、こころざし) and six for uketamawaru (承る、うけたまわる), the longest of any character in the Joyo kanji. Very long readings also occur for certain kanji or symbols which have a gairaigo (loan word) reading; the word "centimeter" is generally written as "cm" (with two half-width characters, so occupying one space) and has the seven-kana reading センチメートル (senchimētoru) (it can also be written as the kanji 糎, though this is very rare); another common example is "%" (the percent sign), which has the five kana reading パーセント (pāsento). These cause severe spacing problems due to length and these words being used as units (hence closely associated with the preceding figure).
When it is necessary to distinguish between native Japanese kun'yomi pronunciations and Chinese-derived on'yomi pronunciations, for example in kanji dictionaries, the kun'yomi pronunciations are written in hiragana, and the on'yomi pronunciations are written in katakana. However, this distinction is really only important in dictionaries and other reference works. In ordinary prose, the script chosen will usually be hiragana. The one general exception to this is modern Chinese place names, personal names, and (occasionally) food names—these will often be written with kanji, and katakana used for the furigana; in more casual writing these are simply written in katakana, as borrowed words. Occasionally this style is also used for loanwords from other languages (especially English). For example, the kanji 一角獣 (literally "one horn beast") might be glossed with katakana ユニコーン, yunikōn, to show the pronunciation of the loanword "unicorn", which is unrelated to the normal reading of the kanji. Generally, though, such loanwords are just written in straight katakana.
The distinction between regular kana and the smaller character forms (yōon and sokuon), which are used in regular orthography to mark such things as gemination and palatalization, is often not made in furigana: for example, the usual hiragana spelling of the word 却下 (kyakka) is きゃっか, but in furigana it might be written きやつか. This was especially common in old-fashioned movable type printing when smaller fonts were not available. Nowadays, with computer-based printing systems, this occurs less frequently.
Various word processing or typesetting software programs, such as Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign, Adobe InCopy, etc. have features for adding ruby text, especially Japanese furigana. Among formatting features are different rules for aligning the kana over or to the right of the base text, usually either when the base text string is longer than the furigana string or vice versa. Extra spaces may be needed depending on the size of the shorter string (either the ruby string or the base string) relatively to the longer one.
Furigana are most commonly used in works for children, who may not have sufficiently advanced reading skills to recognize the kanji, but can understand the word when written phonetically in hiragana. Because children learn hiragana before katakana, in books for very young children, there are hiragana－furigana next to the katakana characters. It is common to use furigana on all kanji characters in works for young children. This is called sōrubi (総ルビ) in Japanese.
Numeric characters used for counting (e.g. 二本/２本 ni-hon "two long things"; ２つめ futatsume "second"; 第二巻/第２巻 dai-ni kan "book 2"; ２ページ ni-pēji "page 2"; etc.) are usually not tagged with furigana. Exceptions include a few cases such as 一人/１人 hitori "one person" and 二人/２人 futari "two people", which may be tagged with separate kana for each character (一人/１人), or non-separated kana for the whole word (一人/１人), depending on the style of the publisher in question; or characters for numerals greater than 1,000 (千), such as 万 (10,000), 億 (100,000,000), etc. Numeric words in established compounds (e.g. 一歩 ippo "step"; 一目 hitome "sight; attention"), however, are generally tagged with furigana.
Many children's manga, shōnen and shōjo manga use furigana (again however, rarely on numerals). Shōnen and shōjo manga tend to have furigana for all non-numeric characters, while some manga (such as early volumes of Doraemon and other manga published by Shogakukan), may also ignore furigana on elementary-grade kanji or easy words. Seinen and josei manga ignores furigana most of the time, even on the names of the characters if they're common names, although some publishers may still routinely use furigana for the first mentions of important characters' names in a volume or chapter. There are also books with a phonetic guide (mainly in hiragana but sometimes in rōmaji) for Japanese learners, which may be bilingual or Japanese only. These are popular with foreigners wishing to master Japanese faster and enjoy reading Japanese short stories, novels or articles.
Due to the small type used for furigana, for maximum readability, some manga publishers may use regular kana instead of small kana. For example, はっしん hasshin may be spelled はつしん *hatsushin instead.
Some websites and tools exist which provide a phonetic guide for Japanese web pages (in hiragana, rōmaji or kiriru-moji); these are popular with both Japanese children and foreign Japanese learners.
In works aimed at adult Japanese speakers, furigana may be used on a word written in uncommon kanji; in the mass media, they are generally used on words containing non-Jōyō kanji.
Furigana commonly appear alongside kanji names and their romanizations on signs for railway stations, even if the pronunciation of the kanji is commonly known. Furigana also appear often on maps to show the pronunciation of unusual place names.
Before the war, youths might arguably have been almost illiterate if not for furigana.
Japanese names are usually written in kanji. Because there are many possible readings for kanji names, including special name-only readings called nanori, furigana are often used to give the readings of names. On Japanese official forms, where the name is to be written, there is always an adjacent column for the name to be written in furigana.
Furigana may also be used for foreign names written in kanji. Chinese and Korean names are the most common examples: Chinese names are usually pronounced with Japanese readings and the pronunciation written in hiragana, while Korean names are usually pronounced with Korean readings and the pronunciation written in katakana.
Kanji and kanji compounds are often presented with furigana in Japanese-language textbooks for non-native speakers.
Furigana are also often used in foreign-language textbooks for Japanese learners to indicate pronunciation. The words are written in the original foreign script, such as hangul for Korean, and furigana is used to indicate the pronunciation. According to Ministry of Education guidelines, and the opinions of educators, the use of Japanese furigana should be avoided in English teaching due to the differences in pronunciation between English and Japanese. For instance, the word "birthdate" might be glossed in furigana as バースデイト (bāsudeito), which corresponds to an imperfect pronunciation.
Furigana unrelated to the kanji they are assigned to are often used to convey certain effects, rather than to denote a phonetic guide, especially in manga, anime, video games, and tabletop games. This usage is known as 義訓 gikun (see also Kanji#Special readings). The specific effects vary.
It may be used to visually reinforce complex ideas without having to use long expressions. For example, the word 悪夢 akumu "nightmare" may be annotated with しんじつ shinjitsu "truth" (i.e. 悪夢) rather than its true reading, to convey the meaning of "nightmarish truth". Some authors may even use furigana that means the opposite of what the base text does to reinforce the complicated relationship between characters. For example, 親友 shin'yū "close friend" may be annotated with ライバル raibaru "rival", to mean "a rival who is also friend".
Another use is to indicate the meanings of ambiguous or foreign words. For example, the word ここ (koko, "here") may be annotated with a more specific description like 病院 byōin "hospital" (i.e. 病院) to mean "here (at this hospital)". Or in a work of science fiction, an astronaut may use the word ふるさと furusato "my hometown", when referring to planet Earth; to clarify that for the reader, ふるさと may be written over the word 地球 chikyū "Earth". A similar technique is used in Japanese subtitles on foreign films to associate the written Japanese with the sounds actually being spoken by the actors, or in a translation of a work of fiction to preserve the original sound of a proper name in furigana while indicating its meaning with kanji. For example, "Firebolt" in the Harry Potter series is written 炎の雷, composed of the kanji 炎の雷 honō no ikazuchi "flame thunderbolt" and the furigana ファイアボルト faiaboruto.
Some manga combine the rendition of a foreign word (especially an obscure one) in furigana as the intended reading of a term, with more familiar kanji as the meaning. For example, 駅 eki "station" may be annotated with ステーション sutēshon (the rendition of the English "station") to convey a foreign, exotic feel; This is sometimes done conversely, for example, by annotating an exotic term like ベーゼ bēze "kiss" with a more common synonym like キッス kissu.
Some writers use furigana to represent slang pronunciations, particularly those that would be difficult to understand without the kanji to provide their meaning. Others use it simply to shrink kana spellings that are too long, thanks to the small type of furigana. For example, インターポール intāpōru "Interpol" may be shortened to ICPO.
In karaoke it is common for furigana to be placed on the song lyrics. The song lyrics are often written in kanji pronounced quite differently from the furigana. The furigana version is used for pronunciation.
Okurigana are kana that appear inline at normal size following kanji stems, typically to complete and to inflect adjectives and verbs. In this use they may also help to disambiguate kanji with multiple readings; for example, 上がる (あがる, agaru) vs. 上る (のぼる, noboru). Unlike furigana, the use of okurigana is a mandatory part of the written language.
In the written style known as kanbun, which is the Japanese approximation of Classical Chinese, small marks called kunten are sometimes added as reading aids. Unlike furigana, which indicate pronunciation, kunten indicate Japanese grammatical structures absent from the kanbun, and also show how words should be reordered to fit Japanese sentence structure.
Furigana are sometimes also used to indicate meaning, rather than pronunciation. Over the foreign text, smaller-sized Japanese words, in kana or kanji, corresponding to the meaning of the foreign words, effectively translate it in place. While rare now, some late 19th–early 20th century authors used kanji as furigana for loanwords written in katakana. This usage is called furikanji (振り漢字) in Japanese, since furigana implies the use of kana. For example, リリック ririkku "lyric" may be tagged with 歌詞 kashi "lyrics" for clarification rather than for phonetic guidance.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Furigana (振り仮名, Japanese pronunciation: [ɸɯɾigaꜜna] or [ɸɯɾigana]) is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana (syllabic characters) printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also known as yomigana (読み仮名) and rubi (ルビ, [ɾɯꜜbi]) in Japanese. In modern Japanese, it is usually used to gloss rare kanji, to clarify rare, nonstandard or ambiguous kanji readings, or in children's or learners' materials. Before the post-World War II script reforms, it was more widespread.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Furigana is most often written in hiragana, though in certain cases it may be written in katakana, Roman alphabet letters or in other, simpler kanji. In vertical text, tategaki, the furigana is placed to the right of the line of text; in horizontal text, yokogaki, it is placed above the line of text, as illustrated below.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "These examples spell the word kanji, which is made up of two kanji characters: 漢 (kan, written in hiragana as かん) and 字 (ji, written in hiragana as じ).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Furigana may be added by character, in which case the furigana character(s) that correspond to a kanji are centered over that kanji; or by word or phrase, in which case the entire furigana text is centered over several kanji characters, even if the kanji do not represent equal shares of the kana needed to write them. The latter method is more common, especially since some words in Japanese have unique pronunciations (jukujikun) that are not related to readings of any of the characters the word is written with.",
"title": "Appearance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Furigana fonts are generally sized so that two kana characters fit naturally over one kanji; when more kana are required, this is resolved either by adjusting the furigana by using a condensed font (narrowing the kana), or by adjusting the kanji by intercharacter spacing (adding spaces around the kanji). In case an isolated kanji character has a long reading—for example 〜に携わる (where 携 reads たずさ, tazusa)—the furigana may instead spill over into the space next to the neighboring kana characters, without condensing or changing spacing. Three-kana readings are not uncommon, particularly due to yōon with a long vowel, such as ryō (りょう); five kana are required for kokorozashi (志、こころざし) and six for uketamawaru (承る、うけたまわる), the longest of any character in the Joyo kanji. Very long readings also occur for certain kanji or symbols which have a gairaigo (loan word) reading; the word \"centimeter\" is generally written as \"cm\" (with two half-width characters, so occupying one space) and has the seven-kana reading センチメートル (senchimētoru) (it can also be written as the kanji 糎, though this is very rare); another common example is \"%\" (the percent sign), which has the five kana reading パーセント (pāsento). These cause severe spacing problems due to length and these words being used as units (hence closely associated with the preceding figure).",
"title": "Appearance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "When it is necessary to distinguish between native Japanese kun'yomi pronunciations and Chinese-derived on'yomi pronunciations, for example in kanji dictionaries, the kun'yomi pronunciations are written in hiragana, and the on'yomi pronunciations are written in katakana. However, this distinction is really only important in dictionaries and other reference works. In ordinary prose, the script chosen will usually be hiragana. The one general exception to this is modern Chinese place names, personal names, and (occasionally) food names—these will often be written with kanji, and katakana used for the furigana; in more casual writing these are simply written in katakana, as borrowed words. Occasionally this style is also used for loanwords from other languages (especially English). For example, the kanji 一角獣 (literally \"one horn beast\") might be glossed with katakana ユニコーン, yunikōn, to show the pronunciation of the loanword \"unicorn\", which is unrelated to the normal reading of the kanji. Generally, though, such loanwords are just written in straight katakana.",
"title": "Appearance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The distinction between regular kana and the smaller character forms (yōon and sokuon), which are used in regular orthography to mark such things as gemination and palatalization, is often not made in furigana: for example, the usual hiragana spelling of the word 却下 (kyakka) is きゃっか, but in furigana it might be written きやつか. This was especially common in old-fashioned movable type printing when smaller fonts were not available. Nowadays, with computer-based printing systems, this occurs less frequently.",
"title": "Appearance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Various word processing or typesetting software programs, such as Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign, Adobe InCopy, etc. have features for adding ruby text, especially Japanese furigana. Among formatting features are different rules for aligning the kana over or to the right of the base text, usually either when the base text string is longer than the furigana string or vice versa. Extra spaces may be needed depending on the size of the shorter string (either the ruby string or the base string) relatively to the longer one.",
"title": "Alignment rules in word processing or typesetting"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Furigana are most commonly used in works for children, who may not have sufficiently advanced reading skills to recognize the kanji, but can understand the word when written phonetically in hiragana. Because children learn hiragana before katakana, in books for very young children, there are hiragana－furigana next to the katakana characters. It is common to use furigana on all kanji characters in works for young children. This is called sōrubi (総ルビ) in Japanese.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Numeric characters used for counting (e.g. 二本/２本 ni-hon \"two long things\"; ２つめ futatsume \"second\"; 第二巻/第２巻 dai-ni kan \"book 2\"; ２ページ ni-pēji \"page 2\"; etc.) are usually not tagged with furigana. Exceptions include a few cases such as 一人/１人 hitori \"one person\" and 二人/２人 futari \"two people\", which may be tagged with separate kana for each character (一人/１人), or non-separated kana for the whole word (一人/１人), depending on the style of the publisher in question; or characters for numerals greater than 1,000 (千), such as 万 (10,000), 億 (100,000,000), etc. Numeric words in established compounds (e.g. 一歩 ippo \"step\"; 一目 hitome \"sight; attention\"), however, are generally tagged with furigana.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Many children's manga, shōnen and shōjo manga use furigana (again however, rarely on numerals). Shōnen and shōjo manga tend to have furigana for all non-numeric characters, while some manga (such as early volumes of Doraemon and other manga published by Shogakukan), may also ignore furigana on elementary-grade kanji or easy words. Seinen and josei manga ignores furigana most of the time, even on the names of the characters if they're common names, although some publishers may still routinely use furigana for the first mentions of important characters' names in a volume or chapter. There are also books with a phonetic guide (mainly in hiragana but sometimes in rōmaji) for Japanese learners, which may be bilingual or Japanese only. These are popular with foreigners wishing to master Japanese faster and enjoy reading Japanese short stories, novels or articles.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Due to the small type used for furigana, for maximum readability, some manga publishers may use regular kana instead of small kana. For example, はっしん hasshin may be spelled はつしん *hatsushin instead.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Some websites and tools exist which provide a phonetic guide for Japanese web pages (in hiragana, rōmaji or kiriru-moji); these are popular with both Japanese children and foreign Japanese learners.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In works aimed at adult Japanese speakers, furigana may be used on a word written in uncommon kanji; in the mass media, they are generally used on words containing non-Jōyō kanji.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Furigana commonly appear alongside kanji names and their romanizations on signs for railway stations, even if the pronunciation of the kanji is commonly known. Furigana also appear often on maps to show the pronunciation of unusual place names.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Before the war, youths might arguably have been almost illiterate if not for furigana.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Japanese names are usually written in kanji. Because there are many possible readings for kanji names, including special name-only readings called nanori, furigana are often used to give the readings of names. On Japanese official forms, where the name is to be written, there is always an adjacent column for the name to be written in furigana.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Furigana may also be used for foreign names written in kanji. Chinese and Korean names are the most common examples: Chinese names are usually pronounced with Japanese readings and the pronunciation written in hiragana, while Korean names are usually pronounced with Korean readings and the pronunciation written in katakana.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Kanji and kanji compounds are often presented with furigana in Japanese-language textbooks for non-native speakers.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Furigana are also often used in foreign-language textbooks for Japanese learners to indicate pronunciation. The words are written in the original foreign script, such as hangul for Korean, and furigana is used to indicate the pronunciation. According to Ministry of Education guidelines, and the opinions of educators, the use of Japanese furigana should be avoided in English teaching due to the differences in pronunciation between English and Japanese. For instance, the word \"birthdate\" might be glossed in furigana as バースデイト (bāsudeito), which corresponds to an imperfect pronunciation.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Furigana unrelated to the kanji they are assigned to are often used to convey certain effects, rather than to denote a phonetic guide, especially in manga, anime, video games, and tabletop games. This usage is known as 義訓 gikun (see also Kanji#Special readings). The specific effects vary.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "It may be used to visually reinforce complex ideas without having to use long expressions. For example, the word 悪夢 akumu \"nightmare\" may be annotated with しんじつ shinjitsu \"truth\" (i.e. 悪夢) rather than its true reading, to convey the meaning of \"nightmarish truth\". Some authors may even use furigana that means the opposite of what the base text does to reinforce the complicated relationship between characters. For example, 親友 shin'yū \"close friend\" may be annotated with ライバル raibaru \"rival\", to mean \"a rival who is also friend\".",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Another use is to indicate the meanings of ambiguous or foreign words. For example, the word ここ (koko, \"here\") may be annotated with a more specific description like 病院 byōin \"hospital\" (i.e. 病院) to mean \"here (at this hospital)\". Or in a work of science fiction, an astronaut may use the word ふるさと furusato \"my hometown\", when referring to planet Earth; to clarify that for the reader, ふるさと may be written over the word 地球 chikyū \"Earth\". A similar technique is used in Japanese subtitles on foreign films to associate the written Japanese with the sounds actually being spoken by the actors, or in a translation of a work of fiction to preserve the original sound of a proper name in furigana while indicating its meaning with kanji. For example, \"Firebolt\" in the Harry Potter series is written 炎の雷, composed of the kanji 炎の雷 honō no ikazuchi \"flame thunderbolt\" and the furigana ファイアボルト faiaboruto.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Some manga combine the rendition of a foreign word (especially an obscure one) in furigana as the intended reading of a term, with more familiar kanji as the meaning. For example, 駅 eki \"station\" may be annotated with ステーション sutēshon (the rendition of the English \"station\") to convey a foreign, exotic feel; This is sometimes done conversely, for example, by annotating an exotic term like ベーゼ bēze \"kiss\" with a more common synonym like キッス kissu.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Some writers use furigana to represent slang pronunciations, particularly those that would be difficult to understand without the kanji to provide their meaning. Others use it simply to shrink kana spellings that are too long, thanks to the small type of furigana. For example, インターポール intāpōru \"Interpol\" may be shortened to ICPO.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In karaoke it is common for furigana to be placed on the song lyrics. The song lyrics are often written in kanji pronounced quite differently from the furigana. The furigana version is used for pronunciation.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Okurigana are kana that appear inline at normal size following kanji stems, typically to complete and to inflect adjectives and verbs. In this use they may also help to disambiguate kanji with multiple readings; for example, 上がる (あがる, agaru) vs. 上る (のぼる, noboru). Unlike furigana, the use of okurigana is a mandatory part of the written language.",
"title": "Other Japanese reading aids"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In the written style known as kanbun, which is the Japanese approximation of Classical Chinese, small marks called kunten are sometimes added as reading aids. Unlike furigana, which indicate pronunciation, kunten indicate Japanese grammatical structures absent from the kanbun, and also show how words should be reordered to fit Japanese sentence structure.",
"title": "Other Japanese reading aids"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Furigana are sometimes also used to indicate meaning, rather than pronunciation. Over the foreign text, smaller-sized Japanese words, in kana or kanji, corresponding to the meaning of the foreign words, effectively translate it in place. While rare now, some late 19th–early 20th century authors used kanji as furigana for loanwords written in katakana. This usage is called furikanji (振り漢字) in Japanese, since furigana implies the use of kana. For example, リリック ririkku \"lyric\" may be tagged with 歌詞 kashi \"lyrics\" for clarification rather than for phonetic guidance.",
"title": "Other Japanese reading aids"
}
] |
is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana printed either above or next to kanji or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also known as yomigana (読み仮名) and in Japanese. In modern Japanese, it is usually used to gloss rare kanji, to clarify rare, nonstandard or ambiguous kanji readings, or in children's or learners' materials. Before the post-World War II script reforms, it was more widespread. Furigana is most often written in hiragana, though in certain cases it may be written in katakana, Roman alphabet letters or in other, simpler kanji. In vertical text, tategaki, the furigana is placed to the right of the line of text; in horizontal text, yokogaki, it is placed above the line of text, as illustrated below. These examples spell the word kanji, which is made up of two kanji characters: 漢 and 字.
|
2002-02-25T15:43:11Z
|
2023-07-28T08:07:00Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furigana
|
11,551 |
Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor
|
Francis II and I (German: Franz II.; 12 February 1768 – 2 March 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor as Francis II from 1792 to 1806, and the first Emperor of Austria as Francis I from 1804 to 1835. He was also King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815.
The eldest son of future Emperor Leopold II and Maria Luisa of Spain, Francis was born in Florence, where his father ruled as Grand Duke of Tuscany. Leopold became Holy Roman Emperor in 1790 but died two years later, and Francis succeeded him. His empire immediately became embroiled in the French Revolutionary Wars, the first of which ended in Austrian defeat and the loss of the left bank of Rhine to France. After another French victory in the War of the Second Coalition, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French. In response, Francis assumed the title of Emperor of Austria. He continued his leading role as Napoleon's adversary in the Napoleonic Wars, and suffered successive defeats that greatly weakened Austria as a European power. In 1806, after Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine, Francis abdicated as Holy Roman Emperor, which in effect marked the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Following the defeat of the Fifth Coalition, Francis ceded more territory to France and was forced to wed his daughter Marie Louise to Napoleon.
In 1813, Francis turned against Napoleon and finally defeated him in the War of the Sixth Coalition, forcing the French emperor to abdicate. Austria took part as a leading member of the Holy Alliance at the Congress of Vienna, which was largely dominated by Francis' chancellor Klemens von Metternich, culminating in a new European order and the restoration of most of Francis' ancient dominions. Due to the establishment of the Concert of Europe, which resisted popular nationalist and liberal tendencies, Francis was viewed as a reactionary later in his reign. Francis died in 1835 at the age of 67 and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand I.
Francis was a son of Emperor Leopold II (1747–1792) and his wife Maria Luisa of Spain (1745–1792), daughter of Charles III of Spain. Francis was born in Florence, the capital of Tuscany, where his father reigned as Grand Duke from 1765 to 1790. Though he had a happy childhood surrounded by his many siblings, his family knew Francis was likely to be a future Emperor (his uncle Joseph had no surviving issue from either of his two marriages), and so in 1784 the young Archduke was sent to the Imperial Court in Vienna to educate and prepare him for his future role.
Emperor Joseph II himself took charge of Francis' development. His disciplinarian regime was a stark contrast to the indulgent Florentine Court of Leopold. The Emperor wrote that Francis was "stunted in growth", "backward in bodily dexterity and deportment", and "neither more nor less than a spoiled mother's child." Joseph concluded that "the manner in which he was treated for upwards of sixteen years could not but have confirmed him in the delusion that the preservation of his own person was the only thing of importance."
Joseph's martinet method of improving the young Francis was "fear and unpleasantness." The young Archduke was isolated, the reasoning being that this would make him more self-sufficient as it was felt by Joseph that Francis "failed to lead himself, to do his own thinking." Nonetheless, Francis greatly admired his uncle, if rather feared him. To complete his training, Francis was sent to join an army regiment in Hungary and he settled easily into the routine of military life. He was present at the siege of Belgrade which occurred during the Austro-Turkish War.
After the death of Joseph II in 1790, Francis' father became Emperor. He had an early taste of power while acting as Leopold's deputy in Vienna while the incoming Emperor traversed the Empire attempting to win back those alienated by his brother's policies. The strain took a toll on Leopold and by the winter of 1791, he became ill. He gradually worsened throughout early 1792; on the afternoon of 1 March Leopold died, at the relatively young age of 44. Francis, just past his 24th birthday, was now Emperor, much sooner than he had expected.
As the head of the Holy Roman Empire and the ruler of the vast multi-ethnic Habsburg hereditary lands, Francis felt threatened by the French revolutionaries and later Napoleon's expansionism as well as their social and political reforms which were being exported throughout Europe in the wake of the conquering French armies. Francis had a fraught relationship with France. His aunt Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI and Queen consort of France, was guillotined by the revolutionaries in 1793, at the beginning of his reign, although, on the whole, he was indifferent to her fate.
Later, he led the Holy Roman Empire into the French Revolutionary Wars. He briefly commanded the Allied forces during the Flanders Campaign of 1794 before handing over command to his brother Archduke Charles. He was later defeated by Napoleon. By the Treaty of Campo Formio, he ceded the left bank of the Rhine to France in exchange for Venice and Dalmatia. He again fought against France during the War of the Second Coalition.
On 11 August 1804, in response to Napoleon crowning himself as emperor of the French earlier that year, he announced that he would henceforth assume the title of hereditary emperor of Austria as Francis I, a move that technically was illegal in terms of imperial law. Yet Napoleon had agreed beforehand and therefore it happened.
During the War of the Third Coalition, the Austrian forces met a crushing defeat at Austerlitz, and Francis had to agree to the Treaty of Pressburg, which greatly weakened Austria and brought about the final collapse of the Holy Roman Empire. In July 1806, under massive pressure from France, Bavaria and fifteen other German states ratified the statutes founding the Confederation of the Rhine, with Napoleon designated Protector, and they announced to the Imperial Diet their intention to leave the Empire with immediate effect. Then, on 22 July, Napoleon issued an ultimatum to Francis demanding that he abdicate as Holy Roman Emperor by 10 August. Five days later, Francis bowed to the inevitable and, without mentioning the ultimatum, affirmed that since the Peace of Pressburg he had tried his best to fulfil his duties as emperor but that circumstances had convinced him that he could no longer rule according to his oath of office, the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine making that impossible. He added that "we hereby decree that we regard the bond which until now tied us to the states of the Empire as dissolved" in effect dissolving the empire. At the same time he declared the complete and formal withdrawal of his hereditary lands from imperial jurisdiction. After that date, he reigned as Francis I, Emperor of Austria.
In 1809, Francis attacked France again, hoping to take advantage of the Peninsular War embroiling Napoleon in Spain. He was again defeated, and this time forced to ally himself with Napoleon, ceding territory to the Empire, joining the Continental System, and wedding his daughter Marie-Louise to the Emperor. The Napoleonic wars drastically weakened Austria, making it entirely landlocked and threatened its preeminence among the states of Germany, a position that it would eventually cede to the Kingdom of Prussia.
In 1813, for the fifth and final time, Austria turned against France and joined Great Britain, Russia, Prussia and Sweden in their war against Napoleon. Austria played a major role in the final defeat of France—in recognition of this, Francis, represented by Clemens von Metternich, presided over the Congress of Vienna, helping to form the Concert of Europe and the Holy Alliance, ushering in an era of conservatism in Europe. The German Confederation, a loose association of Central European states was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to organize the surviving states of the Holy Roman Empire. The Congress was a personal triumph for Francis, who hosted the assorted dignitaries in comfort, though Francis undermined his allies Tsar Alexander and Frederick William III of Prussia by negotiating a secret treaty with the restored French king Louis XVIII.
The violent events of the French Revolution impressed themselves deeply into the mind of Francis (as well as all other European monarchs), and he came to distrust radicalism in any form. In 1794, a "Jacobin" conspiracy was discovered in the Austrian and Hungarian armies. The leaders were put on trial, but the verdicts only skirted the perimeter of the conspiracy. Francis' brother Alexander Leopold (at that time Palatine of Hungary) wrote to the Emperor admitting "Although we have caught a lot of the culprits, we have not really got to the bottom of this business yet." Nonetheless, two officers heavily implicated in the conspiracy were hanged and gibbeted, while numerous others were sentenced to imprisonment (many of whom died from the conditions)
Francis was from his experiences suspicious and set up an extensive network of police spies and censors to monitor dissent (in this he was following his father's lead, as the Grand Duchy of Tuscany had the most effective secret police in Europe). Even his family did not escape attention. His brothers, the Archdukes Charles and Johann had their meetings and activities spied upon. Censorship was also prevalent. The author Franz Grillparzer, a Habsburg patriot, had one play suppressed solely as a "precautionary" measure. When Grillparzer met the censor responsible, he asked him what was objectionable about the work. The censor replied, "Oh, nothing at all. But I thought to myself, 'One can never tell'."
In military affairs Francis had allowed his brother, the Archduke Charles, extensive control over the army during the Napoleonic wars. Yet, distrustful of allowing any individual too much power, he otherwise maintained the separation of command functions between the Hofkriegsrat and his field commanders. In the later years of his reign he limited military spending, requiring it not exceed forty million florins per year; because of inflation this resulted in inadequate funding, with the army's share of the budget shrinking from half in 1817 to only twenty-three percent in 1830.
Francis presented himself as an open and approachable monarch (he regularly set aside two mornings each week to meet with his imperial subjects, regardless of status, by appointment in his office, even speaking to them in their own language), but his will was sovereign. In 1804, he had no compunction about announcing that through his authority as Holy Roman Emperor, he declared he was now Emperor of Austria (at the time a geographical term that had little resonance). Two years later, Francis personally wound up the moribund Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Both actions were of dubious constitutional legality.
To increase patriotic sentiment during the war with France, the anthem "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" was composed in 1797 to be sung as the Kaiserhymne to music by Joseph Haydn. The lyrics were adapted for later Emperors and the music lives on as the German national anthem "Deutschlandlied".
On 2 March 1835, 43 years and a day after his father's death, Francis died in Vienna of a sudden fever aged 67, in the presence of many of his family and with all the religious comforts. His funeral was magnificent, with his Viennese subjects respectfully filing past his coffin in the court chapel of the Hofburg palace for three days. Francis was interred in the traditional resting place of Habsburg monarchs, the Imperial Crypt in Vienna's Neue Markt Square. He is buried in tomb number 57, surrounded by tombs of his four wives.
Francis passed on a main point in the political testament he left for his son and heir Ferdinand: to "preserve unity in the family and regard it as one of the highest goods." In many portraits (particularly those painted by Peter Fendi) he was portrayed as the patriarch of a loving family, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
Francis II married four times:
From his first wife Elisabeth of Württemberg, one daughter, and his second wife Maria Teresa of the Two Sicilies, eight daughters and four sons:
From 1806 he used the titles: "We, Francis the First, by the Grace of God Emperor of Austria; King of Jerusalem, Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia and Lodomeria; Archduke of Austria; Duke of Lorraine, Salzburg, Würzburg, Franconia, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola; Grand Duke of Cracow; Grand Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Sandomir, Masovia, Lublin, Upper and Lower Silesia, Auschwitz and Zator, Teschen and Friule; Prince of Berchtesgaden and Mergentheim; Princely Count of Habsburg, Gorizia and Gradisca and of the Tirol; and Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria".
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Francis II and I (German: Franz II.; 12 February 1768 – 2 March 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor as Francis II from 1792 to 1806, and the first Emperor of Austria as Francis I from 1804 to 1835. He was also King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The eldest son of future Emperor Leopold II and Maria Luisa of Spain, Francis was born in Florence, where his father ruled as Grand Duke of Tuscany. Leopold became Holy Roman Emperor in 1790 but died two years later, and Francis succeeded him. His empire immediately became embroiled in the French Revolutionary Wars, the first of which ended in Austrian defeat and the loss of the left bank of Rhine to France. After another French victory in the War of the Second Coalition, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French. In response, Francis assumed the title of Emperor of Austria. He continued his leading role as Napoleon's adversary in the Napoleonic Wars, and suffered successive defeats that greatly weakened Austria as a European power. In 1806, after Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine, Francis abdicated as Holy Roman Emperor, which in effect marked the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Following the defeat of the Fifth Coalition, Francis ceded more territory to France and was forced to wed his daughter Marie Louise to Napoleon.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In 1813, Francis turned against Napoleon and finally defeated him in the War of the Sixth Coalition, forcing the French emperor to abdicate. Austria took part as a leading member of the Holy Alliance at the Congress of Vienna, which was largely dominated by Francis' chancellor Klemens von Metternich, culminating in a new European order and the restoration of most of Francis' ancient dominions. Due to the establishment of the Concert of Europe, which resisted popular nationalist and liberal tendencies, Francis was viewed as a reactionary later in his reign. Francis died in 1835 at the age of 67 and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand I.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Francis was a son of Emperor Leopold II (1747–1792) and his wife Maria Luisa of Spain (1745–1792), daughter of Charles III of Spain. Francis was born in Florence, the capital of Tuscany, where his father reigned as Grand Duke from 1765 to 1790. Though he had a happy childhood surrounded by his many siblings, his family knew Francis was likely to be a future Emperor (his uncle Joseph had no surviving issue from either of his two marriages), and so in 1784 the young Archduke was sent to the Imperial Court in Vienna to educate and prepare him for his future role.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Emperor Joseph II himself took charge of Francis' development. His disciplinarian regime was a stark contrast to the indulgent Florentine Court of Leopold. The Emperor wrote that Francis was \"stunted in growth\", \"backward in bodily dexterity and deportment\", and \"neither more nor less than a spoiled mother's child.\" Joseph concluded that \"the manner in which he was treated for upwards of sixteen years could not but have confirmed him in the delusion that the preservation of his own person was the only thing of importance.\"",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Joseph's martinet method of improving the young Francis was \"fear and unpleasantness.\" The young Archduke was isolated, the reasoning being that this would make him more self-sufficient as it was felt by Joseph that Francis \"failed to lead himself, to do his own thinking.\" Nonetheless, Francis greatly admired his uncle, if rather feared him. To complete his training, Francis was sent to join an army regiment in Hungary and he settled easily into the routine of military life. He was present at the siege of Belgrade which occurred during the Austro-Turkish War.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "After the death of Joseph II in 1790, Francis' father became Emperor. He had an early taste of power while acting as Leopold's deputy in Vienna while the incoming Emperor traversed the Empire attempting to win back those alienated by his brother's policies. The strain took a toll on Leopold and by the winter of 1791, he became ill. He gradually worsened throughout early 1792; on the afternoon of 1 March Leopold died, at the relatively young age of 44. Francis, just past his 24th birthday, was now Emperor, much sooner than he had expected.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "As the head of the Holy Roman Empire and the ruler of the vast multi-ethnic Habsburg hereditary lands, Francis felt threatened by the French revolutionaries and later Napoleon's expansionism as well as their social and political reforms which were being exported throughout Europe in the wake of the conquering French armies. Francis had a fraught relationship with France. His aunt Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI and Queen consort of France, was guillotined by the revolutionaries in 1793, at the beginning of his reign, although, on the whole, he was indifferent to her fate.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Later, he led the Holy Roman Empire into the French Revolutionary Wars. He briefly commanded the Allied forces during the Flanders Campaign of 1794 before handing over command to his brother Archduke Charles. He was later defeated by Napoleon. By the Treaty of Campo Formio, he ceded the left bank of the Rhine to France in exchange for Venice and Dalmatia. He again fought against France during the War of the Second Coalition.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "On 11 August 1804, in response to Napoleon crowning himself as emperor of the French earlier that year, he announced that he would henceforth assume the title of hereditary emperor of Austria as Francis I, a move that technically was illegal in terms of imperial law. Yet Napoleon had agreed beforehand and therefore it happened.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "During the War of the Third Coalition, the Austrian forces met a crushing defeat at Austerlitz, and Francis had to agree to the Treaty of Pressburg, which greatly weakened Austria and brought about the final collapse of the Holy Roman Empire. In July 1806, under massive pressure from France, Bavaria and fifteen other German states ratified the statutes founding the Confederation of the Rhine, with Napoleon designated Protector, and they announced to the Imperial Diet their intention to leave the Empire with immediate effect. Then, on 22 July, Napoleon issued an ultimatum to Francis demanding that he abdicate as Holy Roman Emperor by 10 August. Five days later, Francis bowed to the inevitable and, without mentioning the ultimatum, affirmed that since the Peace of Pressburg he had tried his best to fulfil his duties as emperor but that circumstances had convinced him that he could no longer rule according to his oath of office, the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine making that impossible. He added that \"we hereby decree that we regard the bond which until now tied us to the states of the Empire as dissolved\" in effect dissolving the empire. At the same time he declared the complete and formal withdrawal of his hereditary lands from imperial jurisdiction. After that date, he reigned as Francis I, Emperor of Austria.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1809, Francis attacked France again, hoping to take advantage of the Peninsular War embroiling Napoleon in Spain. He was again defeated, and this time forced to ally himself with Napoleon, ceding territory to the Empire, joining the Continental System, and wedding his daughter Marie-Louise to the Emperor. The Napoleonic wars drastically weakened Austria, making it entirely landlocked and threatened its preeminence among the states of Germany, a position that it would eventually cede to the Kingdom of Prussia.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In 1813, for the fifth and final time, Austria turned against France and joined Great Britain, Russia, Prussia and Sweden in their war against Napoleon. Austria played a major role in the final defeat of France—in recognition of this, Francis, represented by Clemens von Metternich, presided over the Congress of Vienna, helping to form the Concert of Europe and the Holy Alliance, ushering in an era of conservatism in Europe. The German Confederation, a loose association of Central European states was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to organize the surviving states of the Holy Roman Empire. The Congress was a personal triumph for Francis, who hosted the assorted dignitaries in comfort, though Francis undermined his allies Tsar Alexander and Frederick William III of Prussia by negotiating a secret treaty with the restored French king Louis XVIII.",
"title": "Emperor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The violent events of the French Revolution impressed themselves deeply into the mind of Francis (as well as all other European monarchs), and he came to distrust radicalism in any form. In 1794, a \"Jacobin\" conspiracy was discovered in the Austrian and Hungarian armies. The leaders were put on trial, but the verdicts only skirted the perimeter of the conspiracy. Francis' brother Alexander Leopold (at that time Palatine of Hungary) wrote to the Emperor admitting \"Although we have caught a lot of the culprits, we have not really got to the bottom of this business yet.\" Nonetheless, two officers heavily implicated in the conspiracy were hanged and gibbeted, while numerous others were sentenced to imprisonment (many of whom died from the conditions)",
"title": "Domestic policy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Francis was from his experiences suspicious and set up an extensive network of police spies and censors to monitor dissent (in this he was following his father's lead, as the Grand Duchy of Tuscany had the most effective secret police in Europe). Even his family did not escape attention. His brothers, the Archdukes Charles and Johann had their meetings and activities spied upon. Censorship was also prevalent. The author Franz Grillparzer, a Habsburg patriot, had one play suppressed solely as a \"precautionary\" measure. When Grillparzer met the censor responsible, he asked him what was objectionable about the work. The censor replied, \"Oh, nothing at all. But I thought to myself, 'One can never tell'.\"",
"title": "Domestic policy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In military affairs Francis had allowed his brother, the Archduke Charles, extensive control over the army during the Napoleonic wars. Yet, distrustful of allowing any individual too much power, he otherwise maintained the separation of command functions between the Hofkriegsrat and his field commanders. In the later years of his reign he limited military spending, requiring it not exceed forty million florins per year; because of inflation this resulted in inadequate funding, with the army's share of the budget shrinking from half in 1817 to only twenty-three percent in 1830.",
"title": "Domestic policy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Francis presented himself as an open and approachable monarch (he regularly set aside two mornings each week to meet with his imperial subjects, regardless of status, by appointment in his office, even speaking to them in their own language), but his will was sovereign. In 1804, he had no compunction about announcing that through his authority as Holy Roman Emperor, he declared he was now Emperor of Austria (at the time a geographical term that had little resonance). Two years later, Francis personally wound up the moribund Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Both actions were of dubious constitutional legality.",
"title": "Domestic policy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "To increase patriotic sentiment during the war with France, the anthem \"Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser\" was composed in 1797 to be sung as the Kaiserhymne to music by Joseph Haydn. The lyrics were adapted for later Emperors and the music lives on as the German national anthem \"Deutschlandlied\".",
"title": "Domestic policy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "On 2 March 1835, 43 years and a day after his father's death, Francis died in Vienna of a sudden fever aged 67, in the presence of many of his family and with all the religious comforts. His funeral was magnificent, with his Viennese subjects respectfully filing past his coffin in the court chapel of the Hofburg palace for three days. Francis was interred in the traditional resting place of Habsburg monarchs, the Imperial Crypt in Vienna's Neue Markt Square. He is buried in tomb number 57, surrounded by tombs of his four wives.",
"title": "Later years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Francis passed on a main point in the political testament he left for his son and heir Ferdinand: to \"preserve unity in the family and regard it as one of the highest goods.\" In many portraits (particularly those painted by Peter Fendi) he was portrayed as the patriarch of a loving family, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.",
"title": "Later years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Francis II married four times:",
"title": "Marriages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "From his first wife Elisabeth of Württemberg, one daughter, and his second wife Maria Teresa of the Two Sicilies, eight daughters and four sons:",
"title": "Children"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "From 1806 he used the titles: \"We, Francis the First, by the Grace of God Emperor of Austria; King of Jerusalem, Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia and Lodomeria; Archduke of Austria; Duke of Lorraine, Salzburg, Würzburg, Franconia, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola; Grand Duke of Cracow; Grand Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Sandomir, Masovia, Lublin, Upper and Lower Silesia, Auschwitz and Zator, Teschen and Friule; Prince of Berchtesgaden and Mergentheim; Princely Count of Habsburg, Gorizia and Gradisca and of the Tirol; and Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria\".",
"title": "Titles, honours and heraldry"
}
] |
Francis II and I was the last Holy Roman Emperor as Francis II from 1792 to 1806, and the first Emperor of Austria as Francis I from 1804 to 1835. He was also King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815. The eldest son of future Emperor Leopold II and Maria Luisa of Spain, Francis was born in Florence, where his father ruled as Grand Duke of Tuscany. Leopold became Holy Roman Emperor in 1790 but died two years later, and Francis succeeded him. His empire immediately became embroiled in the French Revolutionary Wars, the first of which ended in Austrian defeat and the loss of the left bank of Rhine to France. After another French victory in the War of the Second Coalition, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French. In response, Francis assumed the title of Emperor of Austria. He continued his leading role as Napoleon's adversary in the Napoleonic Wars, and suffered successive defeats that greatly weakened Austria as a European power. In 1806, after Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine, Francis abdicated as Holy Roman Emperor, which in effect marked the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Following the defeat of the Fifth Coalition, Francis ceded more territory to France and was forced to wed his daughter Marie Louise to Napoleon. In 1813, Francis turned against Napoleon and finally defeated him in the War of the Sixth Coalition, forcing the French emperor to abdicate. Austria took part as a leading member of the Holy Alliance at the Congress of Vienna, which was largely dominated by Francis' chancellor Klemens von Metternich, culminating in a new European order and the restoration of most of Francis' ancient dominions. Due to the establishment of the Concert of Europe, which resisted popular nationalist and liberal tendencies, Francis was viewed as a reactionary later in his reign. Francis died in 1835 at the age of 67 and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand I.
|
2002-02-25T15:51:15Z
|
2023-12-25T03:09:12Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
|
11,552 |
Frederick Abel
|
Sir Frederick Augustus Abel, 1st Baronet GCVO KCB FRS (17 July 1827 – 6 September 1902) was an English chemist who was recognised as the leading British authority on explosives. He is best known for the invention of cordite as a replacement for gunpowder in firearms.
Born in London as son of Johann Leopold Abel, Abel studied chemistry at the Royal Polytechnic Institution and in 1845 became one of the original 26 students of A. W. von Hofmann at the Royal College of Chemistry (now a constituent of Imperial College London). In 1852 he was appointed lecturer in chemistry at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, succeeding Michael Faraday, who had held that post since 1829.
From 1854 until 1888 Abel served as ordnance chemist at the Chemical Establishment of the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, establishing himself as the leading British authority on explosives. Three years later was appointed chemist to the War Department and chemical referee to the government. During his tenure of this office, which lasted until 1888, he carried out a large amount of work in connection with the chemistry of explosives.
One of the most important of his investigations had to do with the manufacture of guncotton, and he developed a process, consisting essentially of reducing the nitrated cotton to fine pulp, which enabled it to be safely manufactured and at the same time yielded the product in a form that increased its usefulness. This work to an important extent prepared the way for the "smokeless powders" which came into general use towards the end of the 19th century; cordite, the type adopted by the British government in 1891, was invented jointly by him and Sir James Dewar. He and Dewar were unsuccessfully sued by Alfred Nobel over infringement of Nobel's patent for a similar explosive called ballistite, the case finally being resolved in the House of Lords in 1895. He also extensively researched the behaviour of black powder when ignited, with the Scottish physicist Sir Andrew Noble. At the request of the British government, he devised the Abel test, a means of determining the flash point of petroleum products. His first instrument, the open-test apparatus, was specified in an Act of Parliament in 1868 for officially specifying petroleum products. It was superseded in August 1879 by the much more reliable Abel close-test instrument. Under his leadership, first, guncotton was developed at Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills, patented in 1865, then, the propellant cordite, patented in 1889. In electricity, Abel studied the construction of electrical fuses and other applications of electricity to warlike purposes.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1860 and received their Royal Medal in 1887. He was president of the Chemical Society (1875–77), of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (then the Society of Telegraph Engineers) (1877), of the Institute of Chemistry (1881–82) and of the Society of Chemical Industry (1882–83). He was also president of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1891 and was awarded the Bessemer Gold Medal in 1897 for his work on problems of steel manufacture. He was awarded the Telford Medal by the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1879.
He was made a Commander of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1877. and knighted on 20 April 1883 He took an important part in the work of the Inventions Exhibition (London) in 1885, and in 1887 became organizing secretary and first director of the Imperial Institute, a position he held till his death in 1902. He was Rede Lecturer and received an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University in 1888. He was upgraded Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) on 3 February 1891, created a baronet, of Cadogan Place in the Parish of Chelsea in the County of London, on 25 May 1893 and made a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) on 8 March 1901.
Abel died at his residence in Whitehall Court, London, on 6 September 1902, aged 75, and was buried in Nunhead Cemetery, London. The baronetcy became extinct on his death.
Abel married twice; first to Sarah Blanch, daughter of James Blanch, of Bristol; secondly after his first wife's death to Giulietta de La Feuillade. He left no children.
He also wrote several articles in the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Sir Frederick Augustus Abel, 1st Baronet GCVO KCB FRS (17 July 1827 – 6 September 1902) was an English chemist who was recognised as the leading British authority on explosives. He is best known for the invention of cordite as a replacement for gunpowder in firearms.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Born in London as son of Johann Leopold Abel, Abel studied chemistry at the Royal Polytechnic Institution and in 1845 became one of the original 26 students of A. W. von Hofmann at the Royal College of Chemistry (now a constituent of Imperial College London). In 1852 he was appointed lecturer in chemistry at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, succeeding Michael Faraday, who had held that post since 1829.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "From 1854 until 1888 Abel served as ordnance chemist at the Chemical Establishment of the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, establishing himself as the leading British authority on explosives. Three years later was appointed chemist to the War Department and chemical referee to the government. During his tenure of this office, which lasted until 1888, he carried out a large amount of work in connection with the chemistry of explosives.",
"title": "Early career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "One of the most important of his investigations had to do with the manufacture of guncotton, and he developed a process, consisting essentially of reducing the nitrated cotton to fine pulp, which enabled it to be safely manufactured and at the same time yielded the product in a form that increased its usefulness. This work to an important extent prepared the way for the \"smokeless powders\" which came into general use towards the end of the 19th century; cordite, the type adopted by the British government in 1891, was invented jointly by him and Sir James Dewar. He and Dewar were unsuccessfully sued by Alfred Nobel over infringement of Nobel's patent for a similar explosive called ballistite, the case finally being resolved in the House of Lords in 1895. He also extensively researched the behaviour of black powder when ignited, with the Scottish physicist Sir Andrew Noble. At the request of the British government, he devised the Abel test, a means of determining the flash point of petroleum products. His first instrument, the open-test apparatus, was specified in an Act of Parliament in 1868 for officially specifying petroleum products. It was superseded in August 1879 by the much more reliable Abel close-test instrument. Under his leadership, first, guncotton was developed at Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills, patented in 1865, then, the propellant cordite, patented in 1889. In electricity, Abel studied the construction of electrical fuses and other applications of electricity to warlike purposes.",
"title": "Notable work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1860 and received their Royal Medal in 1887. He was president of the Chemical Society (1875–77), of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (then the Society of Telegraph Engineers) (1877), of the Institute of Chemistry (1881–82) and of the Society of Chemical Industry (1882–83). He was also president of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1891 and was awarded the Bessemer Gold Medal in 1897 for his work on problems of steel manufacture. He was awarded the Telford Medal by the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1879.",
"title": "Leadership and honours"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "He was made a Commander of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1877. and knighted on 20 April 1883 He took an important part in the work of the Inventions Exhibition (London) in 1885, and in 1887 became organizing secretary and first director of the Imperial Institute, a position he held till his death in 1902. He was Rede Lecturer and received an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University in 1888. He was upgraded Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) on 3 February 1891, created a baronet, of Cadogan Place in the Parish of Chelsea in the County of London, on 25 May 1893 and made a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) on 8 March 1901.",
"title": "Leadership and honours"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Abel died at his residence in Whitehall Court, London, on 6 September 1902, aged 75, and was buried in Nunhead Cemetery, London. The baronetcy became extinct on his death.",
"title": "Leadership and honours"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Abel married twice; first to Sarah Blanch, daughter of James Blanch, of Bristol; secondly after his first wife's death to Giulietta de La Feuillade. He left no children.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "He also wrote several articles in the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.",
"title": "Books"
}
] |
Sir Frederick Augustus Abel, 1st Baronet was an English chemist who was recognised as the leading British authority on explosives. He is best known for the invention of cordite as a replacement for gunpowder in firearms.
|
2001-11-26T03:03:50Z
|
2023-09-28T05:02:21Z
|
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|
11,554 |
Fugazi (disambiguation)
|
Fugazi is a family name and a slang word which refers to something that is fake or damaged beyond repair.
It may refer to:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fugazi is a family name and a slang word which refers to something that is fake or damaged beyond repair.",
"title": ""
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"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "It may refer to:",
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Fugazi is a family name and a slang word which refers to something that is fake or damaged beyond repair. It may refer to: Fugazi, a post-hardcore punk band from Washington, D.C.
Fugazi (EP), the debut EP by the band of the same name
Fugazi (album), a 1984 studio album by the British rock band Marillion, featuring a song also named "Fugazi"
Fugazi Bank Building, a 1908 historic building in San Francisco, California; commissioned by Giovanni "John" Fugazi (1838–1916)
Club Fugazi, a theater in the North Beach District of San Francisco, California, the perennial venue of Beach Blanket Babylon
|
2001-11-26T03:33:32Z
|
2023-08-11T21:14:56Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugazi_(disambiguation)
|
11,555 |
Fluorescence
|
Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, than the absorbed radiation. A perceptible example of fluorescence occurs when the absorbed radiation is in the ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum (invisible to the human eye), while the emitted light is in the visible region; this gives the fluorescent substance a distinct color that can only be seen when the substance has been exposed to UV light. Fluorescent materials cease to glow nearly immediately when the radiation source stops, unlike phosphorescent materials, which continue to emit light for some time after.
Fluorescence has many practical applications, including mineralogy, gemology, medicine, chemical sensors (fluorescence spectroscopy), fluorescent labelling, dyes, biological detectors, cosmic-ray detection, vacuum fluorescent displays, and cathode-ray tubes. Its most common everyday application is in (gas-discharge) fluorescent lamps and LED lamps, in which fluorescent coatings convert UV or blue light into longer-wavelengths resulting in white light which can even appear indistinguishable from that of the traditional but energy- inefficient incandescent lamp.
Fluorescence also occurs frequently in nature in some minerals and in many biological forms across all kingdoms of life. The latter may be referred to as biofluorescence, indicating that the fluorophore is part of or is extracted from a living organism (rather than an inorganic dye or stain). But since fluorescence is due to a specific chemical, which can also be synthesized artificially in most cases, it is sufficient to describe the substance itself as fluorescent.
An early observation of fluorescence was described in 1560 by Bernardino de Sahagún and in 1565 by Nicolás Monardes in the infusion known as lignum nephriticum (Latin for "kidney wood"). It was derived from the wood of two tree species, Pterocarpus indicus and Eysenhardtia polystachya. The chemical compound responsible for this fluorescence is matlaline, which is the oxidation product of one of the flavonoids found in this wood.
In 1819, E.D. Clarke and in 1822 René Just Haüy described fluorescence in fluorites, Sir David Brewster described the phenomenon for chlorophyll in 1833 and Sir John Herschel did the same for quinine in 1845.
In his 1852 paper on the "Refrangibility" (wavelength change) of light, George Gabriel Stokes described the ability of fluorspar and uranium glass to change invisible light beyond the violet end of the visible spectrum into blue light. He named this phenomenon fluorescence
The name was derived from the mineral fluorite (calcium difluoride), some examples of which contain traces of divalent europium, which serves as the fluorescent activator to emit blue light. In a key experiment he used a prism to isolate ultraviolet radiation from sunlight and observed blue light emitted by an ethanol solution of quinine exposed by it.
Fluorescence occurs when an excited molecule, atom, or nanostructure, relaxes to a lower energy state (usually the ground state) through emission of a photon without a change in electron spin. When the initial and final states have different multiplicity (spin), the phenomenon is termed phosphorescence.
The ground state of most molecules is a singlet state, denoted as S0. A notable exception is molecular oxygen, which has a triplet ground state. Absorption of a photon of energy h ν e x {\displaystyle h\nu _{ex}} results in an excited state of the same multiplicity (spin) of the ground state, usually a singlet (Sn with n > 0). In solution, states with n > 1 relax rapidly to the lowest vibrational level of the first excited state (S1) by transferring energy to the solvent molecules through non-radiative processes, including internal conversion followed by vibrational relaxation, in which the energy is dissipated as heat. Therefore, most commonly, fluorescence occurs from the first singlet excited state, S1. Fluorescence is the emission of a photon accompanying the relaxation of the excited state to the ground state. Fluorescence photons are lower in energy ( h ν e m {\displaystyle h\nu _{em}} ) compared to the energy of the photons used to generate the excited state ( h ν e x {\displaystyle h\nu _{ex}} )
In each case the photon energy E {\displaystyle E} is proportional to its frequency ν {\displaystyle \nu } according to E = h ν {\displaystyle E=h\nu } , where h {\displaystyle h} is Planck's constant.
The excited state S1 can relax by other mechanisms that do not involve the emission of light. These processes, called non-radiative processes, compete with fluorescence emission and decrease its efficiency. Examples include internal conversion, intersystem crossing to the triplet state, and energy transfer to another molecule. An example of energy transfer is Förster resonance energy transfer. Relaxation from an excited state can also occur through collisional quenching, a process where a molecule (the quencher) collides with the fluorescent molecule during its excited state lifetime. Molecular oxygen (O2) is an extremely efficient quencher of fluorescence just because of its unusual triplet ground state.
The fluorescence quantum yield gives the efficiency of the fluorescence process. It is defined as the ratio of the number of photons emitted to the number of photons absorbed.
The maximum possible fluorescence quantum yield is 1.0 (100%); each photon absorbed results in a photon emitted. Compounds with quantum yields of 0.10 are still considered quite fluorescent. Another way to define the quantum yield of fluorescence is by the rate of excited state decay:
where k f {\displaystyle {k}_{f}} is the rate constant of spontaneous emission of radiation and
is the sum of all rates of excited state decay. Other rates of excited state decay are caused by mechanisms other than photon emission and are, therefore, often called "non-radiative rates", which can include:
Thus, if the rate of any pathway changes, both the excited state lifetime and the fluorescence quantum yield will be affected.
Fluorescence quantum yields are measured by comparison to a standard. The quinine salt quinine sulfate in a sulfuric acid solution was regarded as the most common fluorescence standard, however, a recent study revealed that the fluorescence quantum yield of this solution is strongly affected by the temperature, and should no longer be used as the standard solution. The quinine in 0.1 M perchloric acid (Φ=0.60) shows no temperature dependence up to 45 °C, therefore it can be considered as a reliable standard solution.
The fluorescence lifetime refers to the average time the molecule stays in its excited state before emitting a photon. Fluorescence typically follows first-order kinetics:
where [ S 1 ] {\displaystyle \left[S_{1}\right]} is the concentration of excited state molecules at time t {\displaystyle t} , [ S 1 ] 0 {\displaystyle \left[S_{1}\right]_{0}} is the initial concentration and Γ {\displaystyle \Gamma } is the decay rate or the inverse of the fluorescence lifetime. This is an instance of exponential decay. Various radiative and non-radiative processes can de-populate the excited state. In such case the total decay rate is the sum over all rates:
where Γ t o t {\displaystyle \Gamma _{tot}} is the total decay rate, Γ r a d {\displaystyle \Gamma _{rad}} the radiative decay rate and Γ n r a d {\displaystyle \Gamma _{nrad}} the non-radiative decay rate. It is similar to a first-order chemical reaction in which the first-order rate constant is the sum of all of the rates (a parallel kinetic model). If the rate of spontaneous emission, or any of the other rates are fast, the lifetime is short. For commonly used fluorescent compounds, typical excited state decay times for photon emissions with energies from the UV to near infrared are within the range of 0.5 to 20 nanoseconds. The fluorescence lifetime is an important parameter for practical applications of fluorescence such as fluorescence resonance energy transfer and fluorescence-lifetime imaging microscopy.
The Jablonski diagram describes most of the relaxation mechanisms for excited state molecules. The diagram alongside shows how fluorescence occurs due to the relaxation of certain excited electrons of a molecule.
Fluorophores are more likely to be excited by photons if the transition moment of the fluorophore is parallel to the electric vector of the photon. The polarization of the emitted light will also depend on the transition moment. The transition moment is dependent on the physical orientation of the fluorophore molecule. For fluorophores in solution, the intensity and polarization of the emitted light is dependent on rotational diffusion. Therefore, anisotropy measurements can be used to investigate how freely a fluorescent molecule moves in a particular environment.
Fluorescence anisotropy can be defined quantitatively as
where I ∥ {\displaystyle I_{\parallel }} is the emitted intensity parallel to the polarization of the excitation light and I ⊥ {\displaystyle I_{\perp }} is the emitted intensity perpendicular to the polarization of the excitation light.
Anisotropy is independent of the intensity of the absorbed or emitted light, it is the property of the light, so photobleaching of the dye will not affect the anisotropy value as long as the signal is detectable.
Strongly fluorescent pigments often have an unusual appearance which is often described colloquially as a "neon color" (originally "day-glo" in the late 1960s, early 1970s). This phenomenon was termed "Farbenglut" by Hermann von Helmholtz and "fluorence" by Ralph M. Evans. It is generally thought to be related to the high brightness of the color relative to what it would be as a component of white. Fluorescence shifts energy in the incident illumination from shorter wavelengths to longer (such as blue to yellow) and thus can make the fluorescent color appear brighter (more saturated) than it could possibly be by reflection alone.
There are several general rules that deal with fluorescence. Each of the following rules have exceptions but they are useful guidelines for understanding fluorescence (these rules do not necessarily apply to two-photon absorption).
Kasha's rule states that the luminesce (fluorescence or phosphorescence) of a molecule will be emitted only from the lowest excited state of its given multiplicity. Vavilov's rule (a logical extension of Kasha's rule thusly called Kasha–Vavilov rule) dictates that the quantum yield of luminescence is independent of the wavelength of exciting radiation and is proportional to the absorbance of the excited wavelength. Kasha's rule does not always apply and is violated by simple molecules, such an example is azulene. A somewhat more reliable statement, although still with exceptions, would be that the fluorescence spectrum shows very little dependence on the wavelength of exciting radiation.
For many fluorophores the absorption spectrum is a mirror image of the emission spectrum. This is known as the mirror image rule and is related to the Franck–Condon principle which states that electronic transitions are vertical, that is energy changes without distance changing as can be represented with a vertical line in Jablonski diagram. This means the nucleus does not move and the vibration levels of the excited state resemble the vibration levels of the ground state.
In general, emitted fluorescence light has a longer wavelength and lower energy than the absorbed light. This phenomenon, known as Stokes shift, is due to energy loss between the time a photon is absorbed and when a new one is emitted. The causes and magnitude of Stokes shift can be complex and are dependent on the fluorophore and its environment. However, there are some common causes. It is frequently due to non-radiative decay to the lowest vibrational energy level of the excited state. Another factor is that the emission of fluorescence frequently leaves a fluorophore in a higher vibrational level of the ground state.
There are many natural compounds that exhibit fluorescence, and they have a number of applications. Some deep-sea animals, such as the greeneye, have fluorescent structures.
Fluorescence is the phenomenon of absorption of electromagnetic radiation, typically from ultraviolet or visible light, by a molecule and the subsequent emission of a photon of a lower energy (smaller frequency, longer wavelength). This causes the light that is emitted to be a different color than the light that is absorbed. Stimulating light excites an electron to an excited state. When the molecule returns to the ground state, it releases a photon, which is the fluorescent emission. The excited state lifetime is short, so emission of light is typically only observable when the absorbing light is on. Fluorescence can be of any wavelength but is often more significant when emitted photons are in the visible spectrum. When it occurs in a living organism, it is sometimes called biofluorescence. Fluorescence should not be confused with bioluminescence and biophosphorescence. Pumpkin toadlets that live in the Brazilian Atlantic forest are fluorescent.
Bioluminescence differs from fluorescence in that it is the natural production of light by chemical reactions within an organism, whereas fluorescence is the absorption and reemission of light from the environment. Fireflies and anglerfish are two examples of bioluminescent organisms. To add to the potential confusion, some organisms are both bioluminescent and fluorescent, like the sea pansy Renilla reniformis, where bioluminescence serves as the light source for fluorescence.
Phosphorescence is similar to fluorescence in its requirement of light wavelengths as a provider of excitation energy. The difference here lies in the relative stability of the energized electron. Unlike with fluorescence, in phosphorescence the electron retains stability, emitting light that continues to "glow-in-the-dark" even after the stimulating light source has been removed. For example, glow-in-the-dark stickers are phosphorescent, but there are no truly biophosphorescent animals known.
Pigment cells that exhibit fluorescence are called fluorescent chromatophores, and function somatically similar to regular chromatophores. These cells are dendritic, and contain pigments called fluorosomes. These pigments contain fluorescent proteins which are activated by K+ (potassium) ions, and it is their movement, aggregation, and dispersion within the fluorescent chromatophore that cause directed fluorescence patterning. Fluorescent cells are innervated the same as other chromatophores, like melanophores, pigment cells that contain melanin. Short term fluorescent patterning and signaling is controlled by the nervous system. Fluorescent chromatophores can be found in the skin (e.g. in fish) just below the epidermis, amongst other chromatophores.
Epidermal fluorescent cells in fish also respond to hormonal stimuli by the α–MSH and MCH hormones much the same as melanophores. This suggests that fluorescent cells may have color changes throughout the day that coincide with their circadian rhythm. Fish may also be sensitive to cortisol induced stress responses to environmental stimuli, such as interaction with a predator or engaging in a mating ritual.
The incidence of fluorescence across the tree of life is widespread, and has been studied most extensively in cnidarians and fish. The phenomenon appears to have evolved multiple times in multiple taxa such as in the anguilliformes (eels), gobioidei (gobies and cardinalfishes), and tetradontiformes (triggerfishes), along with the other taxa discussed later in the article. Fluorescence is highly genotypically and phenotypically variable even within ecosystems, in regards to the wavelengths emitted, the patterns displayed, and the intensity of the fluorescence. Generally, the species relying upon camouflage exhibit the greatest diversity in fluorescence, likely because camouflage may be one of the uses of fluorescence.
It is suspected by some scientists that GFPs and GFP-like proteins began as electron donors activated by light. These electrons were then used for reactions requiring light energy. Functions of fluorescent proteins, such as protection from the sun, conversion of light into different wavelengths, or for signaling are thought to have evolved secondarily.
Currently, relatively little is known about the functional significance of fluorescence and fluorescent proteins. However, it is suspected that fluorescence may serve important functions in signaling and communication, mating, lures, camouflage, UV protection and antioxidation, photoacclimation, dinoflagellate regulation, and in coral health.
Water absorbs light of long wavelengths, so less light from these wavelengths reflects back to reach the eye. Therefore, warm colors from the visual light spectrum appear less vibrant at increasing depths. Water scatters light of shorter wavelengths above violet, meaning cooler colors dominate the visual field in the photic zone. Light intensity decreases 10 fold with every 75 m of depth, so at depths of 75 m, light is 10% as intense as it is on the surface, and is only 1% as intense at 150 m as it is on the surface. Because the water filters out the wavelengths and intensity of water reaching certain depths, different proteins, because of the wavelengths and intensities of light they are capable of absorbing, are better suited to different depths. Theoretically, some fish eyes can detect light as deep as 1000 m. At these depths of the aphotic zone, the only sources of light are organisms themselves, giving off light through chemical reactions in a process called bioluminescence.
Fluorescence is simply defined as the absorption of electromagnetic radiation at one wavelength and its reemission at another, lower energy wavelength. Thus any type of fluorescence depends on the presence of external sources of light. Biologically functional fluorescence is found in the photic zone, where there is not only enough light to cause fluorescence, but enough light for other organisms to detect it. The visual field in the photic zone is naturally blue, so colors of fluorescence can be detected as bright reds, oranges, yellows, and greens. Green is the most commonly found color in the marine spectrum, yellow the second most, orange the third, and red is the rarest. Fluorescence can occur in organisms in the aphotic zone as a byproduct of that same organism's bioluminescence. Some fluorescence in the aphotic zone is merely a byproduct of the organism's tissue biochemistry and does not have a functional purpose. However, some cases of functional and adaptive significance of fluorescence in the aphotic zone of the deep ocean is an active area of research.
Bony fishes living in shallow water generally have good color vision due to their living in a colorful environment. Thus, in shallow-water fishes, red, orange, and green fluorescence most likely serves as a means of communication with conspecifics, especially given the great phenotypic variance of the phenomenon.
Many fish that exhibit fluorescence, such as sharks, lizardfish, scorpionfish, wrasses, and flatfishes, also possess yellow intraocular filters. Yellow intraocular filters in the lenses and cornea of certain fishes function as long-pass filters. These filters enable the species to visualize and potentially exploit fluorescence, in order to enhance visual contrast and patterns that are unseen to other fishes and predators that lack this visual specialization. Fish that possess the necessary yellow intraocular filters for visualizing fluorescence potentially exploit a light signal from members of it. Fluorescent patterning was especially prominent in cryptically patterned fishes possessing complex camouflage. Many of these lineages also possess yellow long-pass intraocular filters that could enable visualization of such patterns.
Another adaptive use of fluorescence is to generate orange and red light from the ambient blue light of the photic zone to aid vision. Red light can only be seen across short distances due to attenuation of red light wavelengths by water. Many fish species that fluoresce are small, group-living, or benthic/aphotic, and have conspicuous patterning. This patterning is caused by fluorescent tissue and is visible to other members of the species, however the patterning is invisible at other visual spectra. These intraspecific fluorescent patterns also coincide with intra-species signaling. The patterns present in ocular rings to indicate directionality of an individual's gaze, and along fins to indicate directionality of an individual's movement. Current research suspects that this red fluorescence is used for private communication between members of the same species. Due to the prominence of blue light at ocean depths, red light and light of longer wavelengths are muddled, and many predatory reef fish have little to no sensitivity for light at these wavelengths. Fish such as the fairy wrasse that have developed visual sensitivity to longer wavelengths are able to display red fluorescent signals that give a high contrast to the blue environment and are conspicuous to conspecifics in short ranges, yet are relatively invisible to other common fish that have reduced sensitivities to long wavelengths. Thus, fluorescence can be used as adaptive signaling and intra-species communication in reef fish.
Additionally, it is suggested that fluorescent tissues that surround an organism's eyes are used to convert blue light from the photic zone or green bioluminescence in the aphotic zone into red light to aid vision.
A new fluorophore was described in two species of sharks, wherein it was due to an undescribed group of brominated tryptophane-kynurenine small molecule metabolites.
Fluorescence serves a wide variety of functions in coral. Fluorescent proteins in corals may contribute to photosynthesis by converting otherwise unusable wavelengths of light into ones for which the coral's symbiotic algae are able to conduct photosynthesis. Also, the proteins may fluctuate in number as more or less light becomes available as a means of photoacclimation. Similarly, these fluorescent proteins may possess antioxidant capacities to eliminate oxygen radicals produced by photosynthesis. Finally, through modulating photosynthesis, the fluorescent proteins may also serve as a means of regulating the activity of the coral's photosynthetic algal symbionts.
Alloteuthis subulata and Loligo vulgaris, two types of nearly transparent squid, have fluorescent spots above their eyes. These spots reflect incident light, which may serve as a means of camouflage, but also for signaling to other squids for schooling purposes.
Another, well-studied example of fluorescence in the ocean is the hydrozoan Aequorea victoria. This jellyfish lives in the photic zone off the west coast of North America and was identified as a carrier of green fluorescent protein (GFP) by Osamu Shimomura. The gene for these green fluorescent proteins has been isolated and is scientifically significant because it is widely used in genetic studies to indicate the expression of other genes.
Several species of mantis shrimp, which are stomatopod crustaceans, including Lysiosquillina glabriuscula, have yellow fluorescent markings along their antennal scales and carapace (shell) that males present during threat displays to predators and other males. The display involves raising the head and thorax, spreading the striking appendages and other maxillipeds, and extending the prominent, oval antennal scales laterally, which makes the animal appear larger and accentuates its yellow fluorescent markings. Furthermore, as depth increases, mantis shrimp fluorescence accounts for a greater part of the visible light available. During mating rituals, mantis shrimp actively fluoresce, and the wavelength of this fluorescence matches the wavelengths detected by their eye pigments.
Siphonophorae is an order of marine animals from the phylum Hydrozoa that consist of a specialized medusoid and polyp zooid. Some siphonophores, including the genus Erenna that live in the aphotic zone between depths of 1600 m and 2300 m, exhibit yellow to red fluorescence in the photophores of their tentacle-like tentilla. This fluorescence occurs as a by-product of bioluminescence from these same photophores. The siphonophores exhibit the fluorescence in a flicking pattern that is used as a lure to attract prey.
The predatory deep-sea dragonfish Malacosteus niger, the closely related genus Aristostomias and the species Pachystomias microdon use fluorescent red accessory pigments to convert the blue light emitted from their own bioluminescence to red light from suborbital photophores. This red luminescence is invisible to other animals, which allows these dragonfish extra light at dark ocean depths without attracting or signaling predators.
Fluorescence is widespread among amphibians and has been documented in several families of frogs, salamanders and caecilians, but the extent of it varies greatly.
The polka-dot tree frog (Hypsiboas punctatus), widely found in South America, was unintentionally discovered to be the first fluorescent amphibian in 2017. The fluorescence was traced to a new compound found in the lymph and skin glands. The main fluorescent compound is Hyloin-L1 and it gives a blue-green glow when exposed to violet or ultraviolet light. The scientists behind the discovery suggested that the fluorescence can be used for communication. They speculated that fluorescence possibly is relatively widespread among frogs. Only a few months later, fluorescence was discovered in the closely related Hypsiboas atlanticus. Because it is linked to secretions from skin glands, they can also leave fluorescent markings on surfaces where they have been.
In 2019, two other frogs, the tiny pumpkin toadlet (Brachycephalus ephippium) and red pumpkin toadlet (B. pitanga) of southeastern Brazil, were found to have naturally fluorescent skeletons, which are visible through their skin when exposed to ultraviolet light. It was initially speculated that the fluorescence supplemented their already aposematic colours (they are toxic) or that it was related to mate choice (species recognition or determining fitness of a potential partner), but later studies indicate that the former explanation is unlikely, as predation attempts on the toadlets appear to be unaffected by the presence/absence of fluorescence.
In 2020 it was confirmed that green or yellow fluorescence is widespread not only in adult frogs that are exposed to blue or ultraviolet light, but also among tadpoles, salamanders and caecilians. The extent varies greatly depending on species; in some it is highly distinct and in others it is barely noticeable. It can be based on their skin pigmentation, their mucous or their bones.
Swallowtail (Papilio) butterflies have complex systems for emitting fluorescent light. Their wings contain pigment-infused crystals that provide directed fluorescent light. These crystals function to produce fluorescent light best when they absorb radiance from sky-blue light (wavelength about 420 nm). The wavelengths of light that the butterflies see the best correspond to the absorbance of the crystals in the butterfly's wings. This likely functions to enhance the capacity for signaling.
Parrots have fluorescent plumage that may be used in mate signaling. A study using mate-choice experiments on budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulates) found compelling support for fluorescent sexual signaling, with both males and females significantly preferring birds with the fluorescent experimental stimulus. This study suggests that the fluorescent plumage of parrots is not simply a by-product of pigmentation, but instead an adapted sexual signal. Considering the intricacies of the pathways that produce fluorescent pigments, there may be significant costs involved. Therefore, individuals exhibiting strong fluorescence may be honest indicators of high individual quality, since they can deal with the associated costs.
Spiders fluoresce under UV light and possess a huge diversity of fluorophores. Andrews, Reed, & Masta noted that spiders are the only known group in which fluorescence is "taxonomically widespread, variably expressed, evolutionarily labile, and probably under selection and potentially of ecological importance for intraspecific and interspecific signaling". They showed that fluorescence evolved multiple times across spider taxa, with novel fluorophores evolving during spider diversification.
In some spiders, ultraviolet cues are important for predator-prey interactions, intraspecific communication, and camouflage-matching with fluorescent flowers. Differing ecological contexts could favor inhibition or enhancement of fluorescence expression, depending upon whether fluorescence helps spiders be cryptic or makes them more conspicuous to predators. Therefore, natural selection could be acting on expression of fluorescence across spider species.
Scorpions are also fluorescent, in their case due to the presence of beta carboline in their cuticles.
In 2020 fluorescence was reported for several platypus specimens.
Many plants are fluorescent due to the presence of chlorophyll, which is probably the most widely distributed fluorescent molecule, producing red emission under a range of excitation wavelengths. This attribute of chlorophyll is commonly used by ecologists to measure photosynthetic efficiency.
The Mirabilis jalapa flower contains violet, fluorescent betacyanins and yellow, fluorescent betaxanthins. Under white light, parts of the flower containing only betaxanthins appear yellow, but in areas where both betaxanthins and betacyanins are present, the visible fluorescence of the flower is faded due to internal light-filtering mechanisms. Fluorescence was previously suggested to play a role in pollinator attraction, however, it was later found that the visual signal by fluorescence is negligible compared to the visual signal of light reflected by the flower.
Gemstones and minerals may have a distinctive fluorescence or may fluoresce differently under short-wave ultraviolet, long-wave ultraviolet, visible light, or X-rays.
Many types of calcite and amber will fluoresce under shortwave UV, longwave UV and visible light. Rubies, emeralds, and diamonds exhibit red fluorescence under long-wave UV, blue and sometimes green light; diamonds also emit light under X-ray radiation.
Fluorescence in minerals is caused by a wide range of activators. In some cases, the concentration of the activator must be restricted to below a certain level, to prevent quenching of the fluorescent emission. Furthermore, the mineral must be free of impurities such as iron or copper, to prevent quenching of possible fluorescence. Divalent manganese, in concentrations of up to several percent, is responsible for the red or orange fluorescence of calcite, the green fluorescence of willemite, the yellow fluorescence of esperite, and the orange fluorescence of wollastonite and clinohedrite. Hexavalent uranium, in the form of the uranyl cation (UO2), fluoresces at all concentrations in a yellow green, and is the cause of fluorescence of minerals such as autunite or andersonite, and, at low concentration, is the cause of the fluorescence of such materials as some samples of hyalite opal. Trivalent chromium at low concentration is the source of the red fluorescence of ruby. Divalent europium is the source of the blue fluorescence, when seen in the mineral fluorite. Trivalent lanthanides such as terbium and dysprosium are the principal activators of the creamy yellow fluorescence exhibited by the yttrofluorite variety of the mineral fluorite, and contribute to the orange fluorescence of zircon. Powellite (calcium molybdate) and scheelite (calcium tungstate) fluoresce intrinsically in yellow and blue, respectively. When present together in solid solution, energy is transferred from the higher-energy tungsten to the lower-energy molybdenum, such that fairly low levels of molybdenum are sufficient to cause a yellow emission for scheelite, instead of blue. Low-iron sphalerite (zinc sulfide), fluoresces and phosphoresces in a range of colors, influenced by the presence of various trace impurities.
Crude oil (petroleum) fluoresces in a range of colors, from dull-brown for heavy oils and tars through to bright-yellowish and bluish-white for very light oils and condensates. This phenomenon is used in oil exploration drilling to identify very small amounts of oil in drill cuttings and core samples.
Humic acids and fulvic acids produced by the degradation of organic matter in soils (humus) may also fluoresce because of the presence of aromatic cycles in their complex molecular structures. Humic substances dissolved in groundwater can be detected and characterized by spectrofluorimetry.
Organic (carbon based) solutions such anthracene or stilbene, dissolved in benzene or toluene, fluoresce with ultraviolet or gamma ray irradiation. The decay times of this fluorescence are on the order of nanoseconds, since the duration of the light depends on the lifetime of the excited states of the fluorescent material, in this case anthracene or stilbene.
Scintillation is defined a flash of light produced in a transparent material by the passage of a particle (an electron, an alpha particle, an ion, or a high-energy photon). Stilbene and derivatives are used in scintillation counters to detect such particles. Stilbene is also one of the gain mediums used in dye lasers.
Fluorescence is observed in the atmosphere when the air is under energetic electron bombardment. In cases such as the natural aurora, high-altitude nuclear explosions, and rocket-borne electron gun experiments, the molecules and ions formed have a fluorescent response to light.
In August 2020 researchers reported the creation of the brightest fluorescent solid optical materials so far by enabling the transfer of properties of highly fluorescent dyes via spatial and electronic isolation of the dyes by mixing cationic dyes with anion-binding cyanostar macrocycles. According to a co-author these materials may have applications in areas such as solar energy harvesting, bioimaging, and lasers.
The common fluorescent lamp relies on fluorescence. Inside the glass tube is a partial vacuum and a small amount of mercury. An electric discharge in the tube causes the mercury atoms to emit mostly ultraviolet light. The tube is lined with a coating of a fluorescent material, called the phosphor, which absorbs ultraviolet light and re-emits visible light. Fluorescent lighting is more energy-efficient than incandescent lighting elements. However, the uneven spectrum of traditional fluorescent lamps may cause certain colors to appear different from when illuminated by incandescent light or daylight. The mercury vapor emission spectrum is dominated by a short-wave UV line at 254 nm (which provides most of the energy to the phosphors), accompanied by visible light emission at 436 nm (blue), 546 nm (green) and 579 nm (yellow-orange). These three lines can be observed superimposed on the white continuum using a hand spectroscope, for light emitted by the usual white fluorescent tubes. These same visible lines, accompanied by the emission lines of trivalent europium and trivalent terbium, and further accompanied by the emission continuum of divalent europium in the blue region, comprise the more discontinuous light emission of the modern trichromatic phosphor systems used in many compact fluorescent lamp and traditional lamps where better color rendition is a goal.
Fluorescent lights were first available to the public at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Improvements since then have largely been better phosphors, longer life, and more consistent internal discharge, and easier-to-use shapes (such as compact fluorescent lamps). Some high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps couple their even-greater electrical efficiency with phosphor enhancement for better color rendition.
White light-emitting diodes (LEDs) became available in the mid-1990s as LED lamps, in which blue light emitted from the semiconductor strikes phosphors deposited on the tiny chip. The combination of the blue light that continues through the phosphor and the green to red fluorescence from the phosphors produces a net emission of white light.
Glow sticks sometimes utilize fluorescent materials to absorb light from the chemiluminescent reaction and emit light of a different color.
Many analytical procedures involve the use of a fluorometer, usually with a single exciting wavelength and single detection wavelength. Because of the sensitivity that the method affords, fluorescent molecule concentrations as low as 1 part per trillion can be measured.
Fluorescence in several wavelengths can be detected by an array detector, to detect compounds from HPLC flow. Also, TLC plates can be visualized if the compounds or a coloring reagent is fluorescent. Fluorescence is most effective when there is a larger ratio of atoms at lower energy levels in a Boltzmann distribution. There is, then, a higher probability of excitement and release of photons by lower-energy atoms, making analysis more efficient.
Usually the setup of a fluorescence assay involves a light source, which may emit many different wavelengths of light. In general, a single wavelength is required for proper analysis, so, in order to selectively filter the light, it is passed through an excitation monochromator, and then that chosen wavelength is passed through the sample cell. After absorption and re-emission of the energy, many wavelengths may emerge due to Stokes shift and various electron transitions. To separate and analyze them, the fluorescent radiation is passed through an emission monochromator, and observed selectively by a detector.
Lasers most often use the fluorescence of certain materials as their active media, such as the red glow produced by a ruby (chromium sapphire), the infrared of titanium sapphire, or the unlimited range of colors produced by organic dyes. These materials normally fluoresce through a process called spontaneous emission, in which the light is emitted in all directions and often at many discrete spectral lines all at once. In many lasers, the fluorescent medium is "pumped" by exposing it to an intense light source, creating a population inversion, meaning that more of its atoms become in an excited state (high energy) rather than at ground state (low energy). When this occurs, the spontaneous fluorescence can then induce the other atoms to emit their photons in the same direction and at the same wavelength, creating stimulated emission. When a portion of the spontaneous fluorescence is trapped between two mirrors, nearly all of the medium's fluorescence can be stimulated to emit along the same line, producing a laser beam.
Fluorescence in the life sciences is used generally as a non-destructive way of tracking or analysis of biological molecules by means of the fluorescent emission at a specific frequency where there is no background from the excitation light, as relatively few cellular components are naturally fluorescent (called intrinsic or autofluorescence). In fact, a protein or other component can be "labelled" with an extrinsic fluorophore, a fluorescent dye that can be a small molecule, protein, or quantum dot, finding a large use in many biological applications.
The quantification of a dye is done with a spectrofluorometer and finds additional applications in:
Fingerprints can be visualized with fluorescent compounds such as ninhydrin or DFO (1,8-Diazafluoren-9-one). Blood and other substances are sometimes detected by fluorescent reagents, like fluorescein. Fibers, and other materials that may be encountered in forensics or with a relationship to various collectibles, are sometimes fluorescent.
Fluorescent penetrant inspection is used to find cracks and other defects on the surface of a part. Dye tracing, using fluorescent dyes, is used to find leaks in liquid and gas plumbing systems.
Fluorescent colors are frequently used in signage, particularly road signs. Fluorescent colors are generally recognizable at longer ranges than their non-fluorescent counterparts, with fluorescent orange being particularly noticeable. This property has led to its frequent use in safety signs and labels.
Fluorescent compounds are often used to enhance the appearance of fabric and paper, causing a "whitening" effect. A white surface treated with an optical brightener can emit more visible light than that which shines on it, making it appear brighter. The blue light emitted by the brightener compensates for the diminishing blue of the treated material and changes the hue away from yellow or brown and toward white. Optical brighteners are used in laundry detergents, high brightness paper, cosmetics, high-visibility clothing and more.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, than the absorbed radiation. A perceptible example of fluorescence occurs when the absorbed radiation is in the ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum (invisible to the human eye), while the emitted light is in the visible region; this gives the fluorescent substance a distinct color that can only be seen when the substance has been exposed to UV light. Fluorescent materials cease to glow nearly immediately when the radiation source stops, unlike phosphorescent materials, which continue to emit light for some time after.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Fluorescence has many practical applications, including mineralogy, gemology, medicine, chemical sensors (fluorescence spectroscopy), fluorescent labelling, dyes, biological detectors, cosmic-ray detection, vacuum fluorescent displays, and cathode-ray tubes. Its most common everyday application is in (gas-discharge) fluorescent lamps and LED lamps, in which fluorescent coatings convert UV or blue light into longer-wavelengths resulting in white light which can even appear indistinguishable from that of the traditional but energy- inefficient incandescent lamp.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Fluorescence also occurs frequently in nature in some minerals and in many biological forms across all kingdoms of life. The latter may be referred to as biofluorescence, indicating that the fluorophore is part of or is extracted from a living organism (rather than an inorganic dye or stain). But since fluorescence is due to a specific chemical, which can also be synthesized artificially in most cases, it is sufficient to describe the substance itself as fluorescent.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "An early observation of fluorescence was described in 1560 by Bernardino de Sahagún and in 1565 by Nicolás Monardes in the infusion known as lignum nephriticum (Latin for \"kidney wood\"). It was derived from the wood of two tree species, Pterocarpus indicus and Eysenhardtia polystachya. The chemical compound responsible for this fluorescence is matlaline, which is the oxidation product of one of the flavonoids found in this wood.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1819, E.D. Clarke and in 1822 René Just Haüy described fluorescence in fluorites, Sir David Brewster described the phenomenon for chlorophyll in 1833 and Sir John Herschel did the same for quinine in 1845.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In his 1852 paper on the \"Refrangibility\" (wavelength change) of light, George Gabriel Stokes described the ability of fluorspar and uranium glass to change invisible light beyond the violet end of the visible spectrum into blue light. He named this phenomenon fluorescence",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The name was derived from the mineral fluorite (calcium difluoride), some examples of which contain traces of divalent europium, which serves as the fluorescent activator to emit blue light. In a key experiment he used a prism to isolate ultraviolet radiation from sunlight and observed blue light emitted by an ethanol solution of quinine exposed by it.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Fluorescence occurs when an excited molecule, atom, or nanostructure, relaxes to a lower energy state (usually the ground state) through emission of a photon without a change in electron spin. When the initial and final states have different multiplicity (spin), the phenomenon is termed phosphorescence.",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The ground state of most molecules is a singlet state, denoted as S0. A notable exception is molecular oxygen, which has a triplet ground state. Absorption of a photon of energy h ν e x {\\displaystyle h\\nu _{ex}} results in an excited state of the same multiplicity (spin) of the ground state, usually a singlet (Sn with n > 0). In solution, states with n > 1 relax rapidly to the lowest vibrational level of the first excited state (S1) by transferring energy to the solvent molecules through non-radiative processes, including internal conversion followed by vibrational relaxation, in which the energy is dissipated as heat. Therefore, most commonly, fluorescence occurs from the first singlet excited state, S1. Fluorescence is the emission of a photon accompanying the relaxation of the excited state to the ground state. Fluorescence photons are lower in energy ( h ν e m {\\displaystyle h\\nu _{em}} ) compared to the energy of the photons used to generate the excited state ( h ν e x {\\displaystyle h\\nu _{ex}} )",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In each case the photon energy E {\\displaystyle E} is proportional to its frequency ν {\\displaystyle \\nu } according to E = h ν {\\displaystyle E=h\\nu } , where h {\\displaystyle h} is Planck's constant.",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The excited state S1 can relax by other mechanisms that do not involve the emission of light. These processes, called non-radiative processes, compete with fluorescence emission and decrease its efficiency. Examples include internal conversion, intersystem crossing to the triplet state, and energy transfer to another molecule. An example of energy transfer is Förster resonance energy transfer. Relaxation from an excited state can also occur through collisional quenching, a process where a molecule (the quencher) collides with the fluorescent molecule during its excited state lifetime. Molecular oxygen (O2) is an extremely efficient quencher of fluorescence just because of its unusual triplet ground state.",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The fluorescence quantum yield gives the efficiency of the fluorescence process. It is defined as the ratio of the number of photons emitted to the number of photons absorbed.",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The maximum possible fluorescence quantum yield is 1.0 (100%); each photon absorbed results in a photon emitted. Compounds with quantum yields of 0.10 are still considered quite fluorescent. Another way to define the quantum yield of fluorescence is by the rate of excited state decay:",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "where k f {\\displaystyle {k}_{f}} is the rate constant of spontaneous emission of radiation and",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "is the sum of all rates of excited state decay. Other rates of excited state decay are caused by mechanisms other than photon emission and are, therefore, often called \"non-radiative rates\", which can include:",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Thus, if the rate of any pathway changes, both the excited state lifetime and the fluorescence quantum yield will be affected.",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Fluorescence quantum yields are measured by comparison to a standard. The quinine salt quinine sulfate in a sulfuric acid solution was regarded as the most common fluorescence standard, however, a recent study revealed that the fluorescence quantum yield of this solution is strongly affected by the temperature, and should no longer be used as the standard solution. The quinine in 0.1 M perchloric acid (Φ=0.60) shows no temperature dependence up to 45 °C, therefore it can be considered as a reliable standard solution.",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The fluorescence lifetime refers to the average time the molecule stays in its excited state before emitting a photon. Fluorescence typically follows first-order kinetics:",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "where [ S 1 ] {\\displaystyle \\left[S_{1}\\right]} is the concentration of excited state molecules at time t {\\displaystyle t} , [ S 1 ] 0 {\\displaystyle \\left[S_{1}\\right]_{0}} is the initial concentration and Γ {\\displaystyle \\Gamma } is the decay rate or the inverse of the fluorescence lifetime. This is an instance of exponential decay. Various radiative and non-radiative processes can de-populate the excited state. In such case the total decay rate is the sum over all rates:",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "where Γ t o t {\\displaystyle \\Gamma _{tot}} is the total decay rate, Γ r a d {\\displaystyle \\Gamma _{rad}} the radiative decay rate and Γ n r a d {\\displaystyle \\Gamma _{nrad}} the non-radiative decay rate. It is similar to a first-order chemical reaction in which the first-order rate constant is the sum of all of the rates (a parallel kinetic model). If the rate of spontaneous emission, or any of the other rates are fast, the lifetime is short. For commonly used fluorescent compounds, typical excited state decay times for photon emissions with energies from the UV to near infrared are within the range of 0.5 to 20 nanoseconds. The fluorescence lifetime is an important parameter for practical applications of fluorescence such as fluorescence resonance energy transfer and fluorescence-lifetime imaging microscopy.",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Jablonski diagram describes most of the relaxation mechanisms for excited state molecules. The diagram alongside shows how fluorescence occurs due to the relaxation of certain excited electrons of a molecule.",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Fluorophores are more likely to be excited by photons if the transition moment of the fluorophore is parallel to the electric vector of the photon. The polarization of the emitted light will also depend on the transition moment. The transition moment is dependent on the physical orientation of the fluorophore molecule. For fluorophores in solution, the intensity and polarization of the emitted light is dependent on rotational diffusion. Therefore, anisotropy measurements can be used to investigate how freely a fluorescent molecule moves in a particular environment.",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Fluorescence anisotropy can be defined quantitatively as",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "where I ∥ {\\displaystyle I_{\\parallel }} is the emitted intensity parallel to the polarization of the excitation light and I ⊥ {\\displaystyle I_{\\perp }} is the emitted intensity perpendicular to the polarization of the excitation light.",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Anisotropy is independent of the intensity of the absorbed or emitted light, it is the property of the light, so photobleaching of the dye will not affect the anisotropy value as long as the signal is detectable.",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Strongly fluorescent pigments often have an unusual appearance which is often described colloquially as a \"neon color\" (originally \"day-glo\" in the late 1960s, early 1970s). This phenomenon was termed \"Farbenglut\" by Hermann von Helmholtz and \"fluorence\" by Ralph M. Evans. It is generally thought to be related to the high brightness of the color relative to what it would be as a component of white. Fluorescence shifts energy in the incident illumination from shorter wavelengths to longer (such as blue to yellow) and thus can make the fluorescent color appear brighter (more saturated) than it could possibly be by reflection alone.",
"title": "Physical principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "There are several general rules that deal with fluorescence. Each of the following rules have exceptions but they are useful guidelines for understanding fluorescence (these rules do not necessarily apply to two-photon absorption).",
"title": "Rules"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Kasha's rule states that the luminesce (fluorescence or phosphorescence) of a molecule will be emitted only from the lowest excited state of its given multiplicity. Vavilov's rule (a logical extension of Kasha's rule thusly called Kasha–Vavilov rule) dictates that the quantum yield of luminescence is independent of the wavelength of exciting radiation and is proportional to the absorbance of the excited wavelength. Kasha's rule does not always apply and is violated by simple molecules, such an example is azulene. A somewhat more reliable statement, although still with exceptions, would be that the fluorescence spectrum shows very little dependence on the wavelength of exciting radiation.",
"title": "Rules"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "For many fluorophores the absorption spectrum is a mirror image of the emission spectrum. This is known as the mirror image rule and is related to the Franck–Condon principle which states that electronic transitions are vertical, that is energy changes without distance changing as can be represented with a vertical line in Jablonski diagram. This means the nucleus does not move and the vibration levels of the excited state resemble the vibration levels of the ground state.",
"title": "Rules"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In general, emitted fluorescence light has a longer wavelength and lower energy than the absorbed light. This phenomenon, known as Stokes shift, is due to energy loss between the time a photon is absorbed and when a new one is emitted. The causes and magnitude of Stokes shift can be complex and are dependent on the fluorophore and its environment. However, there are some common causes. It is frequently due to non-radiative decay to the lowest vibrational energy level of the excited state. Another factor is that the emission of fluorescence frequently leaves a fluorophore in a higher vibrational level of the ground state.",
"title": "Rules"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "There are many natural compounds that exhibit fluorescence, and they have a number of applications. Some deep-sea animals, such as the greeneye, have fluorescent structures.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Fluorescence is the phenomenon of absorption of electromagnetic radiation, typically from ultraviolet or visible light, by a molecule and the subsequent emission of a photon of a lower energy (smaller frequency, longer wavelength). This causes the light that is emitted to be a different color than the light that is absorbed. Stimulating light excites an electron to an excited state. When the molecule returns to the ground state, it releases a photon, which is the fluorescent emission. The excited state lifetime is short, so emission of light is typically only observable when the absorbing light is on. Fluorescence can be of any wavelength but is often more significant when emitted photons are in the visible spectrum. When it occurs in a living organism, it is sometimes called biofluorescence. Fluorescence should not be confused with bioluminescence and biophosphorescence. Pumpkin toadlets that live in the Brazilian Atlantic forest are fluorescent.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Bioluminescence differs from fluorescence in that it is the natural production of light by chemical reactions within an organism, whereas fluorescence is the absorption and reemission of light from the environment. Fireflies and anglerfish are two examples of bioluminescent organisms. To add to the potential confusion, some organisms are both bioluminescent and fluorescent, like the sea pansy Renilla reniformis, where bioluminescence serves as the light source for fluorescence.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Phosphorescence is similar to fluorescence in its requirement of light wavelengths as a provider of excitation energy. The difference here lies in the relative stability of the energized electron. Unlike with fluorescence, in phosphorescence the electron retains stability, emitting light that continues to \"glow-in-the-dark\" even after the stimulating light source has been removed. For example, glow-in-the-dark stickers are phosphorescent, but there are no truly biophosphorescent animals known.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Pigment cells that exhibit fluorescence are called fluorescent chromatophores, and function somatically similar to regular chromatophores. These cells are dendritic, and contain pigments called fluorosomes. These pigments contain fluorescent proteins which are activated by K+ (potassium) ions, and it is their movement, aggregation, and dispersion within the fluorescent chromatophore that cause directed fluorescence patterning. Fluorescent cells are innervated the same as other chromatophores, like melanophores, pigment cells that contain melanin. Short term fluorescent patterning and signaling is controlled by the nervous system. Fluorescent chromatophores can be found in the skin (e.g. in fish) just below the epidermis, amongst other chromatophores.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Epidermal fluorescent cells in fish also respond to hormonal stimuli by the α–MSH and MCH hormones much the same as melanophores. This suggests that fluorescent cells may have color changes throughout the day that coincide with their circadian rhythm. Fish may also be sensitive to cortisol induced stress responses to environmental stimuli, such as interaction with a predator or engaging in a mating ritual.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The incidence of fluorescence across the tree of life is widespread, and has been studied most extensively in cnidarians and fish. The phenomenon appears to have evolved multiple times in multiple taxa such as in the anguilliformes (eels), gobioidei (gobies and cardinalfishes), and tetradontiformes (triggerfishes), along with the other taxa discussed later in the article. Fluorescence is highly genotypically and phenotypically variable even within ecosystems, in regards to the wavelengths emitted, the patterns displayed, and the intensity of the fluorescence. Generally, the species relying upon camouflage exhibit the greatest diversity in fluorescence, likely because camouflage may be one of the uses of fluorescence.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "It is suspected by some scientists that GFPs and GFP-like proteins began as electron donors activated by light. These electrons were then used for reactions requiring light energy. Functions of fluorescent proteins, such as protection from the sun, conversion of light into different wavelengths, or for signaling are thought to have evolved secondarily.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Currently, relatively little is known about the functional significance of fluorescence and fluorescent proteins. However, it is suspected that fluorescence may serve important functions in signaling and communication, mating, lures, camouflage, UV protection and antioxidation, photoacclimation, dinoflagellate regulation, and in coral health.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Water absorbs light of long wavelengths, so less light from these wavelengths reflects back to reach the eye. Therefore, warm colors from the visual light spectrum appear less vibrant at increasing depths. Water scatters light of shorter wavelengths above violet, meaning cooler colors dominate the visual field in the photic zone. Light intensity decreases 10 fold with every 75 m of depth, so at depths of 75 m, light is 10% as intense as it is on the surface, and is only 1% as intense at 150 m as it is on the surface. Because the water filters out the wavelengths and intensity of water reaching certain depths, different proteins, because of the wavelengths and intensities of light they are capable of absorbing, are better suited to different depths. Theoretically, some fish eyes can detect light as deep as 1000 m. At these depths of the aphotic zone, the only sources of light are organisms themselves, giving off light through chemical reactions in a process called bioluminescence.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Fluorescence is simply defined as the absorption of electromagnetic radiation at one wavelength and its reemission at another, lower energy wavelength. Thus any type of fluorescence depends on the presence of external sources of light. Biologically functional fluorescence is found in the photic zone, where there is not only enough light to cause fluorescence, but enough light for other organisms to detect it. The visual field in the photic zone is naturally blue, so colors of fluorescence can be detected as bright reds, oranges, yellows, and greens. Green is the most commonly found color in the marine spectrum, yellow the second most, orange the third, and red is the rarest. Fluorescence can occur in organisms in the aphotic zone as a byproduct of that same organism's bioluminescence. Some fluorescence in the aphotic zone is merely a byproduct of the organism's tissue biochemistry and does not have a functional purpose. However, some cases of functional and adaptive significance of fluorescence in the aphotic zone of the deep ocean is an active area of research.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Bony fishes living in shallow water generally have good color vision due to their living in a colorful environment. Thus, in shallow-water fishes, red, orange, and green fluorescence most likely serves as a means of communication with conspecifics, especially given the great phenotypic variance of the phenomenon.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Many fish that exhibit fluorescence, such as sharks, lizardfish, scorpionfish, wrasses, and flatfishes, also possess yellow intraocular filters. Yellow intraocular filters in the lenses and cornea of certain fishes function as long-pass filters. These filters enable the species to visualize and potentially exploit fluorescence, in order to enhance visual contrast and patterns that are unseen to other fishes and predators that lack this visual specialization. Fish that possess the necessary yellow intraocular filters for visualizing fluorescence potentially exploit a light signal from members of it. Fluorescent patterning was especially prominent in cryptically patterned fishes possessing complex camouflage. Many of these lineages also possess yellow long-pass intraocular filters that could enable visualization of such patterns.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Another adaptive use of fluorescence is to generate orange and red light from the ambient blue light of the photic zone to aid vision. Red light can only be seen across short distances due to attenuation of red light wavelengths by water. Many fish species that fluoresce are small, group-living, or benthic/aphotic, and have conspicuous patterning. This patterning is caused by fluorescent tissue and is visible to other members of the species, however the patterning is invisible at other visual spectra. These intraspecific fluorescent patterns also coincide with intra-species signaling. The patterns present in ocular rings to indicate directionality of an individual's gaze, and along fins to indicate directionality of an individual's movement. Current research suspects that this red fluorescence is used for private communication between members of the same species. Due to the prominence of blue light at ocean depths, red light and light of longer wavelengths are muddled, and many predatory reef fish have little to no sensitivity for light at these wavelengths. Fish such as the fairy wrasse that have developed visual sensitivity to longer wavelengths are able to display red fluorescent signals that give a high contrast to the blue environment and are conspicuous to conspecifics in short ranges, yet are relatively invisible to other common fish that have reduced sensitivities to long wavelengths. Thus, fluorescence can be used as adaptive signaling and intra-species communication in reef fish.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Additionally, it is suggested that fluorescent tissues that surround an organism's eyes are used to convert blue light from the photic zone or green bioluminescence in the aphotic zone into red light to aid vision.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "A new fluorophore was described in two species of sharks, wherein it was due to an undescribed group of brominated tryptophane-kynurenine small molecule metabolites.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Fluorescence serves a wide variety of functions in coral. Fluorescent proteins in corals may contribute to photosynthesis by converting otherwise unusable wavelengths of light into ones for which the coral's symbiotic algae are able to conduct photosynthesis. Also, the proteins may fluctuate in number as more or less light becomes available as a means of photoacclimation. Similarly, these fluorescent proteins may possess antioxidant capacities to eliminate oxygen radicals produced by photosynthesis. Finally, through modulating photosynthesis, the fluorescent proteins may also serve as a means of regulating the activity of the coral's photosynthetic algal symbionts.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Alloteuthis subulata and Loligo vulgaris, two types of nearly transparent squid, have fluorescent spots above their eyes. These spots reflect incident light, which may serve as a means of camouflage, but also for signaling to other squids for schooling purposes.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Another, well-studied example of fluorescence in the ocean is the hydrozoan Aequorea victoria. This jellyfish lives in the photic zone off the west coast of North America and was identified as a carrier of green fluorescent protein (GFP) by Osamu Shimomura. The gene for these green fluorescent proteins has been isolated and is scientifically significant because it is widely used in genetic studies to indicate the expression of other genes.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Several species of mantis shrimp, which are stomatopod crustaceans, including Lysiosquillina glabriuscula, have yellow fluorescent markings along their antennal scales and carapace (shell) that males present during threat displays to predators and other males. The display involves raising the head and thorax, spreading the striking appendages and other maxillipeds, and extending the prominent, oval antennal scales laterally, which makes the animal appear larger and accentuates its yellow fluorescent markings. Furthermore, as depth increases, mantis shrimp fluorescence accounts for a greater part of the visible light available. During mating rituals, mantis shrimp actively fluoresce, and the wavelength of this fluorescence matches the wavelengths detected by their eye pigments.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Siphonophorae is an order of marine animals from the phylum Hydrozoa that consist of a specialized medusoid and polyp zooid. Some siphonophores, including the genus Erenna that live in the aphotic zone between depths of 1600 m and 2300 m, exhibit yellow to red fluorescence in the photophores of their tentacle-like tentilla. This fluorescence occurs as a by-product of bioluminescence from these same photophores. The siphonophores exhibit the fluorescence in a flicking pattern that is used as a lure to attract prey.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The predatory deep-sea dragonfish Malacosteus niger, the closely related genus Aristostomias and the species Pachystomias microdon use fluorescent red accessory pigments to convert the blue light emitted from their own bioluminescence to red light from suborbital photophores. This red luminescence is invisible to other animals, which allows these dragonfish extra light at dark ocean depths without attracting or signaling predators.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Fluorescence is widespread among amphibians and has been documented in several families of frogs, salamanders and caecilians, but the extent of it varies greatly.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The polka-dot tree frog (Hypsiboas punctatus), widely found in South America, was unintentionally discovered to be the first fluorescent amphibian in 2017. The fluorescence was traced to a new compound found in the lymph and skin glands. The main fluorescent compound is Hyloin-L1 and it gives a blue-green glow when exposed to violet or ultraviolet light. The scientists behind the discovery suggested that the fluorescence can be used for communication. They speculated that fluorescence possibly is relatively widespread among frogs. Only a few months later, fluorescence was discovered in the closely related Hypsiboas atlanticus. Because it is linked to secretions from skin glands, they can also leave fluorescent markings on surfaces where they have been.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In 2019, two other frogs, the tiny pumpkin toadlet (Brachycephalus ephippium) and red pumpkin toadlet (B. pitanga) of southeastern Brazil, were found to have naturally fluorescent skeletons, which are visible through their skin when exposed to ultraviolet light. It was initially speculated that the fluorescence supplemented their already aposematic colours (they are toxic) or that it was related to mate choice (species recognition or determining fitness of a potential partner), but later studies indicate that the former explanation is unlikely, as predation attempts on the toadlets appear to be unaffected by the presence/absence of fluorescence.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "In 2020 it was confirmed that green or yellow fluorescence is widespread not only in adult frogs that are exposed to blue or ultraviolet light, but also among tadpoles, salamanders and caecilians. The extent varies greatly depending on species; in some it is highly distinct and in others it is barely noticeable. It can be based on their skin pigmentation, their mucous or their bones.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Swallowtail (Papilio) butterflies have complex systems for emitting fluorescent light. Their wings contain pigment-infused crystals that provide directed fluorescent light. These crystals function to produce fluorescent light best when they absorb radiance from sky-blue light (wavelength about 420 nm). The wavelengths of light that the butterflies see the best correspond to the absorbance of the crystals in the butterfly's wings. This likely functions to enhance the capacity for signaling.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Parrots have fluorescent plumage that may be used in mate signaling. A study using mate-choice experiments on budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulates) found compelling support for fluorescent sexual signaling, with both males and females significantly preferring birds with the fluorescent experimental stimulus. This study suggests that the fluorescent plumage of parrots is not simply a by-product of pigmentation, but instead an adapted sexual signal. Considering the intricacies of the pathways that produce fluorescent pigments, there may be significant costs involved. Therefore, individuals exhibiting strong fluorescence may be honest indicators of high individual quality, since they can deal with the associated costs.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Spiders fluoresce under UV light and possess a huge diversity of fluorophores. Andrews, Reed, & Masta noted that spiders are the only known group in which fluorescence is \"taxonomically widespread, variably expressed, evolutionarily labile, and probably under selection and potentially of ecological importance for intraspecific and interspecific signaling\". They showed that fluorescence evolved multiple times across spider taxa, with novel fluorophores evolving during spider diversification.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "In some spiders, ultraviolet cues are important for predator-prey interactions, intraspecific communication, and camouflage-matching with fluorescent flowers. Differing ecological contexts could favor inhibition or enhancement of fluorescence expression, depending upon whether fluorescence helps spiders be cryptic or makes them more conspicuous to predators. Therefore, natural selection could be acting on expression of fluorescence across spider species.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Scorpions are also fluorescent, in their case due to the presence of beta carboline in their cuticles.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "In 2020 fluorescence was reported for several platypus specimens.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Many plants are fluorescent due to the presence of chlorophyll, which is probably the most widely distributed fluorescent molecule, producing red emission under a range of excitation wavelengths. This attribute of chlorophyll is commonly used by ecologists to measure photosynthetic efficiency.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The Mirabilis jalapa flower contains violet, fluorescent betacyanins and yellow, fluorescent betaxanthins. Under white light, parts of the flower containing only betaxanthins appear yellow, but in areas where both betaxanthins and betacyanins are present, the visible fluorescence of the flower is faded due to internal light-filtering mechanisms. Fluorescence was previously suggested to play a role in pollinator attraction, however, it was later found that the visual signal by fluorescence is negligible compared to the visual signal of light reflected by the flower.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Gemstones and minerals may have a distinctive fluorescence or may fluoresce differently under short-wave ultraviolet, long-wave ultraviolet, visible light, or X-rays.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Many types of calcite and amber will fluoresce under shortwave UV, longwave UV and visible light. Rubies, emeralds, and diamonds exhibit red fluorescence under long-wave UV, blue and sometimes green light; diamonds also emit light under X-ray radiation.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Fluorescence in minerals is caused by a wide range of activators. In some cases, the concentration of the activator must be restricted to below a certain level, to prevent quenching of the fluorescent emission. Furthermore, the mineral must be free of impurities such as iron or copper, to prevent quenching of possible fluorescence. Divalent manganese, in concentrations of up to several percent, is responsible for the red or orange fluorescence of calcite, the green fluorescence of willemite, the yellow fluorescence of esperite, and the orange fluorescence of wollastonite and clinohedrite. Hexavalent uranium, in the form of the uranyl cation (UO2), fluoresces at all concentrations in a yellow green, and is the cause of fluorescence of minerals such as autunite or andersonite, and, at low concentration, is the cause of the fluorescence of such materials as some samples of hyalite opal. Trivalent chromium at low concentration is the source of the red fluorescence of ruby. Divalent europium is the source of the blue fluorescence, when seen in the mineral fluorite. Trivalent lanthanides such as terbium and dysprosium are the principal activators of the creamy yellow fluorescence exhibited by the yttrofluorite variety of the mineral fluorite, and contribute to the orange fluorescence of zircon. Powellite (calcium molybdate) and scheelite (calcium tungstate) fluoresce intrinsically in yellow and blue, respectively. When present together in solid solution, energy is transferred from the higher-energy tungsten to the lower-energy molybdenum, such that fairly low levels of molybdenum are sufficient to cause a yellow emission for scheelite, instead of blue. Low-iron sphalerite (zinc sulfide), fluoresces and phosphoresces in a range of colors, influenced by the presence of various trace impurities.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Crude oil (petroleum) fluoresces in a range of colors, from dull-brown for heavy oils and tars through to bright-yellowish and bluish-white for very light oils and condensates. This phenomenon is used in oil exploration drilling to identify very small amounts of oil in drill cuttings and core samples.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Humic acids and fulvic acids produced by the degradation of organic matter in soils (humus) may also fluoresce because of the presence of aromatic cycles in their complex molecular structures. Humic substances dissolved in groundwater can be detected and characterized by spectrofluorimetry.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Organic (carbon based) solutions such anthracene or stilbene, dissolved in benzene or toluene, fluoresce with ultraviolet or gamma ray irradiation. The decay times of this fluorescence are on the order of nanoseconds, since the duration of the light depends on the lifetime of the excited states of the fluorescent material, in this case anthracene or stilbene.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Scintillation is defined a flash of light produced in a transparent material by the passage of a particle (an electron, an alpha particle, an ion, or a high-energy photon). Stilbene and derivatives are used in scintillation counters to detect such particles. Stilbene is also one of the gain mediums used in dye lasers.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Fluorescence is observed in the atmosphere when the air is under energetic electron bombardment. In cases such as the natural aurora, high-altitude nuclear explosions, and rocket-borne electron gun experiments, the molecules and ions formed have a fluorescent response to light.",
"title": "In nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "In August 2020 researchers reported the creation of the brightest fluorescent solid optical materials so far by enabling the transfer of properties of highly fluorescent dyes via spatial and electronic isolation of the dyes by mixing cationic dyes with anion-binding cyanostar macrocycles. According to a co-author these materials may have applications in areas such as solar energy harvesting, bioimaging, and lasers.",
"title": "In novel technology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "The common fluorescent lamp relies on fluorescence. Inside the glass tube is a partial vacuum and a small amount of mercury. An electric discharge in the tube causes the mercury atoms to emit mostly ultraviolet light. The tube is lined with a coating of a fluorescent material, called the phosphor, which absorbs ultraviolet light and re-emits visible light. Fluorescent lighting is more energy-efficient than incandescent lighting elements. However, the uneven spectrum of traditional fluorescent lamps may cause certain colors to appear different from when illuminated by incandescent light or daylight. The mercury vapor emission spectrum is dominated by a short-wave UV line at 254 nm (which provides most of the energy to the phosphors), accompanied by visible light emission at 436 nm (blue), 546 nm (green) and 579 nm (yellow-orange). These three lines can be observed superimposed on the white continuum using a hand spectroscope, for light emitted by the usual white fluorescent tubes. These same visible lines, accompanied by the emission lines of trivalent europium and trivalent terbium, and further accompanied by the emission continuum of divalent europium in the blue region, comprise the more discontinuous light emission of the modern trichromatic phosphor systems used in many compact fluorescent lamp and traditional lamps where better color rendition is a goal.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Fluorescent lights were first available to the public at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Improvements since then have largely been better phosphors, longer life, and more consistent internal discharge, and easier-to-use shapes (such as compact fluorescent lamps). Some high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps couple their even-greater electrical efficiency with phosphor enhancement for better color rendition.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "White light-emitting diodes (LEDs) became available in the mid-1990s as LED lamps, in which blue light emitted from the semiconductor strikes phosphors deposited on the tiny chip. The combination of the blue light that continues through the phosphor and the green to red fluorescence from the phosphors produces a net emission of white light.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Glow sticks sometimes utilize fluorescent materials to absorb light from the chemiluminescent reaction and emit light of a different color.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Many analytical procedures involve the use of a fluorometer, usually with a single exciting wavelength and single detection wavelength. Because of the sensitivity that the method affords, fluorescent molecule concentrations as low as 1 part per trillion can be measured.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Fluorescence in several wavelengths can be detected by an array detector, to detect compounds from HPLC flow. Also, TLC plates can be visualized if the compounds or a coloring reagent is fluorescent. Fluorescence is most effective when there is a larger ratio of atoms at lower energy levels in a Boltzmann distribution. There is, then, a higher probability of excitement and release of photons by lower-energy atoms, making analysis more efficient.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Usually the setup of a fluorescence assay involves a light source, which may emit many different wavelengths of light. In general, a single wavelength is required for proper analysis, so, in order to selectively filter the light, it is passed through an excitation monochromator, and then that chosen wavelength is passed through the sample cell. After absorption and re-emission of the energy, many wavelengths may emerge due to Stokes shift and various electron transitions. To separate and analyze them, the fluorescent radiation is passed through an emission monochromator, and observed selectively by a detector.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Lasers most often use the fluorescence of certain materials as their active media, such as the red glow produced by a ruby (chromium sapphire), the infrared of titanium sapphire, or the unlimited range of colors produced by organic dyes. These materials normally fluoresce through a process called spontaneous emission, in which the light is emitted in all directions and often at many discrete spectral lines all at once. In many lasers, the fluorescent medium is \"pumped\" by exposing it to an intense light source, creating a population inversion, meaning that more of its atoms become in an excited state (high energy) rather than at ground state (low energy). When this occurs, the spontaneous fluorescence can then induce the other atoms to emit their photons in the same direction and at the same wavelength, creating stimulated emission. When a portion of the spontaneous fluorescence is trapped between two mirrors, nearly all of the medium's fluorescence can be stimulated to emit along the same line, producing a laser beam.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Fluorescence in the life sciences is used generally as a non-destructive way of tracking or analysis of biological molecules by means of the fluorescent emission at a specific frequency where there is no background from the excitation light, as relatively few cellular components are naturally fluorescent (called intrinsic or autofluorescence). In fact, a protein or other component can be \"labelled\" with an extrinsic fluorophore, a fluorescent dye that can be a small molecule, protein, or quantum dot, finding a large use in many biological applications.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "The quantification of a dye is done with a spectrofluorometer and finds additional applications in:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Fingerprints can be visualized with fluorescent compounds such as ninhydrin or DFO (1,8-Diazafluoren-9-one). Blood and other substances are sometimes detected by fluorescent reagents, like fluorescein. Fibers, and other materials that may be encountered in forensics or with a relationship to various collectibles, are sometimes fluorescent.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "Fluorescent penetrant inspection is used to find cracks and other defects on the surface of a part. Dye tracing, using fluorescent dyes, is used to find leaks in liquid and gas plumbing systems.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Fluorescent colors are frequently used in signage, particularly road signs. Fluorescent colors are generally recognizable at longer ranges than their non-fluorescent counterparts, with fluorescent orange being particularly noticeable. This property has led to its frequent use in safety signs and labels.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "Fluorescent compounds are often used to enhance the appearance of fabric and paper, causing a \"whitening\" effect. A white surface treated with an optical brightener can emit more visible light than that which shines on it, making it appear brighter. The blue light emitted by the brightener compensates for the diminishing blue of the treated material and changes the hue away from yellow or brown and toward white. Optical brighteners are used in laundry detergents, high brightness paper, cosmetics, high-visibility clothing and more.",
"title": "Applications"
}
] |
Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, than the absorbed radiation. A perceptible example of fluorescence occurs when the absorbed radiation is in the ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum, while the emitted light is in the visible region; this gives the fluorescent substance a distinct color that can only be seen when the substance has been exposed to UV light. Fluorescent materials cease to glow nearly immediately when the radiation source stops, unlike phosphorescent materials, which continue to emit light for some time after. Fluorescence has many practical applications, including mineralogy, gemology, medicine, chemical sensors, fluorescent labelling, dyes, biological detectors, cosmic-ray detection, vacuum fluorescent displays, and cathode-ray tubes. Its most common everyday application is in (gas-discharge) fluorescent lamps and LED lamps, in which fluorescent coatings convert UV or blue light into longer-wavelengths resulting in white light which can even appear indistinguishable from that of the traditional but energy- inefficient incandescent lamp. Fluorescence also occurs frequently in nature in some minerals and in many biological forms across all kingdoms of life. The latter may be referred to as biofluorescence, indicating that the fluorophore is part of or is extracted from a living organism. But since fluorescence is due to a specific chemical, which can also be synthesized artificially in most cases, it is sufficient to describe the substance itself as fluorescent.
|
2001-11-26T13:08:32Z
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2023-12-25T04:52:03Z
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescence
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11,556 |
Fundamental theorem of arithmetic
|
In mathematics, the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, also called the unique factorization theorem and prime factorization theorem, states that every integer greater than 1 can be represented uniquely as a product of prime numbers, up to the order of the factors. For example,
The theorem says two things about this example: first, that 1200 can be represented as a product of primes, and second, that no matter how this is done, there will always be exactly four 2s, one 3, two 5s, and no other primes in the product.
The requirement that the factors be prime is necessary: factorizations containing composite numbers may not be unique (for example, 12 = 2 ⋅ 6 = 3 ⋅ 4 {\displaystyle 12=2\cdot 6=3\cdot 4} ).
This theorem is one of the main reasons why 1 is not considered a prime number: if 1 were prime, then factorization into primes would not be unique; for example, 2 = 2 ⋅ 1 = 2 ⋅ 1 ⋅ 1 = … {\displaystyle 2=2\cdot 1=2\cdot 1\cdot 1=\ldots }
The theorem generalizes to other algebraic structures that are called unique factorization domains and include principal ideal domains, Euclidean domains, and polynomial rings over a field. However, the theorem does not hold for algebraic integers. This failure of unique factorization is one of the reasons for the difficulty of the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. The implicit use of unique factorization in rings of algebraic integers is behind the error of many of the numerous false proofs that have been written during the 358 years between Fermat's statement and Wiles's proof.
The fundamental theorem can be derived from Book VII, propositions 30, 31 and 32, and Book IX, proposition 14 of Euclid's Elements.
If two numbers by multiplying one another make some number, and any prime number measure the product, it will also measure one of the original numbers.
(In modern terminology: if a prime p divides the product ab, then p divides either a or b or both.) Proposition 30 is referred to as Euclid's lemma, and it is the key in the proof of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic.
Any composite number is measured by some prime number.
(In modern terminology: every integer greater than one is divided evenly by some prime number.) Proposition 31 is proved directly by infinite descent.
Any number either is prime or is measured by some prime number.
Proposition 32 is derived from proposition 31, and proves that the decomposition is possible.
If a number be the least that is measured by prime numbers, it will not be measured by any other prime number except those originally measuring it.
(In modern terminology: a least common multiple of several prime numbers is not a multiple of any other prime number.) Book IX, proposition 14 is derived from Book VII, proposition 30, and proves partially that the decomposition is unique – a point critically noted by André Weil. Indeed, in this proposition the exponents are all equal to one, so nothing is said for the general case.
While Euclid took the first step on the way to the existence of prime factorization, Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī took the final step and stated for the first time the fundamental theorem of arithmetic.
Article 16 of Gauss' Disquisitiones Arithmeticae is an early modern statement and proof employing modular arithmetic.
Every positive integer n > 1 can be represented in exactly one way as a product of prime powers
where p1 < p2 < ... < pk are primes and the ni are positive integers. This representation is commonly extended to all positive integers, including 1, by the convention that the empty product is equal to 1 (the empty product corresponds to k = 0).
This representation is called the canonical representation of n, or the standard form of n. For example,
Factors p = 1 may be inserted without changing the value of n (for example, 1000 = 2×3×5). In fact, any positive integer can be uniquely represented as an infinite product taken over all the positive prime numbers, as
where a finite number of the ni are positive integers, and the others are zero.
Allowing negative exponents provides a canonical form for positive rational numbers.
The canonical representations of the product, greatest common divisor (GCD), and least common multiple (LCM) of two numbers a and b can be expressed simply in terms of the canonical representations of a and b themselves:
However, integer factorization, especially of large numbers, is much more difficult than computing products, GCDs, or LCMs. So these formulas have limited use in practice.
Many arithmetic functions are defined using the canonical representation. In particular, the values of additive and multiplicative functions are determined by their values on the powers of prime numbers.
The proof uses Euclid's lemma (Elements VII, 30): If a prime divides the product of two integers, then it must divide at least one of these integers.
It must be shown that every integer greater than 1 is either prime or a product of primes. First, 2 is prime. Then, by strong induction, assume this is true for all numbers greater than 1 and less than n. If n is prime, there is nothing more to prove. Otherwise, there are integers a and b, where n = a b, and 1 < a ≤ b < n. By the induction hypothesis, a = p1 p2 ⋅⋅⋅ pj and b = q1 q2 ⋅⋅⋅ qk are products of primes. But then n = a b = p1 p2 ⋅⋅⋅ pj q1 q2 ⋅⋅⋅ qk is a product of primes.
Suppose, to the contrary, there is an integer that has two distinct prime factorizations. Let n be the least such integer and write n = p1 p2 ... pj = q1 q2 ... qk, where each pi and qi is prime. We see that p1 divides q1 q2 ... qk, so p1 divides some qi by Euclid's lemma. Without loss of generality, say p1 divides q1. Since p1 and q1 are both prime, it follows that p1 = q1. Returning to our factorizations of n, we may cancel these two factors to conclude that p2 ... pj = q2 ... qk. We now have two distinct prime factorizations of some integer strictly smaller than n, which contradicts the minimality of n.
The fundamental theorem of arithmetic can also be proved without using Euclid's lemma. The proof that follows is inspired by Euclid's original version of the Euclidean algorithm.
Assume that s {\displaystyle s} is the smallest positive integer which is the product of prime numbers in two different ways. Incidentally, this implies that s {\displaystyle s} , if it exists, must be a composite number greater than 1 {\displaystyle 1} . Now, say
Every p i {\displaystyle p_{i}} must be distinct from every q j . {\displaystyle q_{j}.} Otherwise, if say p i = q j , {\displaystyle p_{i}=q_{j},} then there would exist some positive integer t = s / p i = s / q j {\displaystyle t=s/p_{i}=s/q_{j}} that is smaller than s and has two distinct prime factorizations. One may also suppose that p 1 < q 1 , {\displaystyle p_{1}<q_{1},} by exchanging the two factorizations, if needed.
Setting P = p 2 ⋯ p m {\displaystyle P=p_{2}\cdots p_{m}} and Q = q 2 ⋯ q n , {\displaystyle Q=q_{2}\cdots q_{n},} one has s = p 1 P = q 1 Q . {\displaystyle s=p_{1}P=q_{1}Q.} Also, since p 1 < q 1 , {\displaystyle p_{1}<q_{1},} one has Q < P . {\displaystyle Q<P.} It then follows that
As the positive integers less than s have been supposed to have a unique prime factorization, p 1 {\displaystyle p_{1}} must occur in the factorization of either q 1 − p 1 {\displaystyle q_{1}-p_{1}} or Q. The latter case is impossible, as Q, being smaller than s, must have a unique prime factorization, and p 1 {\displaystyle p_{1}} differs from every q j . {\displaystyle q_{j}.} The former case is also impossible, as, if p 1 {\displaystyle p_{1}} is a divisor of q 1 − p 1 , {\displaystyle q_{1}-p_{1},} it must be also a divisor of q 1 , {\displaystyle q_{1},} which is impossible as p 1 {\displaystyle p_{1}} and q 1 {\displaystyle q_{1}} are distinct primes.
Therefore, there cannot exist a smallest integer with more than a single distinct prime factorization. Every positive integer must either be a prime number itself, which would factor uniquely, or a composite that also factors uniquely into primes, or in the case of the integer 1 {\displaystyle 1} , not factor into any prime.
The first generalization of the theorem is found in Gauss's second monograph (1832) on biquadratic reciprocity. This paper introduced what is now called the ring of Gaussian integers, the set of all complex numbers a + bi where a and b are integers. It is now denoted by Z [ i ] . {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} [i].} He showed that this ring has the four units ±1 and ±i, that the non-zero, non-unit numbers fall into two classes, primes and composites, and that (except for order), the composites have unique factorization as a product of primes (up to the order and multiplication by units).
Similarly, in 1844 while working on cubic reciprocity, Eisenstein introduced the ring Z [ ω ] {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} [\omega ]} , where ω = − 1 + − 3 2 , {\textstyle \omega ={\frac {-1+{\sqrt {-3}}}{2}},} ω 3 = 1 {\displaystyle \omega ^{3}=1} is a cube root of unity. This is the ring of Eisenstein integers, and he proved it has the six units ± 1 , ± ω , ± ω 2 {\displaystyle \pm 1,\pm \omega ,\pm \omega ^{2}} and that it has unique factorization.
However, it was also discovered that unique factorization does not always hold. An example is given by Z [ − 5 ] {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} [{\sqrt {-5}}]} . In this ring one has
Examples like this caused the notion of "prime" to be modified. In Z [ − 5 ] {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} \left[{\sqrt {-5}}\right]} it can be proven that if any of the factors above can be represented as a product, for example, 2 = ab, then one of a or b must be a unit. This is the traditional definition of "prime". It can also be proven that none of these factors obeys Euclid's lemma; for example, 2 divides neither (1 + √−5) nor (1 − √−5) even though it divides their product 6. In algebraic number theory 2 is called irreducible in Z [ − 5 ] {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} \left[{\sqrt {-5}}\right]} (only divisible by itself or a unit) but not prime in Z [ − 5 ] {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} \left[{\sqrt {-5}}\right]} (if it divides a product it must divide one of the factors). The mention of Z [ − 5 ] {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} \left[{\sqrt {-5}}\right]} is required because 2 is prime and irreducible in Z . {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} .} Using these definitions it can be proven that in any integral domain a prime must be irreducible. Euclid's classical lemma can be rephrased as "in the ring of integers Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} } every irreducible is prime". This is also true in Z [ i ] {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} [i]} and Z [ ω ] , {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} [\omega ],} but not in Z [ − 5 ] . {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} [{\sqrt {-5}}].}
The rings in which factorization into irreducibles is essentially unique are called unique factorization domains. Important examples are polynomial rings over the integers or over a field, Euclidean domains and principal ideal domains.
In 1843 Kummer introduced the concept of ideal number, which was developed further by Dedekind (1876) into the modern theory of ideals, special subsets of rings. Multiplication is defined for ideals, and the rings in which they have unique factorization are called Dedekind domains.
There is a version of unique factorization for ordinals, though it requires some additional conditions to ensure uniqueness.
The Disquisitiones Arithmeticae has been translated from Latin into English and German. The German edition includes all of his papers on number theory: all the proofs of quadratic reciprocity, the determination of the sign of the Gauss sum, the investigations into biquadratic reciprocity, and unpublished notes.
The two monographs Gauss published on biquadratic reciprocity have consecutively numbered sections: the first contains §§ 1–23 and the second §§ 24–76. Footnotes referencing these are of the form "Gauss, BQ, § n". Footnotes referencing the Disquisitiones Arithmeticae are of the form "Gauss, DA, Art. n".
These are in Gauss's Werke, Vol II, pp. 65–92 and 93–148; German translations are pp. 511–533 and 534–586 of the German edition of the Disquisitiones.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In mathematics, the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, also called the unique factorization theorem and prime factorization theorem, states that every integer greater than 1 can be represented uniquely as a product of prime numbers, up to the order of the factors. For example,",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The theorem says two things about this example: first, that 1200 can be represented as a product of primes, and second, that no matter how this is done, there will always be exactly four 2s, one 3, two 5s, and no other primes in the product.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The requirement that the factors be prime is necessary: factorizations containing composite numbers may not be unique (for example, 12 = 2 ⋅ 6 = 3 ⋅ 4 {\\displaystyle 12=2\\cdot 6=3\\cdot 4} ).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "This theorem is one of the main reasons why 1 is not considered a prime number: if 1 were prime, then factorization into primes would not be unique; for example, 2 = 2 ⋅ 1 = 2 ⋅ 1 ⋅ 1 = … {\\displaystyle 2=2\\cdot 1=2\\cdot 1\\cdot 1=\\ldots }",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The theorem generalizes to other algebraic structures that are called unique factorization domains and include principal ideal domains, Euclidean domains, and polynomial rings over a field. However, the theorem does not hold for algebraic integers. This failure of unique factorization is one of the reasons for the difficulty of the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. The implicit use of unique factorization in rings of algebraic integers is behind the error of many of the numerous false proofs that have been written during the 358 years between Fermat's statement and Wiles's proof.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The fundamental theorem can be derived from Book VII, propositions 30, 31 and 32, and Book IX, proposition 14 of Euclid's Elements.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "If two numbers by multiplying one another make some number, and any prime number measure the product, it will also measure one of the original numbers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "(In modern terminology: if a prime p divides the product ab, then p divides either a or b or both.) Proposition 30 is referred to as Euclid's lemma, and it is the key in the proof of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Any composite number is measured by some prime number.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "(In modern terminology: every integer greater than one is divided evenly by some prime number.) Proposition 31 is proved directly by infinite descent.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Any number either is prime or is measured by some prime number.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Proposition 32 is derived from proposition 31, and proves that the decomposition is possible.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "If a number be the least that is measured by prime numbers, it will not be measured by any other prime number except those originally measuring it.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "(In modern terminology: a least common multiple of several prime numbers is not a multiple of any other prime number.) Book IX, proposition 14 is derived from Book VII, proposition 30, and proves partially that the decomposition is unique – a point critically noted by André Weil. Indeed, in this proposition the exponents are all equal to one, so nothing is said for the general case.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "While Euclid took the first step on the way to the existence of prime factorization, Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī took the final step and stated for the first time the fundamental theorem of arithmetic.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Article 16 of Gauss' Disquisitiones Arithmeticae is an early modern statement and proof employing modular arithmetic.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Every positive integer n > 1 can be represented in exactly one way as a product of prime powers",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "where p1 < p2 < ... < pk are primes and the ni are positive integers. This representation is commonly extended to all positive integers, including 1, by the convention that the empty product is equal to 1 (the empty product corresponds to k = 0).",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "This representation is called the canonical representation of n, or the standard form of n. For example,",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Factors p = 1 may be inserted without changing the value of n (for example, 1000 = 2×3×5). In fact, any positive integer can be uniquely represented as an infinite product taken over all the positive prime numbers, as",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "where a finite number of the ni are positive integers, and the others are zero.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Allowing negative exponents provides a canonical form for positive rational numbers.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The canonical representations of the product, greatest common divisor (GCD), and least common multiple (LCM) of two numbers a and b can be expressed simply in terms of the canonical representations of a and b themselves:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "However, integer factorization, especially of large numbers, is much more difficult than computing products, GCDs, or LCMs. So these formulas have limited use in practice.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Many arithmetic functions are defined using the canonical representation. In particular, the values of additive and multiplicative functions are determined by their values on the powers of prime numbers.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The proof uses Euclid's lemma (Elements VII, 30): If a prime divides the product of two integers, then it must divide at least one of these integers.",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "It must be shown that every integer greater than 1 is either prime or a product of primes. First, 2 is prime. Then, by strong induction, assume this is true for all numbers greater than 1 and less than n. If n is prime, there is nothing more to prove. Otherwise, there are integers a and b, where n = a b, and 1 < a ≤ b < n. By the induction hypothesis, a = p1 p2 ⋅⋅⋅ pj and b = q1 q2 ⋅⋅⋅ qk are products of primes. But then n = a b = p1 p2 ⋅⋅⋅ pj q1 q2 ⋅⋅⋅ qk is a product of primes.",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Suppose, to the contrary, there is an integer that has two distinct prime factorizations. Let n be the least such integer and write n = p1 p2 ... pj = q1 q2 ... qk, where each pi and qi is prime. We see that p1 divides q1 q2 ... qk, so p1 divides some qi by Euclid's lemma. Without loss of generality, say p1 divides q1. Since p1 and q1 are both prime, it follows that p1 = q1. Returning to our factorizations of n, we may cancel these two factors to conclude that p2 ... pj = q2 ... qk. We now have two distinct prime factorizations of some integer strictly smaller than n, which contradicts the minimality of n.",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The fundamental theorem of arithmetic can also be proved without using Euclid's lemma. The proof that follows is inspired by Euclid's original version of the Euclidean algorithm.",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Assume that s {\\displaystyle s} is the smallest positive integer which is the product of prime numbers in two different ways. Incidentally, this implies that s {\\displaystyle s} , if it exists, must be a composite number greater than 1 {\\displaystyle 1} . Now, say",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Every p i {\\displaystyle p_{i}} must be distinct from every q j . {\\displaystyle q_{j}.} Otherwise, if say p i = q j , {\\displaystyle p_{i}=q_{j},} then there would exist some positive integer t = s / p i = s / q j {\\displaystyle t=s/p_{i}=s/q_{j}} that is smaller than s and has two distinct prime factorizations. One may also suppose that p 1 < q 1 , {\\displaystyle p_{1}<q_{1},} by exchanging the two factorizations, if needed.",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Setting P = p 2 ⋯ p m {\\displaystyle P=p_{2}\\cdots p_{m}} and Q = q 2 ⋯ q n , {\\displaystyle Q=q_{2}\\cdots q_{n},} one has s = p 1 P = q 1 Q . {\\displaystyle s=p_{1}P=q_{1}Q.} Also, since p 1 < q 1 , {\\displaystyle p_{1}<q_{1},} one has Q < P . {\\displaystyle Q<P.} It then follows that",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "As the positive integers less than s have been supposed to have a unique prime factorization, p 1 {\\displaystyle p_{1}} must occur in the factorization of either q 1 − p 1 {\\displaystyle q_{1}-p_{1}} or Q. The latter case is impossible, as Q, being smaller than s, must have a unique prime factorization, and p 1 {\\displaystyle p_{1}} differs from every q j . {\\displaystyle q_{j}.} The former case is also impossible, as, if p 1 {\\displaystyle p_{1}} is a divisor of q 1 − p 1 , {\\displaystyle q_{1}-p_{1},} it must be also a divisor of q 1 , {\\displaystyle q_{1},} which is impossible as p 1 {\\displaystyle p_{1}} and q 1 {\\displaystyle q_{1}} are distinct primes.",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Therefore, there cannot exist a smallest integer with more than a single distinct prime factorization. Every positive integer must either be a prime number itself, which would factor uniquely, or a composite that also factors uniquely into primes, or in the case of the integer 1 {\\displaystyle 1} , not factor into any prime.",
"title": "Proof"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The first generalization of the theorem is found in Gauss's second monograph (1832) on biquadratic reciprocity. This paper introduced what is now called the ring of Gaussian integers, the set of all complex numbers a + bi where a and b are integers. It is now denoted by Z [ i ] . {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} [i].} He showed that this ring has the four units ±1 and ±i, that the non-zero, non-unit numbers fall into two classes, primes and composites, and that (except for order), the composites have unique factorization as a product of primes (up to the order and multiplication by units).",
"title": "Generalizations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Similarly, in 1844 while working on cubic reciprocity, Eisenstein introduced the ring Z [ ω ] {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} [\\omega ]} , where ω = − 1 + − 3 2 , {\\textstyle \\omega ={\\frac {-1+{\\sqrt {-3}}}{2}},} ω 3 = 1 {\\displaystyle \\omega ^{3}=1} is a cube root of unity. This is the ring of Eisenstein integers, and he proved it has the six units ± 1 , ± ω , ± ω 2 {\\displaystyle \\pm 1,\\pm \\omega ,\\pm \\omega ^{2}} and that it has unique factorization.",
"title": "Generalizations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "However, it was also discovered that unique factorization does not always hold. An example is given by Z [ − 5 ] {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} [{\\sqrt {-5}}]} . In this ring one has",
"title": "Generalizations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Examples like this caused the notion of \"prime\" to be modified. In Z [ − 5 ] {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} \\left[{\\sqrt {-5}}\\right]} it can be proven that if any of the factors above can be represented as a product, for example, 2 = ab, then one of a or b must be a unit. This is the traditional definition of \"prime\". It can also be proven that none of these factors obeys Euclid's lemma; for example, 2 divides neither (1 + √−5) nor (1 − √−5) even though it divides their product 6. In algebraic number theory 2 is called irreducible in Z [ − 5 ] {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} \\left[{\\sqrt {-5}}\\right]} (only divisible by itself or a unit) but not prime in Z [ − 5 ] {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} \\left[{\\sqrt {-5}}\\right]} (if it divides a product it must divide one of the factors). The mention of Z [ − 5 ] {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} \\left[{\\sqrt {-5}}\\right]} is required because 2 is prime and irreducible in Z . {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} .} Using these definitions it can be proven that in any integral domain a prime must be irreducible. Euclid's classical lemma can be rephrased as \"in the ring of integers Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} } every irreducible is prime\". This is also true in Z [ i ] {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} [i]} and Z [ ω ] , {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} [\\omega ],} but not in Z [ − 5 ] . {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} [{\\sqrt {-5}}].}",
"title": "Generalizations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The rings in which factorization into irreducibles is essentially unique are called unique factorization domains. Important examples are polynomial rings over the integers or over a field, Euclidean domains and principal ideal domains.",
"title": "Generalizations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In 1843 Kummer introduced the concept of ideal number, which was developed further by Dedekind (1876) into the modern theory of ideals, special subsets of rings. Multiplication is defined for ideals, and the rings in which they have unique factorization are called Dedekind domains.",
"title": "Generalizations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "There is a version of unique factorization for ordinals, though it requires some additional conditions to ensure uniqueness.",
"title": "Generalizations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The Disquisitiones Arithmeticae has been translated from Latin into English and German. The German edition includes all of his papers on number theory: all the proofs of quadratic reciprocity, the determination of the sign of the Gauss sum, the investigations into biquadratic reciprocity, and unpublished notes.",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The two monographs Gauss published on biquadratic reciprocity have consecutively numbered sections: the first contains §§ 1–23 and the second §§ 24–76. Footnotes referencing these are of the form \"Gauss, BQ, § n\". Footnotes referencing the Disquisitiones Arithmeticae are of the form \"Gauss, DA, Art. n\".",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "These are in Gauss's Werke, Vol II, pp. 65–92 and 93–148; German translations are pp. 511–533 and 534–586 of the German edition of the Disquisitiones.",
"title": "References"
}
] |
In mathematics, the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, also called the unique factorization theorem and prime factorization theorem, states that every integer greater than 1 can be represented uniquely as a product of prime numbers, up to the order of the factors. For example, The theorem says two things about this example: first, that 1200 can be represented as a product of primes, and second, that no matter how this is done, there will always be exactly four 2s, one 3, two 5s, and no other primes in the product. The requirement that the factors be prime is necessary: factorizations containing composite numbers may not be unique (for example, 12 = 2 ⋅ 6 = 3 ⋅ 4 ). This theorem is one of the main reasons why 1 is not considered a prime number: if 1 were prime, then factorization into primes would not be unique; for example, 2 = 2 ⋅ 1 = 2 ⋅ 1 ⋅ 1 = … The theorem generalizes to other algebraic structures that are called unique factorization domains and include principal ideal domains, Euclidean domains, and polynomial rings over a field. However, the theorem does not hold for algebraic integers. This failure of unique factorization is one of the reasons for the difficulty of the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. The implicit use of unique factorization in rings of algebraic integers is behind the error of many of the numerous false proofs that have been written during the 358 years between Fermat's statement and Wiles's proof.
|
2001-11-26T14:51:53Z
|
2023-11-18T10:24:27Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_theorem_of_arithmetic
|
11,558 |
Flamenco
|
Flamenco (Spanish pronunciation: [flaˈmeŋko]) is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and Murcia. In a wider sense, the term is used to refer to a variety of both contemporary and traditional musical styles typical of southern Spain. Flamenco is closely associated to the gitanos of the Romani ethnicity who have contributed significantly to its origination and professionalization. However, its style is uniquely Andalusian and flamenco artists have historically included Spaniards of both gitano and non-gitano heritage.
The oldest record of flamenco music dates to 1774 in the book Las Cartas Marruecas (The Moroccan Letters) by José Cadalso. The development of flamenco over the past two centuries is well documented: "the theatre movement of sainetes (one-act plays) and tonadillas, popular song books and song sheets, customs, studies of dances, and toques, perfection, newspapers, graphic documents in paintings and engravings. ... in continuous evolution together with rhythm, the poetic stanzas, and the ambiance."
On 16 November 2010, UNESCO declared flamenco one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Historically, the term Flamenco was used to identify the Romani people (Gitanos) of Spain. The English traveller George Borrow who travelled through Spain during the 1830s stated that the Gitanos were also called Flemish (in Spanish, ‘flamenco’) due to German and Fleming being erroneously considered synonymous. According to flamencologist Cristina Cruces-Roldán, a year prior to Borrow’s account, there already existed a Gitano party in Madrid that was clearly identified as Flamenco. This equivalency between Gitano and Flamenco is also noted by Manuel Fernández y González, Demófilo, and the scholar Iriving Brown who stated in 1938 that “Flamenco is simply another term for Gitano, with special connotations.”
The origins of the term lie in the sociological prejudice towards the Roma who were seen as ruffians and cocky troublemakers by the Spaniards and were thus associated with the 18th century German colonists of the Sierra Morena who formed groups of urban Bohemians that lived outside the law and were seen as idle and lazy. Other less successful hypotheses include those of Felipe Pedrell and Carlos Alemendros who state that while the term Flamenco is Spanish for Flemish, it is actually synonymous with Cantador (professional singer) in reference to the group of Flemish singers brought by Spanish King Carlos I in 1516. Another hypothesis that is not widely accepted is the Arabist theory of Blas Infante, which presents Flamenco as a phonetic deformation of Arabic fellah-mengu (runaway laborer).
The first use of the term Flamenco to refer to the music genre appears in a 1847 newspaper article of El Espectador where it was referred to as a “Gitano genre.” In the early years of Flamenco, the term was versatile and was used to refer to a variety of concepts in the Gitano-Andalusian world. For example, in the 1860s-70s this versatility was exemplified through its use to refer to a musical style and a certain aesthetic, manners, and way of life that were perceived to be Gitano. At that time, Flamenco was not a strict genre but a way of performing music in a Gitano-Andalusian style.
There are hypotheses that point to the influence on flamenco of types of dance from the Indian subcontinent; the place of origin of the Romani people. The Indo-Pakistani scales of Flamenco were introduced to Andalusia by the Romani migrations from Northern India. These Roma migrants also brought tambourines and bells, and an extensive repertoire of songs and dances. Upon arrival to Andalusia in the 15th century, they were exposed to the rich Arab-Andalusian music culture, itself a hybrid of Spanish music tradition going back to the 8th century with the establishment of Al-Andalus, which brought in traditions and music from the Arabian peninsula, Northern Africa and Sephardic features. One of the instruments associated with Flamenco and Spanish folklore in different regions today, are the wooden castanets also believed to originate during the Al Andalus period.This centuries-long period of cultural intermingling, formed the roots of Flamenco song and dance genres.
It is believed that the flamenco genre emerged at the end of the 18th century in cities and agrarian towns of Baja Andalusia, highlighting Jerez de la Frontera as the first written vestige of this art, although there is practically no data related to those dates and the manifestations of this time are more typical of the bolero school than of flamenco. It appeared as a modern art form from the convergence of the urban subaltern groups, Gitano communities, and journeyman of Andalusia that formed the marginalized Flamenco artistic working class who established Flamenco as a singular art form, marked from the beginning by the Gitano brand. Andalusia was the origin and cradle of the early Flamenco cantaores and of the three or four dozen Gitano families who created and cultivated Flamenco.
During the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, a number of factors led to rise in Spain of a phenomenon known as "Costumbrismo Andaluz" or "Andalusian Mannerism".
In 1783 Carlos III promulgated a pragmatics that regulated the social situation of the Gitanos. This was a momentous event in the history of Spanish gitanos who, after centuries of marginalization and persecution, saw their legal situation improve substantially.
After the Spanish War of Independence (1808–1812), a feeling of racial pride developed in the Spanish conscience, in opposition to the "gallified" "Afrancesados" - Spaniards who were influenced by French culture and the idea of the enlightenment. In this context, gitanos were seen as an ideal embodiment of Spanish culture and the emergence of the bullfighting schools of Ronda and Seville, the rise of the Bandidos and Vaqueros led to a taste for Andalusian romantic culture which triumphed in the Madrid court.
At this time there is evidence of disagreements due to the introduction of innovations in art.
In 1881 Silverio Franconetti opened the first flamenco singer café in Seville. In Silverio's café the cantaores were in a very competitive environment, which allowed the emergence of the professional cantaor and served as a crucible where flamenco art was configured. Locals learned the cantes, while reinterpreting the Andalusian folk songs in their own style, expanding the repertoire. Likewise, the taste of the public contributed to configure the flamenco genre, unifying its technique and its theme.
Flamenquismo, defined by the Royal Spanish Academy as a "fondness for flamenco art and customs", is a conceptual catch-all where flamenco singing and a fondness for bullfighting, among other traditional Spanish elements, fit. These customs were strongly attacked by the generation of 98, all of its members being "anti-flamenco", with the exception of the Machado brothers, Manuel and Antonio. Being Sevillians and sons of the folklorist Demófilo Machado, the brothers had a more complex view of the matter. The greatest standard bearer of anti-flamenquism was the Madrid writer Eugenio Noel, who, in his youth, had been a militant casticista. Noel attributed to flamenco and bullfighting the origin of the ills of Spain which he saw as manifestations of the country's Oriental character which hindered economic and social development. These considerations caused an insurmountable rift to be established for decades between flamenco and most "intellectuals" of the time.
Between 1920 and 1955, flamenco shows began to be held in bullrings and theaters, under the name "flamenco opera". This denomination was an economic strategy of the promoters, since opera only paid 3% while variety shows paid 10%. At this time, flamenco shows spread throughout Spain and the main cities of the world. The great social and commercial success achieved by flamenco at this time eliminated some of the oldest and most sober styles from the stage, in favor of lighter airs, such as cantiñas, los cantes de ida y vuelta and fandangos, of which many personal versions were created. The purist critics attacked this lightness of the cantes, as well as the use of falsete and the gaitero style.
In the line of purism, the poet Federico García Lorca and the composer Manuel de Falla had the idea of concurso de cante jondo en Granada en 1922. Both artists conceived of flamenco as folklore, not as a scenic artistic genre; for this reason, they were concerned, since they believed that the massive triumph of flamenco would end its purest and deepest roots. To remedy this, they organized a cante jondo contest in which only amateurs could participate and in which festive cantes (such as cantiñas) were excluded, which Falla and Lorca did not consider jondos, but flamencos. The jury was chaired by Antonio Chacón, who at that time was the leading figure in cante. The winners were "El Tenazas", a retired professional cantaor from Morón de la Frontera, and Manuel Ortega, an eight-year-old boy from Seville who would go down in flamenco history as Manolo Caracol. The contest turned out to be a failure due to the scant echo it had and because Lorca and Falla did not know how to understand the professional character that flamenco already had at that time, striving in vain to seek a purity that never existed in an art that was characterized by mixture and the personal innovation of its creators. Apart from this failure, with the Generation of '27, whose most eminent members were Andalusians and therefore knew the genre first-hand, the recognition of flamenco by intellectuals began.
At that time, there were already flamenco recordings related to Christmas, which can be divided into two groups: the traditional flamenco carol and flamenco songs that adapt their lyrics to the Christmas theme. These cantes have been maintained to this day, the Zambomba Jerezana being spatially representative, declared an Asset of Intangible Cultural Interest by the Junta de Andalucía in December 2015.
During the Spanish Civil War, a large number of singers were exiled or died defending the Republic and the humiliations to which they were being subjected by the National Party: Bando Nacional: Corruco de Algeciras, Chaconcito, El Carbonerillo, El Chato De Las Ventas, Vallejito, Rita la Cantaora, Angelillo, Guerrita are some of them. In the postwar period and the first years of the Franco regime, the world of flamenco was viewed with suspicion, as the authorities were not clear that this genre contributed to the national conscience. However, the regime soon ended up adopting flamenco as one of the quintessential Spanish cultural manifestations. The singers who have survived the war go from stars to almost outcasts, singing for the young men in the private rooms of the brothels in the center of Seville where they have to adapt to the whims of aristocrats, soldiers and businessmen who have become rich.
In short, the period of the flamenco opera was a time open to creativity and that definitely made up most of the flamenco repertoire. It was the Golden Age of this genre, with figures such as Antonio Chacón, Manuel Vallejo Manuel Vallejo [es; fr], Manuel Torre, La Niña de los Peines, Pepe Marchena and Manolo Caracol.
Starting in the 1950s, abundant anthropological and musicological studies on flamenco began to be published. In 1954 Hispavox published the first Antología del Cante Flamenco, a sound recording that was a great shock to its time, dominated by orchestrated cante and, consequently, mystified. In 1955, the Argentine intellectual Anselmo González Climent published an essay called "Flamencología", whose title he baptized the "set of knowledge, techniques, etc., on flamenco singing and dancing." This book dignified the study of flamenco by applying the academic methodology of musicology to it and served as the basis for subsequent studies on this genre.
As a result, in 1956 the National Contest of Cante Jondo de Córdoba was organized and in 1958 the first flamencology chair was founded in Jerez de la Frontera, the oldest academic institution dedicated to the study, research, conservation, promotion and defense of the flamenco art. Likewise, in 1963 the Cordovan poet Ricardo Molina and the Sevillian cantaor Antonio Mairena published Alalimón Mundo y Formas del Cante flamenco, which has become a must-have reference work.
For a long time the Mairenistas postulates were considered practically unquestionable, until they found an answer in other authors who elaborated the "Andalusian thesis", which defended that flamenco was a genuinely Andalusian product, since it had been developed entirely in this region and because its styles basic ones derived from the folklore of Andalusia. They also maintained that the Andalusian Gitanos had contributed decisively to their formation, highlighting the exceptional nature of flamenco among gypsy music and dances from other parts of Spain and Europe. The unification of the Gitanos and Andalusian thesis has ended up being the most accepted today. In short, between the 1950s and 1970s, flamenco went from being a mere show to also becoming an object of study.
Flamenco became one of the symbols of Spanish national identity during the Franco regime, since the regime knew how to appropriate a folklore traditionally associated with Andalusia to promote national unity and attract tourism, constituting what was called national-flamenquismo. Hence, flamenco had long been seen as a reactionary or retrograde element. In the mid-60s and until the transition, cantaores who opposed the regime began to appear with the use of protest lyrics. These include: José Menese and lyricist Francisco Moreno Galván, Enrique Morente, Manuel Gerena, El Lebrijano, El Cabrero, Lole y Manuel, el Piki or Luis Marín, among many others.
In contrast to this conservatism with which it was associated during the Franco regime, flamenco suffered the influence of the wave of activism that also shook the university against the repression of the regime when university students came into contact with this art in the recitals that were held, for example, at the Colegio Mayor de San Juan Evangelista: "flamenco amateurs and professionals got involved with performances of a manifestly political nature. It was a kind of flamenco protest charged with protest, which meant censorship and repression for the flamenco activists ".
As the political transition progressed, the demands were deflated as flamenco inserted itself within the flows of globalized art. At the same time, this art was institutionalized until it reached the point that the Junta de Andalucía was attributed in 2007 "exclusive competence in matters of knowledge, conservation, research, training, promotion and dissemination".
In the 1970s, there were airs of social and political change in Spain, and Spanish society was already quite influenced by various musical styles from the rest of Europe and the United States. There were also numerous singers who had grown up listening to Antonio Mairena, Pepe Marchena and Manolo Caracol. The combination of both factors led to a revolutionary period called flamenco fusion.
The singer Rocío Jurado internationalized flamenco at the beginning of the 70s, replacing the bata de cola with evening dresses. Her facet in the "Fandangos de Huelva" and in the Alegrías was recognized internationally for her perfect voice tessitura in these genres. She used to be accompanied in her concerts by guitarists Enrique de Melchor and Tomatito, not only at the national level but in countries like Colombia, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.
The musical representative José Antonio Pulpón was a decisive character in that fusion, as he urged the cantaor Agujetas to collaborate with the Sevillian Andalusian rock group "Pata Negra", the most revolutionary couple since Antonio Chacón and Ramón Montoya, initiating a new path for flamenco. It also fostered the artistic union between the virtuoso guitarist from Algeciras Paco de Lucía and the long-standing singer from the island Camarón de la Isla, who gave a creative impulse to flamenco that would mean its definitive break with Mairena's conservatism. When both artists undertook their solo careers, Camarón became a mythical cantaor for his art and personality, with a legion of followers, while Paco de Lucía reconfigured the entire musical world of flamenco, opening up to new influences, such as Brazilian music, Arabic and jazz and introducing new musical instruments such as the Peruvian cajon, the transverse flute, etc.
Other leading performers in this process of formal flamenco renewal were Juan Peña El Lebrijano, who married flamenco with Andalusian music, and Enrique Morente, who throughout his long artistic career has oscillated between the purism of his first recordings and the crossbreeding with rock, or Remedios Amaya from Triana, cultivator of a unique style of tangos from Extremadura, and a wedge of purity in her cante make her part of this select group of established artists. Other singers with their own style include Cancanilla de Marbella. In 2011 this style became known in India thanks to María del Mar Fernández, who acts in the video clip of the film You Live Once, entitled Señorita. The film was seen by more than 73 million viewers.
In the 1980s a new generation of flamenco artists emerged who had been influenced by the mythical cantaor Camarón, Paco de Lucía, Morente, etc. These artists were interested in popular urban music, which in those years was renewing the Spanish music scene, it was the time of the Movida madrileña. Among them are "Pata Negra", who fused flamenco with blues and rock, Ketama, of pop and Cuban inspiration and Ray Heredia, creator of his own musical universe where flamenco occupies a central place.
Also the recording company Nuevos Medios released many musicians under the label nuevo flamenco and this denomination has grouped musicians very different from each other like Rosario Flores, daughter of Lola Flores, or the renowned singer Malú, niece of Paco de Lucía and daughter of Pepe de Lucía, who despite sympathizing with flamenco and keeping it in her discography has continued with her personal style. However, the fact that many of the interpreters of this new music are also renowned cantaores, in the case of José Mercé, El Cigala, and others, has led to labeling everything they perform as flamenco, although the genre of their songs differs quite a bit from the classic flamenco. This has generated very different feelings, both for and against.
Other contemporary artists of that moment were O'Funkillo and Ojos de Brujo, Arcángel, Miguel Poveda, Mayte Martín, Marina Heredia, Estrella Morente or Manuel Lombo, etc.
But the discussion between the difference of flamenco and new flamenco in Spain has just gained strength during since 2019 due to the success of new flamenco attracting the taste of the youngest Spanish fans but also in the international musical scene emphasizing the problem of how should we call this new musical genre mixed with flamenco.
One of these artist who has reinvented flamenco is Rosalía, an indisputable name on the international music scene. "Pienso en tu mirá", "Di mi nombre" or the song that catapulted her to fame, "Malamente", are a combination of styles that includes a flamenco/south Spain traditional musical base. Rosalía has broken the limits of this musical genre by embracing other urban rhythms, but has also created a lot of controversy about which genre is she using. The Catalan artist has been awarded several Latin GrammyAwards and MTV Video Music Awards, which also, at just 30 years old, garners more than 40 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
But it is not the only successful case, the Granada-born Dellafuente, C. Tangana, MAKA, RVFV, Demarco Flamenco, Maria Àrnal and Marcel Bagés, El Niño de Elche, Sílvia Pérez Cruz; Califato 3/4, Juanito Makandé, Soledad Morente, María José Llergo o Fuel Fandango are only a few of the new spanish musical scene that includes flamenco in their music.
It seems that the Spanish music scene is experiencing a change in its music and new rhythms are re-emerging together with new artists who are experimenting to cover a wider audience that wants to maintain the closeness that flamenco has transmitted for decades.
The state of New Mexico, located in the southwest of the United States maintains a strong identity with Flamenco culture. The University of New Mexico located in Albuquerque offers a graduate degree program in Flamenco. Flamenco performances are widespread in the Albuquerque and Santa Fe communities, with the National institute of Flamenco sponsoring an annual festival, as well as a variety of professional flamenco performances offered at various locales. Emmy Grimm, known by her stage name La Emi is a professional Flamenco dancer and native to New Mexico who performs as well as teaches Flamenco in Santa Fe. She continues studying her art by traveling to Spain to work intensively with Carmela Greco and La Popi, as well as José Galván, Juana Amaya, Yolanda Heredia, Ivan Vargas Heredia, Torombo and Rocio Alcaide Ruiz.
Palos (formerly known as cantes) are flamenco styles, classified by criteria such as rhythmic pattern, mode, chord progression, stanzaic form and geographic origin. There are over 50 different palos, some are sung unaccompanied while others have guitar or other accompaniment. Some forms are danced while others are not. Some are reserved for men and others for women while some may be performed by either, though these traditional distinctions are breaking down: the Farruca, for example, once a male dance, is now commonly performed by women too.
There are many ways to categorize Palos but they traditionally fall into three classes: the most serious is known as cante jondo (or cante grande), while lighter, frivolous forms are called Cante Chico. Forms that do not fit either category are classed as Cante Intermedio (Pohren 2005, 68). These are the best known palos (Anon. 2019; Anon. 2012):
The alegrías are thought to derive from the Aragonese jota, which took root in Cadiz during the Peninsular war and the establishment of the Cortes de Cadiz. That is why its classic lyrics contain so many references to the Virgen del Pilar, the Ebro River and Navarra.
Enrique Butrón is considered to have formalized the current flamenco style of alegrías and Ignacio Espeleta who introduced the characteristic "tiriti, tran, tran...". Some of the best known interpreters of alegrías are Enrique el Mellizo, Chato de la Isla, Pinini, Pericón de Cádiz, Aurelio Sellés, La Perla de Cádiz, Chano Lobato and El Folli.
One of the structurally strictest forms of flamenco, a traditional dance in alegrías must contain each of the following sections: a salida (entrance), paseo (walkaround), silencio (similar to an adagio in ballet), castellana (upbeat section) zapateado (Literally "a tap of the foot") and bulerías. This structure though, is not followed when alegrías are sung as a standalone song (with no dancing). In that case, the stanzas are combined freely, sometimes together with other types of cantiñas.
Alegrías has a rhythm consisting of 12 beats. It is similar to Soleares. Its beat emphasis is as follows: 1 2 [3] 4 5 [6] 7 [8] 9 [10] 11 [12]. Alegrías originated in Cádiz. Alegrías belongs to the group of palos called Cantiñas and it is usually played in a lively rhythm (120–170 beats per minute). The livelier speeds are chosen for dancing, while quieter rhythms are preferred for the song alone.
Bulerías a fast flamenco rhythm made up of a 12 beat cycle with emphasis in two general forms as follows: [12] 1 2 [3] 4 5 [6] 7 [8] 9 [10] 11 or [12] 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 [7] [8] 9 [10] 11. It originated among the Calé Romani people of Jerez during the 19th century, originally as a fast, upbeat ending to soleares or alegrias. It is among the most popular and dramatic of the flamenco forms and often ends any flamenco gathering, often accompanied by vigorous dancing and tapping.
There are three fundamental elements which can help define whether or not something really is flameco: A flamenco mode -or musical tonality-; the compás -rhythm- and the performer. .. who should be a Flamenco! All three of these elements: tonality, compás, a flamenco performer and then something less easily identifiable- Flamencura- must be present together if we are to wend up with a piece of music which can be labelled 'flamenco'. By themselves, these elements won't turn a piece of music into flamenco.
Three fundamental elements that help define whether or not a dance belongs to the Flamenco genre are the presence of a Flamenco mode (musical tonality), compas, and a Flamenco performer (Martinez, 2003). These three elements contribute to the authenticity of a Flamenco performance also known as flamencura (Martinez, 2003). There is also no such thing as a passive audience during Flamenco performances [participatory music]. The audience joins in the performance by clapping their hands and even sometimes singing along (Totton, 2003).
A typical flamenco recital with voice and guitar accompaniment comprises a series of pieces (not exactly "songs") in different palos. Each song is a set of verses (called copla, tercio, or letras), punctuated by guitar interludes (falsetas). The guitarist also provides a short introduction setting the tonality, compás (see below) and tempo of the cante (Manuel 2006, 98). In some palos, these falsetas are played with a specific structure too; for example, the typical sevillanas is played in an AAB pattern, where A and B are the same falseta with only a slight difference in the ending (Martin 2002, 48).
Flamenco uses the flamenco mode (which can also be described as the modern Phrygian mode (modo frigio), or a harmonic version of that scale with a major 3rd degree), in addition to the major and minor scales commonly used in modern Western music. The Phrygian mode occurs in palos such as soleá, most bulerías, siguiriyas, tangos and tientos.
A typical chord sequence, usually called the "Andalusian cadence" may be viewed as in a modified Phrygian: in E the sequence is Am–G–F–E (Manuel 2006, 96). According to Manolo Sanlúcar E is here the tonic, F has the harmonic function of dominant while Am and G assume the functions of subdominant and mediant respectively (Torres Cortés 2001).
Guitarists tend to use only two basic inversions or "chord shapes" for the tonic chord (music), the open 1st inversion E and the open 3rd inversion A, though they often transpose these by using a capo. Modern guitarists such as Ramón Montoya, have introduced other positions: Montoya himself started to use other chords for the tonic in the modern Dorian sections of several palos; F♯ for tarantas, B for granaínas and A♭ for the minera. Montoya also created a new palo as a solo for guitar, the rondeña in C♯ with scordatura. Later guitarists have further extended the repertoire of tonalities, chord positions and scordatura.
There are also palos in major mode; most cantiñas and alegrías, guajiras, some bulerías and tonás, and the cabales (a major type of siguiriyas). The minor mode is restricted to the Farruca, the milongas (among cantes de ida y vuelta), and some styles of tangos, bulerías, etc. In general traditional palos in major and minor mode are limited harmonically to two-chord (tonic–dominant) or three-chord (tonic–subdominant–dominant) progressions (Rossy 1998, 92). However modern guitarists have introduced chord substitution, transition chords, and even modulation.
Fandangos and derivative palos such as malagueñas, tarantas and cartageneras are bimodal: guitar introductions are in Phrygian mode while the singing develops in major mode, modulating to Phrygian at the end of the stanza (Rossy 1998, 92).
Dionisio Preciado, quoted by Sabas de Hoces (1982, ), established the following characteristics for the melodies of flamenco singing:
Musicologist Hipólito Rossy adds the following characteristics (Rossy 1998, 97):
Compás is the Spanish word for metre or time signature (in classical music theory). It also refers to the rhythmic cycle, or layout, of a palo.
The compás is fundamental to flamenco. Compás is most often translated as rhythm but it demands far more precise interpretation than any other Western style of music. If there is no guitarist available, the compás is rendered through hand clapping (palmas) or by hitting a table with the knuckles. The guitarist uses techniques like strumming (rasgueado) or tapping the soundboard (golpe). Changes of chords emphasize the most important downbeats.
Flamenco uses three basic counts or measures: Binary, Ternary and a form of a twelve-beat cycle that is unique to flamenco. There are also free-form styles including, among others, the tonás, saetas, malagueñas, tarantos, and some types of fandangos:
There are three types of 12-beat rhythms, which vary in their layouts, or use of accentuations: soleá, seguiriya and bulería:
The Bulerías is the emblematic palo of flamenco: today its 12-beat cycle is most often played with accents on the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th beats. The accompanying palmas are played in groups of 6 beats, giving rise to a multitude of counter-rhythms and percussive voices within the 12 beat compás. In certain regions like, Xerez, Spain, the rhythm stays in a simpler six-count rhythm, only including the twelve count in a musical resolve.
The posture and technique of flamenco guitarists, called "tocaores", differs from that used by the players of classical guitar. While the classical guitarist supports the guitar on his left leg in an inclined way, the flamenco guitarist usually crosses his legs and supports it on the one that is higher, placing the neck in an almost horizontal position with respect to the ground. Modern guitarists usually use classical guitars, although there is a specific instrument for this genre called flamenco guitar. This is less heavy, and its body is narrower than that of the classical guitar, so its sound is lower and does not overshadow the cantaor. It is usually made of cypress wood, with the handle of cedar and the top of fir. The cypress gives it a brilliant sound very suitable for the characteristics of flamenco. Formerly, the palo santo from Rio or India was also used, being the first of higher quality, but currently it is in disuse due to its scarcity. The palo santo gave guitars an amplitude of sound especially suitable for solo playing. At present, the most widely used headstock is the metal one, since the wooden one poses tuning problems.
The main guitar makers were Antonio de Torres Jurado (Almería, 1817–1892) considered the father of the guitar, Manuel Ramírez de Galarreta [es], the Great Ramírez (Madrid, 1864 -1920), and his disciples Santos Hernández (Madrid, 1873–1943), who built several guitars for the maestro Sabicas, Domingo Esteso and Modesto Borreguero [es]. Also noteworthy are the Conde Brothers, Faustino (1913–1988), Mariano (1916–1989) and Julio (1918–1996), nephews of Domingo Esteso, whose children and heirs continue the saga.
The guitarists use the technique of alzapúa, picado, the strum and the tremolo, among others. One of the first touches that is considered flamenco, such as the "rondeña", was the first composition recorded for solo guitar, by Julián Arcas (María, Almería, 1832 – Antequera, Málaga, 1882) in Barcelona in 1860. The strum can be performed with 5, 4 or 3 fingers, the latter invented by Sabicas. The use of the thumb is also characteristic of flamenco playing. Guitarists rest their thumb on the guitar's soundboard and their index and middle fingers on the string above the one they are playing, thus achieving greater power and sound than the classical guitarist. The middle finger is also placed on the pickguard of the guitar for more precision and strength when plucking the string. Likewise, the use of the pickguard as an element of percussion gives great strength to flamenco guitar playing. The melodic or flourishing phrase that is inserted between the chord sequences intended to accompany the couplet is called "falseta".
The accompaniment and solo playing of flamenco guitarists is based on both the modal harmonic system and the tonal system, although the most frequent is a combination of both. Some flamenco songs are performed "a palo seco" (a cappella), without guitar accompaniment.
According to the Royal Spanish Academy, "cante" is called the "action or effect of singing any Andalusian singing", defining "flamenco singing" as "agitated Andalusian singing" and cante jondo as "the most genuine song. Andalusian, of deep feeling ". The interpreter of flamenco singing is called cantaor instead of singer, with the loss of the intervocalic characteristic of the Andalusian dialect.
The most important award in flamenco singing is probably the Llave de Oro del Cante [es], which has been awarded five times to: Tomás el Nitri [es], Manuel Vallejo [es; fr], Antonio Mairena, Camarón de la Isla and Fosforito.
El baile flamenco is known for its emotional intensity, proud carriage, expressive use of the arms and rhythmic stamping of the feet, unlike tap dance or Irish dance which use different techniques. As with any dance form, many different styles of flamenco have developed.
In the 20th century, flamenco danced informally at gitano (Roma) celebrations in Spain was considered the most "authentic" form of flamenco. There was less virtuoso technique in gitano flamenco, but the music and steps are fundamentally the same. The arms are noticeably different from classical flamenco, curving around the head and body rather than extending, often with a bent elbow.
"Flamenco puro" otherwise known as "flamenco por derecho" is considered the form of performance flamenco closest to its gitano influences. In this style, the dance is often performed solo, and is based on signals and calls of structural improvisation rather than choreographed. In the improvisational style, castanets are not often used.
"Classical flamenco" is the style most frequently performed by Spanish flamenco dance companies. It is danced largely in a proud and upright style. For women, the back is often held in a marked back bend. Unlike the more gitano influenced styles, there is little movement of the hips, the body is tightly held, and the arms are long, like a ballet dancer. In fact, many of the dancers in these companies are trained in Ballet Clásico Español more than in the improvisational language of flamenco. Flamenco has both influenced and been influenced by Ballet Clásico Español, as evidenced by the fusion of the two ballets created by 'La Argentinita' in the early part of the 20th century and later, by Joaquín Cortés, eventually by the entire Ballet Nacional de España et al.
In the 1950s Jose Greco was one of the most famous male flamenco dancers, performing on stage worldwide and on television including the Ed Sullivan Show, and reviving the art almost singlehandedly. Greco's company left a handful of prominent pioneers, most notably: Maria Benitez and Vicente Romero of New Mexico. Today, there are many centers of flamenco art. Albuquerque, New Mexico is considered the "Center of the Nation" for flamenco art. Much of this is due to Maria Benitez's 37 years of sold-out summer seasons. Albuquerque boasts three distinct prominent centers: National Institute of Flamenco, Casa Flamenca and Flamenco Works. Each center dedicates time to daily training, cultural diffusion and world-class performance equaled only to world-class performances one would find in the heart of Southern Spain, Andalucía.
Modern flamenco is a highly technical dance style requiring years of study. The emphasis for both male and female performers is on lightning-fast footwork performed with absolute precision. In addition, the dancer may have to dance while using props such as castanets, canes, shawls and fans.
"Flamenco nuevo" is a recent marketing phenomenon in flamenco. Marketed as a "newer version" of flamenco, its roots came from world-music promoters trying to sell albums of artists who created music that "sounded like" or had Spanish-style influences. Though some of this music was played in similar pitches, scales and was well-received, it has little to nothing to do with the art of flamenco guitar, dance, cante Jondo or the improvisational language. "Nuevo flamenco" consists largely of compositions and repertoire, while traditional flamenco music and dance is a language composed of stanzas, actuated by oral formulaic calls and signals.
The flamenco most foreigners are familiar with is a style that was developed as a spectacle for tourists. To add variety, group dances are included and even solos are more likely to be choreographed. The frilly, voluminous spotted dresses are derived from a style of dress worn for the Sevillanas at the annual Feria in Seville.
In traditional flamenco, only the very young or older dancers are considered to have the emotional innocence or maturity to adequately convey the duende (soul) of the genre (Anon. 2010). Therefore, unlike other dance forms, where dancers turn professional through techniques early on to take advantage of youth and strength, many flamenco dancers do not hit their peak until their thirties and will continue to perform into their fifties and beyond. One artist that is considered a young master is Juan Manuel Fernandez Montoya, otherwise known as "Farruquito". At age 12, Farruquito was considered a pioneer and for "Flamenco Puro", or "Flamenco por Derecho", because of his emotional depth.
In Spain, regulated flamenco studies are officially taught in various music conservatories, dance conservatories and music schools in various autonomous communities.
Flamenco guitar studies in official educational centers began in Spain in 1988 at the hands of the great concert performer and teacher from Granada Manuel Cano Tamayo, who obtained a position as emeritus professor at the Superior Conservatory de Música Rafael Orozco from Córdoba.
There are specialized flamenco conservatories throughout the country, although mainly in the Andalusia region, such as the aforementioned Córdoba Conservatory, the Murcia Superior Music Conservatory or the Superior Music School of Catalonia, among others. Outside of Spain, a unique case is the Rotterdam Conservatory, in the Netherlands, which offers regulated flamenco guitar studies under the direction of maestro Paco Peña since 1985, a few years before they existed in Spain.
In 2018 the first university master's degree in flamenco research and analysis begins, after the previous attempts of the "Doctorate Program of Approach to Flamenco", taught by several universities such as Huelva, Seville, Cádiz and Córdoba, among others.
The fandango, which in the 17th century was the most widespread song and dance throughout Spain, eventually ended up generating local and regional variants, especially in the province of Huelva. In Alta Andalucía and bordering areas, the fandangos were accompanied with the bandola, an instrument with which they accompanied themselves following a regular beat that allowed dancing and from whose name the style derives " abandoned ". Thus arose the fandangos of Lucena, the drones of Puente Genil, the primitive malagueñas, the rondeñas, the jaberas, the jabegotes, the verdiales, the chacarrá, the granaína, the taranto and the taranta. Due to the expansion of the Sevillanas in Baja Andalusia, the fandango gradually lost its role as a support for the dance, which allowed the singer to shine and freedom, generating a multitude of fandangos of personal creation in the 20th century. Likewise, thousands of Andalusian peasants, especially from the Eastern Andalusian provinces, emigrated to the mining sites Murcian, where the tarantos and taranta s evolved. The Tarante de Linares, evolved into the mining of the Union, the Cartagena and the Levantica. At the time of the cafés cantantes, some of these cantes were separated from the dance and acquired a free beat, which allowed the performers to show off. The great promoter of this process was Antonio Chacón, who developed precious versions of malagueñas, granainas and cantes mineros.
The stylization of romance and cord sheets gave rise to corrido. The extraction of the romances from quatrains or three significant verses gave rise to the primitive tonás, the caña and the polo, which share meter and melody, but differing in their execution. The guitar accompaniment gave them a beat that made them danceable. It is believed that their origin was in Ronda, a city in Alta Andalucía close to Baja Andalucía and closely related to it, and that from there they reached the Sevillian suburb of Triana, with a great tradition of corridos, where they became the soleá. From the festive performance of corridos and soleares, the jaleos arose in Triana, who traveled to Extremadura and in Jerez and Utrera led to the bulería, from where they spread throughout Baja Andalucía, generating local variations.
Adolfo Salazar states that the expressive voice ole, with which Andalusian cantaores and bailaores are encouraged, can come from the Hebrew verb oleh which means "to throw upwards", showing that the dervish girovaghi of Tunisia, Maghreb, also dance around to the sound of repeated "ole" or "joleh". The use of the word "arza", which is the Andalusian dialect form, of pronouncing the voice imperative "rise", with the characteristic Andalusian equalization of / l / and / r / implosives. The indiscriminate use of the voices "arza" and "ole" is frequent when it comes to jalear, but the most evidence of the origin of this word can be from the caló: Olá, which means "come". Likewise, in Andalusia it is known as jaleo al ojeo de hunt, that is, the act of glancing, which is "driving away the game with voices, shots, blows or noise, so that they 'get up'".
According to the RAE dictionary (1956!) The "duende" in Andalusia is a "mysterious and ineffable charm", a charisma that the Gitanos call duende. Federico García Lorca, in his lecture Teoría y juego del duende confirms this ineffability of the duende by defining it with the following words from Goethe: "Mysterious power that everyone feels and that no philosopher explains". In the flamenco imaginary, the duende goes beyond technique and inspiration, in Lorca's words "To search for the duende there is no map or exercise". When a flamenco artist experiences the arrival of this mysterious charm, the expressions "have duende" or sing, play or dance "with duende" are used.
Along with those previously mentioned, there are many other words and expressions characteristic of the flamenco genre, such as "tablao flamenco", "flamenco spree", "third", "aflamencar", and "flamenco".
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Flamenco (Spanish pronunciation: [flaˈmeŋko]) is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and Murcia. In a wider sense, the term is used to refer to a variety of both contemporary and traditional musical styles typical of southern Spain. Flamenco is closely associated to the gitanos of the Romani ethnicity who have contributed significantly to its origination and professionalization. However, its style is uniquely Andalusian and flamenco artists have historically included Spaniards of both gitano and non-gitano heritage.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The oldest record of flamenco music dates to 1774 in the book Las Cartas Marruecas (The Moroccan Letters) by José Cadalso. The development of flamenco over the past two centuries is well documented: \"the theatre movement of sainetes (one-act plays) and tonadillas, popular song books and song sheets, customs, studies of dances, and toques, perfection, newspapers, graphic documents in paintings and engravings. ... in continuous evolution together with rhythm, the poetic stanzas, and the ambiance.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "On 16 November 2010, UNESCO declared flamenco one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Historically, the term Flamenco was used to identify the Romani people (Gitanos) of Spain. The English traveller George Borrow who travelled through Spain during the 1830s stated that the Gitanos were also called Flemish (in Spanish, ‘flamenco’) due to German and Fleming being erroneously considered synonymous. According to flamencologist Cristina Cruces-Roldán, a year prior to Borrow’s account, there already existed a Gitano party in Madrid that was clearly identified as Flamenco. This equivalency between Gitano and Flamenco is also noted by Manuel Fernández y González, Demófilo, and the scholar Iriving Brown who stated in 1938 that “Flamenco is simply another term for Gitano, with special connotations.”",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The origins of the term lie in the sociological prejudice towards the Roma who were seen as ruffians and cocky troublemakers by the Spaniards and were thus associated with the 18th century German colonists of the Sierra Morena who formed groups of urban Bohemians that lived outside the law and were seen as idle and lazy. Other less successful hypotheses include those of Felipe Pedrell and Carlos Alemendros who state that while the term Flamenco is Spanish for Flemish, it is actually synonymous with Cantador (professional singer) in reference to the group of Flemish singers brought by Spanish King Carlos I in 1516. Another hypothesis that is not widely accepted is the Arabist theory of Blas Infante, which presents Flamenco as a phonetic deformation of Arabic fellah-mengu (runaway laborer).",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The first use of the term Flamenco to refer to the music genre appears in a 1847 newspaper article of El Espectador where it was referred to as a “Gitano genre.” In the early years of Flamenco, the term was versatile and was used to refer to a variety of concepts in the Gitano-Andalusian world. For example, in the 1860s-70s this versatility was exemplified through its use to refer to a musical style and a certain aesthetic, manners, and way of life that were perceived to be Gitano. At that time, Flamenco was not a strict genre but a way of performing music in a Gitano-Andalusian style.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "There are hypotheses that point to the influence on flamenco of types of dance from the Indian subcontinent; the place of origin of the Romani people. The Indo-Pakistani scales of Flamenco were introduced to Andalusia by the Romani migrations from Northern India. These Roma migrants also brought tambourines and bells, and an extensive repertoire of songs and dances. Upon arrival to Andalusia in the 15th century, they were exposed to the rich Arab-Andalusian music culture, itself a hybrid of Spanish music tradition going back to the 8th century with the establishment of Al-Andalus, which brought in traditions and music from the Arabian peninsula, Northern Africa and Sephardic features. One of the instruments associated with Flamenco and Spanish folklore in different regions today, are the wooden castanets also believed to originate during the Al Andalus period.This centuries-long period of cultural intermingling, formed the roots of Flamenco song and dance genres.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "It is believed that the flamenco genre emerged at the end of the 18th century in cities and agrarian towns of Baja Andalusia, highlighting Jerez de la Frontera as the first written vestige of this art, although there is practically no data related to those dates and the manifestations of this time are more typical of the bolero school than of flamenco. It appeared as a modern art form from the convergence of the urban subaltern groups, Gitano communities, and journeyman of Andalusia that formed the marginalized Flamenco artistic working class who established Flamenco as a singular art form, marked from the beginning by the Gitano brand. Andalusia was the origin and cradle of the early Flamenco cantaores and of the three or four dozen Gitano families who created and cultivated Flamenco.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "During the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, a number of factors led to rise in Spain of a phenomenon known as \"Costumbrismo Andaluz\" or \"Andalusian Mannerism\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 1783 Carlos III promulgated a pragmatics that regulated the social situation of the Gitanos. This was a momentous event in the history of Spanish gitanos who, after centuries of marginalization and persecution, saw their legal situation improve substantially.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "After the Spanish War of Independence (1808–1812), a feeling of racial pride developed in the Spanish conscience, in opposition to the \"gallified\" \"Afrancesados\" - Spaniards who were influenced by French culture and the idea of the enlightenment. In this context, gitanos were seen as an ideal embodiment of Spanish culture and the emergence of the bullfighting schools of Ronda and Seville, the rise of the Bandidos and Vaqueros led to a taste for Andalusian romantic culture which triumphed in the Madrid court.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "At this time there is evidence of disagreements due to the introduction of innovations in art.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In 1881 Silverio Franconetti opened the first flamenco singer café in Seville. In Silverio's café the cantaores were in a very competitive environment, which allowed the emergence of the professional cantaor and served as a crucible where flamenco art was configured. Locals learned the cantes, while reinterpreting the Andalusian folk songs in their own style, expanding the repertoire. Likewise, the taste of the public contributed to configure the flamenco genre, unifying its technique and its theme.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Flamenquismo, defined by the Royal Spanish Academy as a \"fondness for flamenco art and customs\", is a conceptual catch-all where flamenco singing and a fondness for bullfighting, among other traditional Spanish elements, fit. These customs were strongly attacked by the generation of 98, all of its members being \"anti-flamenco\", with the exception of the Machado brothers, Manuel and Antonio. Being Sevillians and sons of the folklorist Demófilo Machado, the brothers had a more complex view of the matter. The greatest standard bearer of anti-flamenquism was the Madrid writer Eugenio Noel, who, in his youth, had been a militant casticista. Noel attributed to flamenco and bullfighting the origin of the ills of Spain which he saw as manifestations of the country's Oriental character which hindered economic and social development. These considerations caused an insurmountable rift to be established for decades between flamenco and most \"intellectuals\" of the time.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Between 1920 and 1955, flamenco shows began to be held in bullrings and theaters, under the name \"flamenco opera\". This denomination was an economic strategy of the promoters, since opera only paid 3% while variety shows paid 10%. At this time, flamenco shows spread throughout Spain and the main cities of the world. The great social and commercial success achieved by flamenco at this time eliminated some of the oldest and most sober styles from the stage, in favor of lighter airs, such as cantiñas, los cantes de ida y vuelta and fandangos, of which many personal versions were created. The purist critics attacked this lightness of the cantes, as well as the use of falsete and the gaitero style.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In the line of purism, the poet Federico García Lorca and the composer Manuel de Falla had the idea of concurso de cante jondo en Granada en 1922. Both artists conceived of flamenco as folklore, not as a scenic artistic genre; for this reason, they were concerned, since they believed that the massive triumph of flamenco would end its purest and deepest roots. To remedy this, they organized a cante jondo contest in which only amateurs could participate and in which festive cantes (such as cantiñas) were excluded, which Falla and Lorca did not consider jondos, but flamencos. The jury was chaired by Antonio Chacón, who at that time was the leading figure in cante. The winners were \"El Tenazas\", a retired professional cantaor from Morón de la Frontera, and Manuel Ortega, an eight-year-old boy from Seville who would go down in flamenco history as Manolo Caracol. The contest turned out to be a failure due to the scant echo it had and because Lorca and Falla did not know how to understand the professional character that flamenco already had at that time, striving in vain to seek a purity that never existed in an art that was characterized by mixture and the personal innovation of its creators. Apart from this failure, with the Generation of '27, whose most eminent members were Andalusians and therefore knew the genre first-hand, the recognition of flamenco by intellectuals began.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "At that time, there were already flamenco recordings related to Christmas, which can be divided into two groups: the traditional flamenco carol and flamenco songs that adapt their lyrics to the Christmas theme. These cantes have been maintained to this day, the Zambomba Jerezana being spatially representative, declared an Asset of Intangible Cultural Interest by the Junta de Andalucía in December 2015.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "During the Spanish Civil War, a large number of singers were exiled or died defending the Republic and the humiliations to which they were being subjected by the National Party: Bando Nacional: Corruco de Algeciras, Chaconcito, El Carbonerillo, El Chato De Las Ventas, Vallejito, Rita la Cantaora, Angelillo, Guerrita are some of them. In the postwar period and the first years of the Franco regime, the world of flamenco was viewed with suspicion, as the authorities were not clear that this genre contributed to the national conscience. However, the regime soon ended up adopting flamenco as one of the quintessential Spanish cultural manifestations. The singers who have survived the war go from stars to almost outcasts, singing for the young men in the private rooms of the brothels in the center of Seville where they have to adapt to the whims of aristocrats, soldiers and businessmen who have become rich.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In short, the period of the flamenco opera was a time open to creativity and that definitely made up most of the flamenco repertoire. It was the Golden Age of this genre, with figures such as Antonio Chacón, Manuel Vallejo Manuel Vallejo [es; fr], Manuel Torre, La Niña de los Peines, Pepe Marchena and Manolo Caracol.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Starting in the 1950s, abundant anthropological and musicological studies on flamenco began to be published. In 1954 Hispavox published the first Antología del Cante Flamenco, a sound recording that was a great shock to its time, dominated by orchestrated cante and, consequently, mystified. In 1955, the Argentine intellectual Anselmo González Climent published an essay called \"Flamencología\", whose title he baptized the \"set of knowledge, techniques, etc., on flamenco singing and dancing.\" This book dignified the study of flamenco by applying the academic methodology of musicology to it and served as the basis for subsequent studies on this genre.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "As a result, in 1956 the National Contest of Cante Jondo de Córdoba was organized and in 1958 the first flamencology chair was founded in Jerez de la Frontera, the oldest academic institution dedicated to the study, research, conservation, promotion and defense of the flamenco art. Likewise, in 1963 the Cordovan poet Ricardo Molina and the Sevillian cantaor Antonio Mairena published Alalimón Mundo y Formas del Cante flamenco, which has become a must-have reference work.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "For a long time the Mairenistas postulates were considered practically unquestionable, until they found an answer in other authors who elaborated the \"Andalusian thesis\", which defended that flamenco was a genuinely Andalusian product, since it had been developed entirely in this region and because its styles basic ones derived from the folklore of Andalusia. They also maintained that the Andalusian Gitanos had contributed decisively to their formation, highlighting the exceptional nature of flamenco among gypsy music and dances from other parts of Spain and Europe. The unification of the Gitanos and Andalusian thesis has ended up being the most accepted today. In short, between the 1950s and 1970s, flamenco went from being a mere show to also becoming an object of study.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Flamenco became one of the symbols of Spanish national identity during the Franco regime, since the regime knew how to appropriate a folklore traditionally associated with Andalusia to promote national unity and attract tourism, constituting what was called national-flamenquismo. Hence, flamenco had long been seen as a reactionary or retrograde element. In the mid-60s and until the transition, cantaores who opposed the regime began to appear with the use of protest lyrics. These include: José Menese and lyricist Francisco Moreno Galván, Enrique Morente, Manuel Gerena, El Lebrijano, El Cabrero, Lole y Manuel, el Piki or Luis Marín, among many others.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In contrast to this conservatism with which it was associated during the Franco regime, flamenco suffered the influence of the wave of activism that also shook the university against the repression of the regime when university students came into contact with this art in the recitals that were held, for example, at the Colegio Mayor de San Juan Evangelista: \"flamenco amateurs and professionals got involved with performances of a manifestly political nature. It was a kind of flamenco protest charged with protest, which meant censorship and repression for the flamenco activists \".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "As the political transition progressed, the demands were deflated as flamenco inserted itself within the flows of globalized art. At the same time, this art was institutionalized until it reached the point that the Junta de Andalucía was attributed in 2007 \"exclusive competence in matters of knowledge, conservation, research, training, promotion and dissemination\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In the 1970s, there were airs of social and political change in Spain, and Spanish society was already quite influenced by various musical styles from the rest of Europe and the United States. There were also numerous singers who had grown up listening to Antonio Mairena, Pepe Marchena and Manolo Caracol. The combination of both factors led to a revolutionary period called flamenco fusion.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The singer Rocío Jurado internationalized flamenco at the beginning of the 70s, replacing the bata de cola with evening dresses. Her facet in the \"Fandangos de Huelva\" and in the Alegrías was recognized internationally for her perfect voice tessitura in these genres. She used to be accompanied in her concerts by guitarists Enrique de Melchor and Tomatito, not only at the national level but in countries like Colombia, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The musical representative José Antonio Pulpón was a decisive character in that fusion, as he urged the cantaor Agujetas to collaborate with the Sevillian Andalusian rock group \"Pata Negra\", the most revolutionary couple since Antonio Chacón and Ramón Montoya, initiating a new path for flamenco. It also fostered the artistic union between the virtuoso guitarist from Algeciras Paco de Lucía and the long-standing singer from the island Camarón de la Isla, who gave a creative impulse to flamenco that would mean its definitive break with Mairena's conservatism. When both artists undertook their solo careers, Camarón became a mythical cantaor for his art and personality, with a legion of followers, while Paco de Lucía reconfigured the entire musical world of flamenco, opening up to new influences, such as Brazilian music, Arabic and jazz and introducing new musical instruments such as the Peruvian cajon, the transverse flute, etc.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Other leading performers in this process of formal flamenco renewal were Juan Peña El Lebrijano, who married flamenco with Andalusian music, and Enrique Morente, who throughout his long artistic career has oscillated between the purism of his first recordings and the crossbreeding with rock, or Remedios Amaya from Triana, cultivator of a unique style of tangos from Extremadura, and a wedge of purity in her cante make her part of this select group of established artists. Other singers with their own style include Cancanilla de Marbella. In 2011 this style became known in India thanks to María del Mar Fernández, who acts in the video clip of the film You Live Once, entitled Señorita. The film was seen by more than 73 million viewers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In the 1980s a new generation of flamenco artists emerged who had been influenced by the mythical cantaor Camarón, Paco de Lucía, Morente, etc. These artists were interested in popular urban music, which in those years was renewing the Spanish music scene, it was the time of the Movida madrileña. Among them are \"Pata Negra\", who fused flamenco with blues and rock, Ketama, of pop and Cuban inspiration and Ray Heredia, creator of his own musical universe where flamenco occupies a central place.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Also the recording company Nuevos Medios released many musicians under the label nuevo flamenco and this denomination has grouped musicians very different from each other like Rosario Flores, daughter of Lola Flores, or the renowned singer Malú, niece of Paco de Lucía and daughter of Pepe de Lucía, who despite sympathizing with flamenco and keeping it in her discography has continued with her personal style. However, the fact that many of the interpreters of this new music are also renowned cantaores, in the case of José Mercé, El Cigala, and others, has led to labeling everything they perform as flamenco, although the genre of their songs differs quite a bit from the classic flamenco. This has generated very different feelings, both for and against.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Other contemporary artists of that moment were O'Funkillo and Ojos de Brujo, Arcángel, Miguel Poveda, Mayte Martín, Marina Heredia, Estrella Morente or Manuel Lombo, etc.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "But the discussion between the difference of flamenco and new flamenco in Spain has just gained strength during since 2019 due to the success of new flamenco attracting the taste of the youngest Spanish fans but also in the international musical scene emphasizing the problem of how should we call this new musical genre mixed with flamenco.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "One of these artist who has reinvented flamenco is Rosalía, an indisputable name on the international music scene. \"Pienso en tu mirá\", \"Di mi nombre\" or the song that catapulted her to fame, \"Malamente\", are a combination of styles that includes a flamenco/south Spain traditional musical base. Rosalía has broken the limits of this musical genre by embracing other urban rhythms, but has also created a lot of controversy about which genre is she using. The Catalan artist has been awarded several Latin GrammyAwards and MTV Video Music Awards, which also, at just 30 years old, garners more than 40 million monthly listeners on Spotify.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "But it is not the only successful case, the Granada-born Dellafuente, C. Tangana, MAKA, RVFV, Demarco Flamenco, Maria Àrnal and Marcel Bagés, El Niño de Elche, Sílvia Pérez Cruz; Califato 3/4, Juanito Makandé, Soledad Morente, María José Llergo o Fuel Fandango are only a few of the new spanish musical scene that includes flamenco in their music.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "It seems that the Spanish music scene is experiencing a change in its music and new rhythms are re-emerging together with new artists who are experimenting to cover a wider audience that wants to maintain the closeness that flamenco has transmitted for decades.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The state of New Mexico, located in the southwest of the United States maintains a strong identity with Flamenco culture. The University of New Mexico located in Albuquerque offers a graduate degree program in Flamenco. Flamenco performances are widespread in the Albuquerque and Santa Fe communities, with the National institute of Flamenco sponsoring an annual festival, as well as a variety of professional flamenco performances offered at various locales. Emmy Grimm, known by her stage name La Emi is a professional Flamenco dancer and native to New Mexico who performs as well as teaches Flamenco in Santa Fe. She continues studying her art by traveling to Spain to work intensively with Carmela Greco and La Popi, as well as José Galván, Juana Amaya, Yolanda Heredia, Ivan Vargas Heredia, Torombo and Rocio Alcaide Ruiz.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Palos (formerly known as cantes) are flamenco styles, classified by criteria such as rhythmic pattern, mode, chord progression, stanzaic form and geographic origin. There are over 50 different palos, some are sung unaccompanied while others have guitar or other accompaniment. Some forms are danced while others are not. Some are reserved for men and others for women while some may be performed by either, though these traditional distinctions are breaking down: the Farruca, for example, once a male dance, is now commonly performed by women too.",
"title": "Main Palos"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "There are many ways to categorize Palos but they traditionally fall into three classes: the most serious is known as cante jondo (or cante grande), while lighter, frivolous forms are called Cante Chico. Forms that do not fit either category are classed as Cante Intermedio (Pohren 2005, 68). These are the best known palos (Anon. 2019; Anon. 2012):",
"title": "Main Palos"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The alegrías are thought to derive from the Aragonese jota, which took root in Cadiz during the Peninsular war and the establishment of the Cortes de Cadiz. That is why its classic lyrics contain so many references to the Virgen del Pilar, the Ebro River and Navarra.",
"title": "Main Palos"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Enrique Butrón is considered to have formalized the current flamenco style of alegrías and Ignacio Espeleta who introduced the characteristic \"tiriti, tran, tran...\". Some of the best known interpreters of alegrías are Enrique el Mellizo, Chato de la Isla, Pinini, Pericón de Cádiz, Aurelio Sellés, La Perla de Cádiz, Chano Lobato and El Folli.",
"title": "Main Palos"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "One of the structurally strictest forms of flamenco, a traditional dance in alegrías must contain each of the following sections: a salida (entrance), paseo (walkaround), silencio (similar to an adagio in ballet), castellana (upbeat section) zapateado (Literally \"a tap of the foot\") and bulerías. This structure though, is not followed when alegrías are sung as a standalone song (with no dancing). In that case, the stanzas are combined freely, sometimes together with other types of cantiñas.",
"title": "Main Palos"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Alegrías has a rhythm consisting of 12 beats. It is similar to Soleares. Its beat emphasis is as follows: 1 2 [3] 4 5 [6] 7 [8] 9 [10] 11 [12]. Alegrías originated in Cádiz. Alegrías belongs to the group of palos called Cantiñas and it is usually played in a lively rhythm (120–170 beats per minute). The livelier speeds are chosen for dancing, while quieter rhythms are preferred for the song alone.",
"title": "Main Palos"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Bulerías a fast flamenco rhythm made up of a 12 beat cycle with emphasis in two general forms as follows: [12] 1 2 [3] 4 5 [6] 7 [8] 9 [10] 11 or [12] 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 [7] [8] 9 [10] 11. It originated among the Calé Romani people of Jerez during the 19th century, originally as a fast, upbeat ending to soleares or alegrias. It is among the most popular and dramatic of the flamenco forms and often ends any flamenco gathering, often accompanied by vigorous dancing and tapping.",
"title": "Main Palos"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "There are three fundamental elements which can help define whether or not something really is flameco: A flamenco mode -or musical tonality-; the compás -rhythm- and the performer. .. who should be a Flamenco! All three of these elements: tonality, compás, a flamenco performer and then something less easily identifiable- Flamencura- must be present together if we are to wend up with a piece of music which can be labelled 'flamenco'. By themselves, these elements won't turn a piece of music into flamenco.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Three fundamental elements that help define whether or not a dance belongs to the Flamenco genre are the presence of a Flamenco mode (musical tonality), compas, and a Flamenco performer (Martinez, 2003). These three elements contribute to the authenticity of a Flamenco performance also known as flamencura (Martinez, 2003). There is also no such thing as a passive audience during Flamenco performances [participatory music]. The audience joins in the performance by clapping their hands and even sometimes singing along (Totton, 2003).",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "A typical flamenco recital with voice and guitar accompaniment comprises a series of pieces (not exactly \"songs\") in different palos. Each song is a set of verses (called copla, tercio, or letras), punctuated by guitar interludes (falsetas). The guitarist also provides a short introduction setting the tonality, compás (see below) and tempo of the cante (Manuel 2006, 98). In some palos, these falsetas are played with a specific structure too; for example, the typical sevillanas is played in an AAB pattern, where A and B are the same falseta with only a slight difference in the ending (Martin 2002, 48).",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Flamenco uses the flamenco mode (which can also be described as the modern Phrygian mode (modo frigio), or a harmonic version of that scale with a major 3rd degree), in addition to the major and minor scales commonly used in modern Western music. The Phrygian mode occurs in palos such as soleá, most bulerías, siguiriyas, tangos and tientos.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "A typical chord sequence, usually called the \"Andalusian cadence\" may be viewed as in a modified Phrygian: in E the sequence is Am–G–F–E (Manuel 2006, 96). According to Manolo Sanlúcar E is here the tonic, F has the harmonic function of dominant while Am and G assume the functions of subdominant and mediant respectively (Torres Cortés 2001).",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Guitarists tend to use only two basic inversions or \"chord shapes\" for the tonic chord (music), the open 1st inversion E and the open 3rd inversion A, though they often transpose these by using a capo. Modern guitarists such as Ramón Montoya, have introduced other positions: Montoya himself started to use other chords for the tonic in the modern Dorian sections of several palos; F♯ for tarantas, B for granaínas and A♭ for the minera. Montoya also created a new palo as a solo for guitar, the rondeña in C♯ with scordatura. Later guitarists have further extended the repertoire of tonalities, chord positions and scordatura.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "There are also palos in major mode; most cantiñas and alegrías, guajiras, some bulerías and tonás, and the cabales (a major type of siguiriyas). The minor mode is restricted to the Farruca, the milongas (among cantes de ida y vuelta), and some styles of tangos, bulerías, etc. In general traditional palos in major and minor mode are limited harmonically to two-chord (tonic–dominant) or three-chord (tonic–subdominant–dominant) progressions (Rossy 1998, 92). However modern guitarists have introduced chord substitution, transition chords, and even modulation.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Fandangos and derivative palos such as malagueñas, tarantas and cartageneras are bimodal: guitar introductions are in Phrygian mode while the singing develops in major mode, modulating to Phrygian at the end of the stanza (Rossy 1998, 92).",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Dionisio Preciado, quoted by Sabas de Hoces (1982, ), established the following characteristics for the melodies of flamenco singing:",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Musicologist Hipólito Rossy adds the following characteristics (Rossy 1998, 97):",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Compás is the Spanish word for metre or time signature (in classical music theory). It also refers to the rhythmic cycle, or layout, of a palo.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The compás is fundamental to flamenco. Compás is most often translated as rhythm but it demands far more precise interpretation than any other Western style of music. If there is no guitarist available, the compás is rendered through hand clapping (palmas) or by hitting a table with the knuckles. The guitarist uses techniques like strumming (rasgueado) or tapping the soundboard (golpe). Changes of chords emphasize the most important downbeats.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Flamenco uses three basic counts or measures: Binary, Ternary and a form of a twelve-beat cycle that is unique to flamenco. There are also free-form styles including, among others, the tonás, saetas, malagueñas, tarantos, and some types of fandangos:",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "There are three types of 12-beat rhythms, which vary in their layouts, or use of accentuations: soleá, seguiriya and bulería:",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The Bulerías is the emblematic palo of flamenco: today its 12-beat cycle is most often played with accents on the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th beats. The accompanying palmas are played in groups of 6 beats, giving rise to a multitude of counter-rhythms and percussive voices within the 12 beat compás. In certain regions like, Xerez, Spain, the rhythm stays in a simpler six-count rhythm, only including the twelve count in a musical resolve.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The posture and technique of flamenco guitarists, called \"tocaores\", differs from that used by the players of classical guitar. While the classical guitarist supports the guitar on his left leg in an inclined way, the flamenco guitarist usually crosses his legs and supports it on the one that is higher, placing the neck in an almost horizontal position with respect to the ground. Modern guitarists usually use classical guitars, although there is a specific instrument for this genre called flamenco guitar. This is less heavy, and its body is narrower than that of the classical guitar, so its sound is lower and does not overshadow the cantaor. It is usually made of cypress wood, with the handle of cedar and the top of fir. The cypress gives it a brilliant sound very suitable for the characteristics of flamenco. Formerly, the palo santo from Rio or India was also used, being the first of higher quality, but currently it is in disuse due to its scarcity. The palo santo gave guitars an amplitude of sound especially suitable for solo playing. At present, the most widely used headstock is the metal one, since the wooden one poses tuning problems.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "The main guitar makers were Antonio de Torres Jurado (Almería, 1817–1892) considered the father of the guitar, Manuel Ramírez de Galarreta [es], the Great Ramírez (Madrid, 1864 -1920), and his disciples Santos Hernández (Madrid, 1873–1943), who built several guitars for the maestro Sabicas, Domingo Esteso and Modesto Borreguero [es]. Also noteworthy are the Conde Brothers, Faustino (1913–1988), Mariano (1916–1989) and Julio (1918–1996), nephews of Domingo Esteso, whose children and heirs continue the saga.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The guitarists use the technique of alzapúa, picado, the strum and the tremolo, among others. One of the first touches that is considered flamenco, such as the \"rondeña\", was the first composition recorded for solo guitar, by Julián Arcas (María, Almería, 1832 – Antequera, Málaga, 1882) in Barcelona in 1860. The strum can be performed with 5, 4 or 3 fingers, the latter invented by Sabicas. The use of the thumb is also characteristic of flamenco playing. Guitarists rest their thumb on the guitar's soundboard and their index and middle fingers on the string above the one they are playing, thus achieving greater power and sound than the classical guitarist. The middle finger is also placed on the pickguard of the guitar for more precision and strength when plucking the string. Likewise, the use of the pickguard as an element of percussion gives great strength to flamenco guitar playing. The melodic or flourishing phrase that is inserted between the chord sequences intended to accompany the couplet is called \"falseta\".",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "The accompaniment and solo playing of flamenco guitarists is based on both the modal harmonic system and the tonal system, although the most frequent is a combination of both. Some flamenco songs are performed \"a palo seco\" (a cappella), without guitar accompaniment.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "According to the Royal Spanish Academy, \"cante\" is called the \"action or effect of singing any Andalusian singing\", defining \"flamenco singing\" as \"agitated Andalusian singing\" and cante jondo as \"the most genuine song. Andalusian, of deep feeling \". The interpreter of flamenco singing is called cantaor instead of singer, with the loss of the intervocalic characteristic of the Andalusian dialect.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "The most important award in flamenco singing is probably the Llave de Oro del Cante [es], which has been awarded five times to: Tomás el Nitri [es], Manuel Vallejo [es; fr], Antonio Mairena, Camarón de la Isla and Fosforito.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "El baile flamenco is known for its emotional intensity, proud carriage, expressive use of the arms and rhythmic stamping of the feet, unlike tap dance or Irish dance which use different techniques. As with any dance form, many different styles of flamenco have developed.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "In the 20th century, flamenco danced informally at gitano (Roma) celebrations in Spain was considered the most \"authentic\" form of flamenco. There was less virtuoso technique in gitano flamenco, but the music and steps are fundamentally the same. The arms are noticeably different from classical flamenco, curving around the head and body rather than extending, often with a bent elbow.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "\"Flamenco puro\" otherwise known as \"flamenco por derecho\" is considered the form of performance flamenco closest to its gitano influences. In this style, the dance is often performed solo, and is based on signals and calls of structural improvisation rather than choreographed. In the improvisational style, castanets are not often used.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "\"Classical flamenco\" is the style most frequently performed by Spanish flamenco dance companies. It is danced largely in a proud and upright style. For women, the back is often held in a marked back bend. Unlike the more gitano influenced styles, there is little movement of the hips, the body is tightly held, and the arms are long, like a ballet dancer. In fact, many of the dancers in these companies are trained in Ballet Clásico Español more than in the improvisational language of flamenco. Flamenco has both influenced and been influenced by Ballet Clásico Español, as evidenced by the fusion of the two ballets created by 'La Argentinita' in the early part of the 20th century and later, by Joaquín Cortés, eventually by the entire Ballet Nacional de España et al.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "In the 1950s Jose Greco was one of the most famous male flamenco dancers, performing on stage worldwide and on television including the Ed Sullivan Show, and reviving the art almost singlehandedly. Greco's company left a handful of prominent pioneers, most notably: Maria Benitez and Vicente Romero of New Mexico. Today, there are many centers of flamenco art. Albuquerque, New Mexico is considered the \"Center of the Nation\" for flamenco art. Much of this is due to Maria Benitez's 37 years of sold-out summer seasons. Albuquerque boasts three distinct prominent centers: National Institute of Flamenco, Casa Flamenca and Flamenco Works. Each center dedicates time to daily training, cultural diffusion and world-class performance equaled only to world-class performances one would find in the heart of Southern Spain, Andalucía.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Modern flamenco is a highly technical dance style requiring years of study. The emphasis for both male and female performers is on lightning-fast footwork performed with absolute precision. In addition, the dancer may have to dance while using props such as castanets, canes, shawls and fans.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "\"Flamenco nuevo\" is a recent marketing phenomenon in flamenco. Marketed as a \"newer version\" of flamenco, its roots came from world-music promoters trying to sell albums of artists who created music that \"sounded like\" or had Spanish-style influences. Though some of this music was played in similar pitches, scales and was well-received, it has little to nothing to do with the art of flamenco guitar, dance, cante Jondo or the improvisational language. \"Nuevo flamenco\" consists largely of compositions and repertoire, while traditional flamenco music and dance is a language composed of stanzas, actuated by oral formulaic calls and signals.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "The flamenco most foreigners are familiar with is a style that was developed as a spectacle for tourists. To add variety, group dances are included and even solos are more likely to be choreographed. The frilly, voluminous spotted dresses are derived from a style of dress worn for the Sevillanas at the annual Feria in Seville.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In traditional flamenco, only the very young or older dancers are considered to have the emotional innocence or maturity to adequately convey the duende (soul) of the genre (Anon. 2010). Therefore, unlike other dance forms, where dancers turn professional through techniques early on to take advantage of youth and strength, many flamenco dancers do not hit their peak until their thirties and will continue to perform into their fifties and beyond. One artist that is considered a young master is Juan Manuel Fernandez Montoya, otherwise known as \"Farruquito\". At age 12, Farruquito was considered a pioneer and for \"Flamenco Puro\", or \"Flamenco por Derecho\", because of his emotional depth.",
"title": "Forms of flamenco expression"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "In Spain, regulated flamenco studies are officially taught in various music conservatories, dance conservatories and music schools in various autonomous communities.",
"title": "Regulated teaching of flamenco in educational centers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Flamenco guitar studies in official educational centers began in Spain in 1988 at the hands of the great concert performer and teacher from Granada Manuel Cano Tamayo, who obtained a position as emeritus professor at the Superior Conservatory de Música Rafael Orozco from Córdoba.",
"title": "Regulated teaching of flamenco in educational centers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "There are specialized flamenco conservatories throughout the country, although mainly in the Andalusia region, such as the aforementioned Córdoba Conservatory, the Murcia Superior Music Conservatory or the Superior Music School of Catalonia, among others. Outside of Spain, a unique case is the Rotterdam Conservatory, in the Netherlands, which offers regulated flamenco guitar studies under the direction of maestro Paco Peña since 1985, a few years before they existed in Spain.",
"title": "Regulated teaching of flamenco in educational centers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "In 2018 the first university master's degree in flamenco research and analysis begins, after the previous attempts of the \"Doctorate Program of Approach to Flamenco\", taught by several universities such as Huelva, Seville, Cádiz and Córdoba, among others.",
"title": "University"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "The fandango, which in the 17th century was the most widespread song and dance throughout Spain, eventually ended up generating local and regional variants, especially in the province of Huelva. In Alta Andalucía and bordering areas, the fandangos were accompanied with the bandola, an instrument with which they accompanied themselves following a regular beat that allowed dancing and from whose name the style derives \" abandoned \". Thus arose the fandangos of Lucena, the drones of Puente Genil, the primitive malagueñas, the rondeñas, the jaberas, the jabegotes, the verdiales, the chacarrá, the granaína, the taranto and the taranta. Due to the expansion of the Sevillanas in Baja Andalusia, the fandango gradually lost its role as a support for the dance, which allowed the singer to shine and freedom, generating a multitude of fandangos of personal creation in the 20th century. Likewise, thousands of Andalusian peasants, especially from the Eastern Andalusian provinces, emigrated to the mining sites Murcian, where the tarantos and taranta s evolved. The Tarante de Linares, evolved into the mining of the Union, the Cartagena and the Levantica. At the time of the cafés cantantes, some of these cantes were separated from the dance and acquired a free beat, which allowed the performers to show off. The great promoter of this process was Antonio Chacón, who developed precious versions of malagueñas, granainas and cantes mineros.",
"title": "University"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "The stylization of romance and cord sheets gave rise to corrido. The extraction of the romances from quatrains or three significant verses gave rise to the primitive tonás, the caña and the polo, which share meter and melody, but differing in their execution. The guitar accompaniment gave them a beat that made them danceable. It is believed that their origin was in Ronda, a city in Alta Andalucía close to Baja Andalucía and closely related to it, and that from there they reached the Sevillian suburb of Triana, with a great tradition of corridos, where they became the soleá. From the festive performance of corridos and soleares, the jaleos arose in Triana, who traveled to Extremadura and in Jerez and Utrera led to the bulería, from where they spread throughout Baja Andalucía, generating local variations.",
"title": "University"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Adolfo Salazar states that the expressive voice ole, with which Andalusian cantaores and bailaores are encouraged, can come from the Hebrew verb oleh which means \"to throw upwards\", showing that the dervish girovaghi of Tunisia, Maghreb, also dance around to the sound of repeated \"ole\" or \"joleh\". The use of the word \"arza\", which is the Andalusian dialect form, of pronouncing the voice imperative \"rise\", with the characteristic Andalusian equalization of / l / and / r / implosives. The indiscriminate use of the voices \"arza\" and \"ole\" is frequent when it comes to jalear, but the most evidence of the origin of this word can be from the caló: Olá, which means \"come\". Likewise, in Andalusia it is known as jaleo al ojeo de hunt, that is, the act of glancing, which is \"driving away the game with voices, shots, blows or noise, so that they 'get up'\".",
"title": "Lexicon"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "According to the RAE dictionary (1956!) The \"duende\" in Andalusia is a \"mysterious and ineffable charm\", a charisma that the Gitanos call duende. Federico García Lorca, in his lecture Teoría y juego del duende confirms this ineffability of the duende by defining it with the following words from Goethe: \"Mysterious power that everyone feels and that no philosopher explains\". In the flamenco imaginary, the duende goes beyond technique and inspiration, in Lorca's words \"To search for the duende there is no map or exercise\". When a flamenco artist experiences the arrival of this mysterious charm, the expressions \"have duende\" or sing, play or dance \"with duende\" are used.",
"title": "Lexicon"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Along with those previously mentioned, there are many other words and expressions characteristic of the flamenco genre, such as \"tablao flamenco\", \"flamenco spree\", \"third\", \"aflamencar\", and \"flamenco\".",
"title": "Lexicon"
}
] |
Flamenco is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and Murcia. In a wider sense, the term is used to refer to a variety of both contemporary and traditional musical styles typical of southern Spain. Flamenco is closely associated to the gitanos of the Romani ethnicity who have contributed significantly to its origination and professionalization. However, its style is uniquely Andalusian and flamenco artists have historically included Spaniards of both gitano and non-gitano heritage. The oldest record of flamenco music dates to 1774 in the book Las Cartas Marruecas by José Cadalso. The development of flamenco over the past two centuries is well documented: "the theatre movement of sainetes and tonadillas, popular song books and song sheets, customs, studies of dances, and toques, perfection, newspapers, graphic documents in paintings and engravings. ... in continuous evolution together with rhythm, the poetic stanzas, and the ambiance." On 16 November 2010, UNESCO declared flamenco one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
|
2001-11-29T02:01:06Z
|
2023-12-30T18:12:23Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamenco
|
11,561 |
Father Christmas
|
Father Christmas is the traditional English name for the personification of Christmas. Although now known as a Christmas gift-bringer, and typically considered to be synonymous with Santa Claus, he was originally part of a much older and unrelated English folkloric tradition. The recognisably modern figure of the English Father Christmas developed in the late Victorian period, but Christmas had been personified for centuries before then.
English personifications of Christmas were first recorded in the 15th century, with Father Christmas himself first appearing in the mid 17th century in the aftermath of the English Civil War. The Puritan-controlled English government had legislated to abolish Christmas, considering it popish, and had outlawed its traditional customs. Royalist political pamphleteers, linking the old traditions with their cause, adopted Old Father Christmas as the symbol of 'the good old days' of feasting and good cheer. Following the Restoration in 1660, Father Christmas's profile declined. His character was maintained during the late 18th and into the 19th century by the Christmas folk plays later known as mummers' plays.
Until Victorian times, Father Christmas was concerned with adult feasting and merry-making. He had no particular connection with children, nor with the giving of presents, nocturnal visits, stockings, chimneys or reindeer. But as later Victorian Christmases developed into child-centric family festivals, Father Christmas became a bringer of gifts.
The popular American myth of Santa Claus arrived in England in the 1850s and Father Christmas started to take on Santa's attributes. By the 1880s the new customs had become established, with the nocturnal visitor sometimes being known as Santa Claus and sometimes as Father Christmas. He was often illustrated wearing a long red hooded gown trimmed with white fur.
Most residual distinctions between Father Christmas and Santa Claus largely faded away in the early years of the 20th century, and modern dictionaries consider the terms Father Christmas and Santa Claus to be synonymous.
The custom of merrymaking and feasting at Christmastide first appears in the historical record during the High Middle Ages (c 1100–1300). This almost certainly represented a continuation of pre-Christian midwinter celebrations in Britain of which—as the historian Ronald Hutton has pointed out—"we have no details at all". Personifications came later, and when they did they reflected the existing custom.
The first known English personification of Christmas was associated with merry-making, singing and drinking. A carol attributed to Richard Smart, Rector of Plymtree in Devon from 1435 to 1477, has 'Sir Christemas' announcing the news of Christ's birth and encouraging his listeners to drink: "Buvez bien par toute la compagnie, / Make good cheer and be right merry, / And sing with us now joyfully: Nowell, nowell."
Many Christmas customs of the Late Middle Ages incorporated both sacred and secular themes. In Norwich in January 1443, at a traditional battle between the flesh and the spirit (represented by Christmas and Lent), John Gladman, crowned and disguised as 'King of Christmas', rode behind a pageant of the months "disguysed as the seson requird" on a horse decorated with tinfoil.
In most of England the archaic word 'Yule' had been replaced by 'Christmas' by the 11th century, but in some places 'Yule' survived as the normal dialect term. The City of York maintained an annual St Thomas's Day celebration of The Riding of Yule and his Wife which involved a figure representing Yule who carried bread and a leg of lamb. In 1572, the riding was suppressed on the orders of Edmund Grindal, the Archbishop of York (term 1570-1576), who complained of the "undecent and uncomely disguising" which drew multitudes of people from divine service.
Such personifications, illustrating the medieval fondness for pageantry and symbolism, extended throughout the Tudor and Stuart periods with Lord of Misrule characters, sometimes called 'Captain Christmas', 'Prince Christmas' or 'The Christmas Lord', presiding over feasting and entertainment in grand houses, university colleges and Inns of Court.
In his allegorical play Summer's Last Will and Testament, written in about 1592, Thomas Nashe introduced for comic effect a miserly Christmas character who refuses to keep the feast. He is reminded by Summer of the traditional role that he ought to be playing: "Christmas, how chance thou com’st not as the rest, / Accompanied with some music, or some song? / A merry carol would have graced thee well; / Thy ancestors have used it heretofore."
Early 17th century writers used the techniques of personification and allegory as a means of defending Christmas from attacks by radical Protestants.
Responding to a perceived decline in the levels of Christmas hospitality provided by the gentry, Ben Jonson in Christmas, His Masque (1616) dressed his Old Christmas in out-of-date fashions: "attir'd in round Hose, long Stockings, a close Doublet, a high crownd Hat with a Broach, a long thin beard, a Truncheon, little Ruffes, white shoes, his Scarffes, and Garters tyed crosse". Surrounded by guards, Christmas asserts his rightful place in the Protestant Church and protests against attempts to exclude him: "Why Gentlemen, doe you know what you doe? ha! would you ha'kept me out? Christmas, old Christmas? Christmas of London, and Captaine Christmas? ... they would not let me in: I must come another time! a good jeast, as if I could come more then once a yeare; why, I am no dangerous person, and so I told my friends, o'the Guard. I am old Gregorie Christmas still, and though I come out of Popes-head-alley as good a Protestant, as any i'my Parish."
The stage directions to The Springs Glorie, a 1638 court masque by Thomas Nabbes, state, "Christmas is personated by an old reverend Gentleman in a furr'd gown and cappe &c." Shrovetide and Christmas dispute precedence, and Shrovetide issues a challenge: "I say Christmas you are past date, you are out of the Almanack. Resigne, resigne." To which Christmas responds: "Resigne to thee! I that am the King of good cheere and feasting, though I come but once a yeare to raigne over bak't, boyled, roast and plum-porridge, will have being in despight of thy lard-ship."
This sort of character was to feature repeatedly over the next 250 years in pictures, stage plays and folk dramas. Initially known as 'Sir Christmas' or 'Lord Christmas', he later became increasingly referred to as 'Father Christmas'.
The rise of puritanism led to accusations of popery in connection with pre-reformation Christmas traditions. When the Puritans took control of government in the mid-1640s they made concerted efforts to abolish Christmas and to outlaw its traditional customs. For 15 years from around 1644, before and during the Interregnum of 1649-1660, the celebration of Christmas in England was forbidden. The suppression was given greater legal weight from June 1647 when parliament passed an Ordinance for Abolishing of Festivals which formally abolished Christmas in its entirety, along with the other traditional church festivals of Easter and Whitsun.
It was in this context that Royalist pamphleteers linked the old traditions of Christmas with the cause of King and Church, while radical puritans argued for the suppression of Christmas both in its religious and its secular aspects. In the hands of Royalist pamphlet writers, Old Father Christmas served as the symbol and spokesman of 'the good old days' of feasting and good cheer, and it became popular for Christmastide's defenders to present him as lamenting past times.
The Arraignment, Conviction and Imprisoning of Christmas (January 1646) describes a discussion between a town crier and a Royalist gentlewoman enquiring after Old Father Christmas who 'is gone from hence'. Its anonymous author, a parliamentarian, presents Father Christmas in a negative light, concentrating on his allegedly popish attributes: "For age, this hoarie headed man was of great yeares, and as white as snow; he entred the Romish Kallender time out of mind; [he] is old ...; he was full and fat as any dumb Docter of them all. He looked under the consecrated Laune sleeves as big as Bul-beefe ... but, since the catholike liquor is taken from him, he is much wasted, so that he hath looked very thin and ill of late ... But yet some other markes that you may know him by, is that the wanton Women dote after him; he helped them to so many new Gownes, Hatts, and Hankerches, and other fine knacks, of which he hath a pack on his back, in which is good store of all sorts, besides the fine knacks that he got out of their husbands' pockets for household provisions for him. He got Prentises, Servants, and Schollars many play dayes, and therefore was well beloved by them also, and made all merry with Bagpipes, Fiddles, and other musicks, Giggs, Dances, and Mummings."
The character of 'Christmas' (also called 'father Christmas') speaks in a pamphlet of 1652, immediately after the English Civil War, published anonymously by the satirical Royalist poet John Taylor: The Vindication of Christmas or, His Twelve Yeares' Observations upon the Times. A frontispiece illustrates an old, bearded Christmas in a brimmed hat, a long open robe and undersleeves. Christmas laments the pitiful quandary he has fallen into since he came into "this headlesse countrey". "I was in good hope that so long a misery would have made them glad to bid a merry Christmas welcome. But welcome or not welcome, I am come...." He concludes with a verse: "Lets dance and sing, and make good chear, / For Christmas comes but once a year."
In 1658 Josiah King published The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas (the earliest citation for the specific term 'Father Christmas' recognised by the Oxford English Dictionary). King portrays Father Christmas as a white-haired old man who is on trial for his life based on evidence laid against him by the Commonwealth. Father Christmas's counsel mounts the defence: "Me thinks my Lord, the very Clouds blush, to see this old Gentleman thus egregiously abused. if at any time any have abused themselves by immoderate eating, and drinking or otherwise spoil the creatures, it is none of this old mans fault; neither ought he to suffer for it; for example the Sun and the Moon are by the heathens worship’d are they therefore bad because idolized? so if any abuse this old man, they are bad for abusing him, not he bad, for being abused." The jury acquits.
Following the Restoration in 1660, most traditional Christmas celebrations were revived, although as these were no longer contentious the historic documentary sources become fewer.
In 1678 Josiah King reprinted his 1658 pamphlet with additional material. In this version, the restored Father Christmas is looking better: "[he] look't so smug and pleasant, his cherry cheeks appeared through his thin milk white locks, like [b]lushing Roses vail'd with snow white Tiffany ... the true Emblem of Joy and Innocence."
Old Christmass Returnd, a ballad collected by Samuel Pepys, celebrated the revival of festivities in the latter part of the century: "Old Christmass is come for to keep open house / He scorns to be guilty of starving a mouse, / Then come boyes and welcome, for dyet the chief / Plumb pudding, Goose, Capon, minc't pies & Roast beef".
As interest in Christmas customs waned, Father Christmas's profile declined. He still continued to be regarded as Christmas's presiding spirit, although his occasional earlier associations with the Lord of Misrule died out with the disappearance of the Lord of Misrule himself. The historian Ronald Hutton notes, "after a taste of genuine misrule during the Interregnum nobody in the ruling elite seems to have had any stomach for simulating it." Hutton also found "patterns of entertainment at late Stuart Christmases are remarkably timeless [and] nothing very much seems to have altered during the next century either." The diaries of 18th and early 19th century clergy take little note of any Christmas traditions.
In The Country Squire, a play of 1732, Old Christmas is depicted as someone who is rarely-found: a generous squire. The character Scabbard remarks, "Men are grown so ... stingy, now-a-days, that there is scarce One, in ten Parishes, makes any House-keeping. ... Squire Christmas ... keeps a good House, or else I do not know of One besides." When invited to spend Christmas with the squire, he comments "I will ... else I shall forget Christmas, for aught I see." Similar opinions were expressed in Round About Our Coal Fire ... with some curious Memories of Old Father Christmas; Shewing what Hospitality was in former Times, and how little there remains of it at present (1734, reprinted with Father Christmas subtitle 1796).
David Garrick's popular 1774 Drury Lane production of A Christmas Tale included a personified Christmas character who announced "Behold a personage well known to fame; / Once lov'd and honour'd – Christmas is my name! /.../ I, English hearts rejoic'd in days of yore; / for new strange modes, imported by the score, / You will not sure turn Christmas out of door!"
By the late 18th century Father Christmas had become a stock character in the Christmas folk plays later known as mummers plays. During the following century they became probably the most widespread of all calendar customs. Hundreds of villages had their own mummers who performed traditional plays around the neighbourhood, especially at the big houses. Father Christmas appears as a character in plays of the Southern England type, being mostly confined to plays from the south and west of England and Wales. His ritual opening speech is characterised by variants of a couplet closely reminiscent of John Taylor's "But welcome or not welcome, I am come..." from 1652.
The oldest extant speech is from Truro, Cornwall in the late 1780s:
During the Victorian period, Christmas customs enjoyed a significant revival, including the figure of Father Christmas himself as the emblem of 'good cheer'. His physical appearance at this time became more variable, and he was by no means always portrayed as the old and bearded figure imagined by 17th century writers.
In his 1808 poem Marmion, Walter Scott wrote:
Scott's phrase Merry England has been adopted by historians to describe the romantic notion that there was a Golden Age of the English past, allegedly since lost, that was characterised by universal hospitality and charity. The notion had a profound influence on the way that popular customs were seen, and most of the 19th century writers who bemoaned the state of contemporary Christmases were, at least to some extent, yearning for the mythical Merry England version.
Thomas Hervey's The Book of Christmas (1836), illustrated by Robert Seymour, exemplifies this view. In Hervey's personification of the lost charitable festival, "Old Father Christmas, at the head of his numerous and uproarious family, might ride his goat through the streets of the city and the lanes of the village, but he dismounted to sit for some few moments by each man's hearth; while some one or another of his merry sons would break away, to visit the remote farm-houses or show their laughing faces at many a poor man's door." Seymour's illustration shows Old Christmas dressed in a fur gown, crowned with a holly wreath, and riding a yule goat.
In an extended allegory, Hervey imagines his contemporary Old Father Christmas as a white-bearded magician dressed in a long robe and crowned with holly. His children are identified as Roast Beef (Sir Loin) and his faithful squire or bottle-holder Plum Pudding; the slender figure of Wassail with her fount of perpetual youth; a 'tricksy spirit' who bears the bowl and is on the best of terms with the Turkey; Mumming; Misrule, with a feather in his cap; the Lord of Twelfth Night under a state-canopy of cake and wearing his ancient crown; Saint Distaff looking like an old maid ("she used to be a sad romp; but her merriest days we fear are over"); Carol singing; the Waits; and the twin-faced Janus.
Hervey ends by lamenting the lost "uproarious merriment" of Christmas, and calls on his readers "who know anything of the 'old, old, very old, gray-bearded gentleman' or his family to aid us in our search after them; and with their good help we will endeavor to restore them to some portion of their ancient honors in England".
Father Christmas or Old Christmas, represented as a jolly-faced bearded man often surrounded by plentiful food and drink, started to appear regularly in illustrated magazines of the 1840s. He was dressed in a variety of costumes and usually had holly on his head, as in these illustrations from the Illustrated London News:
Charles Dickens's 1843 novel A Christmas Carol was highly influential, and has been credited both with reviving interest in Christmas in England and with shaping the themes attached to it. A famous image from the novel is John Leech's illustration of the 'Ghost of Christmas Present'. Although not explicitly named Father Christmas, the character wears a holly wreath, is shown sitting among food, drink and wassail bowl, and is dressed in the traditional loose furred gown—but in green rather than the red that later become ubiquitous.
Old Father Christmas continued to make his annual appearance in Christmas folk plays throughout the 19th century, his appearance varying considerably according to local custom. Sometimes, as in Hervey's book of 1836, he was portrayed (below left) as a hunchback.
One unusual portrayal (below centre) was described several times by William Sandys between 1830 and 1852, all in essentially the same terms: "Father Christmas is represented as a grotesque old man, with a large mask and comic wig, and a huge club in his hand." This representation is considered by the folklore scholar Peter Millington to be the result of the southern Father Christmas replacing the northern Beelzebub character in a hybrid play. A spectator to a Worcestershire version of the St George play in 1856 noted, "Beelzebub was identical with Old Father Christmas."
A mummers play mentioned in The Book of Days (1864) opened with "Old Father Christmas, bearing, as emblematic devices, the holly bough, wassail-bowl, &c". A corresponding illustration (below right) shows the character wearing not only a holly wreath but also a gown with a hood.
In a Hampshire folk play of 1860 Father Christmas is portrayed as a disabled soldier: "[he] wore breeches and stockings, carried a begging-box, and conveyed himself upon two sticks; his arms were striped with chevrons like a noncommissioned officer."
In the latter part of the 19th century and the early years of the next the folk play tradition in England rapidly faded, and the plays almost died out after the First World War taking their ability to influence the character of Father Christmas with them.
In pre-Victorian personifications, Father Christmas had been concerned essentially with adult feasting and games. He had no particular connection with children, nor with the giving of presents. But as Victorian Christmases developed into family festivals centred mainly on children, Father Christmas started to be associated with the giving of gifts.
The Cornish Quaker diarist Barclay Fox relates a family party given on 26 December 1842 that featured "the venerable effigies of Father Christmas with scarlet coat & cocked hat, stuck all over with presents for the guests, by his side the old year, a most dismal & haggard old beldame in a night cap and spectacles, then 1843 [the new year], a promising baby asleep in a cradle".
In Britain, the first evidence of a child writing letters to Father Christmas requesting gift has been found in 1895.
The figure of Santa Claus had originated in the US, drawing at least partly upon Dutch St Nicolas traditions. A New York publication of 1821, A New-Year’s Present, contained an illustrated poem Old Santeclaus with Much Delight in which a Santa figure on a reindeer sleigh brings presents for good children and a "long, black birchen rod" for use on the bad ones. In 1823 came the famous poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, usually attributed to the New York writer Clement Clarke Moore, which developed the character further. Moore's poem became immensely popular and Santa Claus customs, initially localized in the Dutch American areas, were becoming general in the United States by the middle of the century.
The January 1848 edition of Howitt's Journal of Literature and Popular Progress, published in London, carried an illustrated article entitled "New Year's Eve in Different Nations". This noted that one of the chief features of the American New Year's Eve was a custom carried over from the Dutch, namely the arrival of Santa Claus with gifts for the children. Santa Claus is "no other than the Pelz Nickel of Germany ... the good Saint Nicholas of Russia ... He arrives in Germany about a fortnight before Christmas, but as may be supposed from all the visits he has to pay there, and the length of his voyage, he does not arrive in America, until this eve."
In 1851 advertisements began appearing in Liverpool newspapers for a new transatlantic passenger service to and from New York aboard the Eagle Line's ship Santa Claus, and returning visitors and emigrants to the British Isles on this and other vessels will have been familiar with the American figure. There were some early adoptions in Britain. A Scottish reference has Santa Claus leaving presents on New Year's Eve 1852, with children "hanging their stockings up on each side of the fire-place, in their sleeping apartments, at night, and waiting patiently till morning, to see what Santa Claus puts into them during their slumbers". In Ireland in 1853, on the other hand, presents were being left on Christmas Eve according to a character in a newspaper short story who says "... tomorrow will be Christmas. What will Santa Claus bring us?" A poem published in Belfast in 1858 includes the lines "The children sleep; they dream of him, the fairy, / Kind Santa Claus, who with a right good will / Comes down the chimney with a footstep airy ..."
A Visit from St. Nicholas was published in England in December 1853 in Notes and Queries. An explanatory note states that the St Nicholas figure is known as Santa Claus in New York State and as Krishkinkle in Pennsylvania.
1854 marked the first English publication of Carl Krinkin; or, The Christmas Stocking by the popular American author Susan Warner. The novel was published three times in London in 1854–5, and there were several later editions. Characters in the book include both Santa Claus (complete with sleigh, stocking and chimney), leaving presents on Christmas Eve and—separately—Old Father Christmas. The Stocking of the title tells of how in England, "a great many years ago", it saw Father Christmas enter with his traditional refrain "Oh! here come I, old father Christmas, welcome or not ..." He wore a crown of yew and ivy, and he carried a long staff topped with holly-berries. His dress "was a long brown robe which fell down about his feet, and on it were sewed little spots of white cloth to represent snow".
As the US-inspired customs became popular in England, Father Christmas started to take on Santa's attributes. His costume became more standardised, and although depictions often still showed him carrying holly, the holly crown became rarer and was often replaced with a hood. It still remained common, though, for Father Christmas and Santa Claus to be distinguished, and as late as the 1890s there were still examples of the old-style Father Christmas appearing without any of the new American features.
The blurring of public roles occurred quite rapidly. In an 1854 newspaper description of the public Boxing Day festivities in Luton, Bedfordshire, a gift-giving Father Christmas/Santa Claus figure was already being described as 'familiar': "On the right-hand side was Father Christmas's bower, formed of evergreens, and in front was the proverbial Yule log, glistening in the snow ... He wore a great furry white coat and cap, and a long white beard and hair spoke to his hoar antiquity. Behind his bower he had a large selection of fancy articles which formed the gifts he distributed to holders of prize tickets from time to time during the day ... Father Christmas bore in his hand a small Christmas tree laden with bright little gifts and bon-bons, and altogether he looked like the familiar Santa Claus or Father Christmas of the picture book." Discussing the shops of Regent Street in London, another writer noted in December of that year, "you may fancy yourself in the abode of Father Christmas or St. Nicholas himself."
During the 1860s and the 1870s, Father Christmas became a popular subject on Christmas cards, where he was shown in many different costumes. Sometimes he gave presents and sometimes received them.
An illustrated article of 1866 explained the concept of The Cave of Mystery. In an imagined children's party this took the form of a recess in the library which evoked "dim visions of the cave of Aladdin" and was "well filled ... with all that delights the eye, pleases the ear, or tickles the fancy of children". The young guests "tremblingly await the decision of the improvised Father Christmas, with his flowing grey beard, long robe, and slender staff".
From the 1870s onwards, Christmas shopping had begun to evolve as a separate seasonal activity, and by the late 19th century it had become an important part of the English Christmas. The purchasing of toys, especially from the new department stores, became strongly associated with the season. The first retail Christmas Grotto was set up in JR Robert's store in Stratford, London in December 1888, and shopping arenas for children—often called 'Christmas Bazaars'—spread rapidly during the 1890s and 1900s, helping to assimilate Father Christmas/Santa Claus into society.
Sometimes the two characters continued to be presented as separate, as in a procession at the Olympia Exhibition of 1888 in which both Father Christmas and Santa Claus took part, with Little Red Riding Hood and other children's characters in between. At other times the characters were conflated: in 1885 Mr Williamson's London Bazaar in Sunderland was reported to be a "Temple of juvenile delectation and delight. In the well-lighted window is a representation of Father Christmas, with the printed intimation that 'Santa Claus is arranging within.'"
Even after the appearance of the store grotto, it was still not firmly established who should hand out gifts at parties. A writer in the Illustrated London News of December 1888 suggested that a Sibyl should dispense gifts from a 'snow cave', but a little over a year later she had changed her recommendation to a gypsy in a 'magic cave'. Alternatively, the hostess could "have Father Christmas arrive, towards the end of the evening, with a sack of toys on his back. He must have a white head and a long white beard, of course. Wig and beard can be cheaply hired from a theatrical costumier, or may be improvised from tow in case of need. He should wear a greatcoat down to his heels, liberally sprinkled with flour as though he had just come from that land of ice where Father Christmas is supposed to reside."
The nocturnal visitor aspect of the American myth took much longer to become naturalised. From the 1840s it had been accepted readily enough that presents were left for children by unseen hands overnight on Christmas Eve, but the receptacle was a matter of debate, as was the nature of the visitor. Dutch tradition had St Nicholas leaving presents in shoes laid out on 5 December, while in France shoes were filled by Père Noël. The older shoe custom and the newer American stocking custom trickled only slowly into Britain, with writers and illustrators remaining uncertain for many years. Although the stocking eventually triumphed, the shoe custom had still not been forgotten by 1901 when an illustration entitled Did you see Santa Claus, Mother? was accompanied by the verse "Her Christmas dreams / Have all come true; / Stocking o'erflows / and likewise shoe."
Before Santa Claus and the stocking became ubiquitous, one English tradition had been for fairies to visit on Christmas Eve to leave gifts in shoes set out in front of the fireplace.
Aspects of the American Santa Claus myth were sometimes adopted in isolation and applied to Father Christmas. In a short fantasy piece, the editor of the Cheltenham Chronicle in 1867 dreamt of being seized by the collar by Father Christmas, "rising up like a Geni of the Arabian Nights ... and moving rapidly through the aether". Hovering over the roof of a house, Father Christmas cries 'Open Sesame' to have the roof roll back to disclose the scene within.
It was not until the 1870s that the tradition of a nocturnal Santa Claus began to be adopted by ordinary people. The poem The Baby's Stocking, which was syndicated to local newspapers in 1871, took it for granted that readers would be familiar with the custom, and would understand the joke that the stocking might be missed as "Santa Claus wouldn't be looking for anything half so small." On the other hand, when The Preston Guardian published its poem Santa Claus and the Children in 1877 it felt the need to include a long preface explaining exactly who Santa Claus was.
Folklorists and antiquarians were not, it seems, familiar with the new local customs and Ronald Hutton notes that in 1879 the newly formed Folk-Lore Society, ignorant of American practices, was still "excitedly trying to discover the source of the new belief".
In January 1879 the antiquarian Edwin Lees wrote to Notes and Queries seeking information about an observance he had been told about by 'a country person': "On Christmas Eve, when the inmates of a house in the country retire to bed, all those desirous of a present place a stocking outside the door of their bedroom, with the expectation that some mythical being called Santiclaus will fill the stocking or place something within it before the morning. This is of course well known, and the master of the house does in reality place a Christmas gift secretly in each stocking; but the giggling girls in the morning, when bringing down their presents, affect to say that Santiclaus visited and filled the stockings in the night. From what region of the earth or air this benevolent Santiclaus takes flight I have not been able to ascertain ..." Lees received several responses, linking 'Santiclaus' with the continental traditions of St Nicholas and 'Petit Jesus' (Christkind), but no-one mentioned Father Christmas and no-one was correctly able to identify the American source.
By the 1880s the American myth had become firmly established in the popular English imagination, the nocturnal visitor sometimes being known as Santa Claus and sometimes as Father Christmas (often complete with a hooded robe). An 1881 poem imagined a child awaiting a visit from Santa Claus and asking "Will he come like Father Christmas, / Robed in green and beard all white? / Will he come amid the darkness? / Will he come at all tonight?" The French writer Max O'Rell, who evidently thought the custom was established in the England of 1883, explained that Father Christmas "descend par la cheminée, pour remplir de bonbons et de joux les bas que les enfants ont suspendus au pied du lit." [comes down the chimney, to fill with sweets and games the stockings that the children have hung from the foot of the bed]. And in her poem Agnes: A Fairy Tale (1891), Lilian M Bennett treats the two names as interchangeable: "Old Santa Claus is exceedingly kind, / but he won't come to Wide-awakes, you will find... / Father Christmas won't come if he can hear / You're awake. So to bed my bairnies dear." The commercial availability from 1895 of Tom Smith & Co's Santa Claus Surprise Stockings indicates how deeply the American myth had penetrated English society by the end of the century.
Representations of the developing character at this period were sometimes labelled 'Santa Claus' and sometimes 'Father Christmas', with a tendency for the latter still to allude to old-style associations with charity and with food and drink, as in several of these Punch illustrations:
Any residual distinctions between Father Christmas and Santa Claus largely faded away in the early years of the new century, and it was reported in 1915, "The majority of children to-day ... do not know of any difference between our old Father Christmas and the comparatively new Santa Claus, as, by both wearing the same garb, they have effected a happy compromise."
It took many years for authors and illustrators to agree that Father Christmas's costume should be portrayed as red—although that was always the most common colour—and he could sometimes be found in a gown of brown, green, blue or white. Mass media approval of the red costume came following a Coca-Cola advertising campaign that was launched in 1931.
Father Christmas's common form for much of the 20th century was described by his entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. He is "the personification of Christmas as a benevolent old man with a flowing white beard, wearing a red sleeved gown and hood trimmed with white fur, and carrying a sack of Christmas presents". One of the OED's sources is a 1919 cartoon in Punch, reproduced here. The caption reads:
In 1951 an editorial in The Times opined that while most adults may be under the impression that [the English] Father Christmas is home-bred, and is "a good insular John Bull old gentleman", many children, "led away ... by the false romanticism of sledges and reindeer", post letters to Norway addressed simply to Father Christmas or, "giving him a foreign veneer, Santa Claus".
Differences between the English and US representations were discussed in The Illustrated London News of 1985. The classic illustration by the US artist Thomas Nast was held to be "the authorised version of how Santa Claus should look—in America, that is." In Britain, people were said to stick to the older Father Christmas, with a long robe, large concealing beard, and boots similar to Wellingtons.
Father Christmas appeared in many 20th century English-language works of fiction, including J. R. R. Tolkien's Father Christmas Letters, a series of private letters to his children written between 1920 and 1942 and first published in 1976. Other 20th century publications include C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), Raymond Briggs's Father Christmas (1973) and its sequel Father Christmas Goes on Holiday (1975). The character was also celebrated in popular songs, including "I Believe in Father Christmas" by Greg Lake (1974) and "Father Christmas" by The Kinks (1977).
In 1991, Raymond Briggs's two books were adapted as an animated short film, Father Christmas, starring Mel Smith as the voice of the title character.
Modern dictionaries consider the terms Father Christmas and Santa Claus to be synonymous. The respective characters are now to all intents and purposes indistinguishable, although some people are still said to prefer the term 'Father Christmas' over 'Santa', nearly 150 years after Santa's arrival in England. According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (19th edn, 2012), Father Christmas is considered to be "[a] British rather than a US name for Santa Claus, associating him specifically with Christmas. The name carries a somewhat socially superior cachet and is thus preferred by certain advertisers."
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Father Christmas is the traditional English name for the personification of Christmas. Although now known as a Christmas gift-bringer, and typically considered to be synonymous with Santa Claus, he was originally part of a much older and unrelated English folkloric tradition. The recognisably modern figure of the English Father Christmas developed in the late Victorian period, but Christmas had been personified for centuries before then.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "English personifications of Christmas were first recorded in the 15th century, with Father Christmas himself first appearing in the mid 17th century in the aftermath of the English Civil War. The Puritan-controlled English government had legislated to abolish Christmas, considering it popish, and had outlawed its traditional customs. Royalist political pamphleteers, linking the old traditions with their cause, adopted Old Father Christmas as the symbol of 'the good old days' of feasting and good cheer. Following the Restoration in 1660, Father Christmas's profile declined. His character was maintained during the late 18th and into the 19th century by the Christmas folk plays later known as mummers' plays.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Until Victorian times, Father Christmas was concerned with adult feasting and merry-making. He had no particular connection with children, nor with the giving of presents, nocturnal visits, stockings, chimneys or reindeer. But as later Victorian Christmases developed into child-centric family festivals, Father Christmas became a bringer of gifts.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The popular American myth of Santa Claus arrived in England in the 1850s and Father Christmas started to take on Santa's attributes. By the 1880s the new customs had become established, with the nocturnal visitor sometimes being known as Santa Claus and sometimes as Father Christmas. He was often illustrated wearing a long red hooded gown trimmed with white fur.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Most residual distinctions between Father Christmas and Santa Claus largely faded away in the early years of the 20th century, and modern dictionaries consider the terms Father Christmas and Santa Claus to be synonymous.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The custom of merrymaking and feasting at Christmastide first appears in the historical record during the High Middle Ages (c 1100–1300). This almost certainly represented a continuation of pre-Christian midwinter celebrations in Britain of which—as the historian Ronald Hutton has pointed out—\"we have no details at all\". Personifications came later, and when they did they reflected the existing custom.",
"title": "Early midwinter celebrations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The first known English personification of Christmas was associated with merry-making, singing and drinking. A carol attributed to Richard Smart, Rector of Plymtree in Devon from 1435 to 1477, has 'Sir Christemas' announcing the news of Christ's birth and encouraging his listeners to drink: \"Buvez bien par toute la compagnie, / Make good cheer and be right merry, / And sing with us now joyfully: Nowell, nowell.\"",
"title": "15th century—the first English personifications of Christmas"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Many Christmas customs of the Late Middle Ages incorporated both sacred and secular themes. In Norwich in January 1443, at a traditional battle between the flesh and the spirit (represented by Christmas and Lent), John Gladman, crowned and disguised as 'King of Christmas', rode behind a pageant of the months \"disguysed as the seson requird\" on a horse decorated with tinfoil.",
"title": "15th century—the first English personifications of Christmas"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In most of England the archaic word 'Yule' had been replaced by 'Christmas' by the 11th century, but in some places 'Yule' survived as the normal dialect term. The City of York maintained an annual St Thomas's Day celebration of The Riding of Yule and his Wife which involved a figure representing Yule who carried bread and a leg of lamb. In 1572, the riding was suppressed on the orders of Edmund Grindal, the Archbishop of York (term 1570-1576), who complained of the \"undecent and uncomely disguising\" which drew multitudes of people from divine service.",
"title": "16th century—feasting, entertainment and music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Such personifications, illustrating the medieval fondness for pageantry and symbolism, extended throughout the Tudor and Stuart periods with Lord of Misrule characters, sometimes called 'Captain Christmas', 'Prince Christmas' or 'The Christmas Lord', presiding over feasting and entertainment in grand houses, university colleges and Inns of Court.",
"title": "16th century—feasting, entertainment and music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In his allegorical play Summer's Last Will and Testament, written in about 1592, Thomas Nashe introduced for comic effect a miserly Christmas character who refuses to keep the feast. He is reminded by Summer of the traditional role that he ought to be playing: \"Christmas, how chance thou com’st not as the rest, / Accompanied with some music, or some song? / A merry carol would have graced thee well; / Thy ancestors have used it heretofore.\"",
"title": "16th century—feasting, entertainment and music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Early 17th century writers used the techniques of personification and allegory as a means of defending Christmas from attacks by radical Protestants.",
"title": "17th century—religion and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Responding to a perceived decline in the levels of Christmas hospitality provided by the gentry, Ben Jonson in Christmas, His Masque (1616) dressed his Old Christmas in out-of-date fashions: \"attir'd in round Hose, long Stockings, a close Doublet, a high crownd Hat with a Broach, a long thin beard, a Truncheon, little Ruffes, white shoes, his Scarffes, and Garters tyed crosse\". Surrounded by guards, Christmas asserts his rightful place in the Protestant Church and protests against attempts to exclude him: \"Why Gentlemen, doe you know what you doe? ha! would you ha'kept me out? Christmas, old Christmas? Christmas of London, and Captaine Christmas? ... they would not let me in: I must come another time! a good jeast, as if I could come more then once a yeare; why, I am no dangerous person, and so I told my friends, o'the Guard. I am old Gregorie Christmas still, and though I come out of Popes-head-alley as good a Protestant, as any i'my Parish.\"",
"title": "17th century—religion and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The stage directions to The Springs Glorie, a 1638 court masque by Thomas Nabbes, state, \"Christmas is personated by an old reverend Gentleman in a furr'd gown and cappe &c.\" Shrovetide and Christmas dispute precedence, and Shrovetide issues a challenge: \"I say Christmas you are past date, you are out of the Almanack. Resigne, resigne.\" To which Christmas responds: \"Resigne to thee! I that am the King of good cheere and feasting, though I come but once a yeare to raigne over bak't, boyled, roast and plum-porridge, will have being in despight of thy lard-ship.\"",
"title": "17th century—religion and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "This sort of character was to feature repeatedly over the next 250 years in pictures, stage plays and folk dramas. Initially known as 'Sir Christmas' or 'Lord Christmas', he later became increasingly referred to as 'Father Christmas'.",
"title": "17th century—religion and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The rise of puritanism led to accusations of popery in connection with pre-reformation Christmas traditions. When the Puritans took control of government in the mid-1640s they made concerted efforts to abolish Christmas and to outlaw its traditional customs. For 15 years from around 1644, before and during the Interregnum of 1649-1660, the celebration of Christmas in England was forbidden. The suppression was given greater legal weight from June 1647 when parliament passed an Ordinance for Abolishing of Festivals which formally abolished Christmas in its entirety, along with the other traditional church festivals of Easter and Whitsun.",
"title": "17th century—religion and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "It was in this context that Royalist pamphleteers linked the old traditions of Christmas with the cause of King and Church, while radical puritans argued for the suppression of Christmas both in its religious and its secular aspects. In the hands of Royalist pamphlet writers, Old Father Christmas served as the symbol and spokesman of 'the good old days' of feasting and good cheer, and it became popular for Christmastide's defenders to present him as lamenting past times.",
"title": "17th century—religion and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Arraignment, Conviction and Imprisoning of Christmas (January 1646) describes a discussion between a town crier and a Royalist gentlewoman enquiring after Old Father Christmas who 'is gone from hence'. Its anonymous author, a parliamentarian, presents Father Christmas in a negative light, concentrating on his allegedly popish attributes: \"For age, this hoarie headed man was of great yeares, and as white as snow; he entred the Romish Kallender time out of mind; [he] is old ...; he was full and fat as any dumb Docter of them all. He looked under the consecrated Laune sleeves as big as Bul-beefe ... but, since the catholike liquor is taken from him, he is much wasted, so that he hath looked very thin and ill of late ... But yet some other markes that you may know him by, is that the wanton Women dote after him; he helped them to so many new Gownes, Hatts, and Hankerches, and other fine knacks, of which he hath a pack on his back, in which is good store of all sorts, besides the fine knacks that he got out of their husbands' pockets for household provisions for him. He got Prentises, Servants, and Schollars many play dayes, and therefore was well beloved by them also, and made all merry with Bagpipes, Fiddles, and other musicks, Giggs, Dances, and Mummings.\"",
"title": "17th century—religion and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The character of 'Christmas' (also called 'father Christmas') speaks in a pamphlet of 1652, immediately after the English Civil War, published anonymously by the satirical Royalist poet John Taylor: The Vindication of Christmas or, His Twelve Yeares' Observations upon the Times. A frontispiece illustrates an old, bearded Christmas in a brimmed hat, a long open robe and undersleeves. Christmas laments the pitiful quandary he has fallen into since he came into \"this headlesse countrey\". \"I was in good hope that so long a misery would have made them glad to bid a merry Christmas welcome. But welcome or not welcome, I am come....\" He concludes with a verse: \"Lets dance and sing, and make good chear, / For Christmas comes but once a year.\"",
"title": "17th century—religion and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In 1658 Josiah King published The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas (the earliest citation for the specific term 'Father Christmas' recognised by the Oxford English Dictionary). King portrays Father Christmas as a white-haired old man who is on trial for his life based on evidence laid against him by the Commonwealth. Father Christmas's counsel mounts the defence: \"Me thinks my Lord, the very Clouds blush, to see this old Gentleman thus egregiously abused. if at any time any have abused themselves by immoderate eating, and drinking or otherwise spoil the creatures, it is none of this old mans fault; neither ought he to suffer for it; for example the Sun and the Moon are by the heathens worship’d are they therefore bad because idolized? so if any abuse this old man, they are bad for abusing him, not he bad, for being abused.\" The jury acquits.",
"title": "17th century—religion and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Following the Restoration in 1660, most traditional Christmas celebrations were revived, although as these were no longer contentious the historic documentary sources become fewer.",
"title": "17th century—religion and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In 1678 Josiah King reprinted his 1658 pamphlet with additional material. In this version, the restored Father Christmas is looking better: \"[he] look't so smug and pleasant, his cherry cheeks appeared through his thin milk white locks, like [b]lushing Roses vail'd with snow white Tiffany ... the true Emblem of Joy and Innocence.\"",
"title": "17th century—religion and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Old Christmass Returnd, a ballad collected by Samuel Pepys, celebrated the revival of festivities in the latter part of the century: \"Old Christmass is come for to keep open house / He scorns to be guilty of starving a mouse, / Then come boyes and welcome, for dyet the chief / Plumb pudding, Goose, Capon, minc't pies & Roast beef\".",
"title": "17th century—religion and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "As interest in Christmas customs waned, Father Christmas's profile declined. He still continued to be regarded as Christmas's presiding spirit, although his occasional earlier associations with the Lord of Misrule died out with the disappearance of the Lord of Misrule himself. The historian Ronald Hutton notes, \"after a taste of genuine misrule during the Interregnum nobody in the ruling elite seems to have had any stomach for simulating it.\" Hutton also found \"patterns of entertainment at late Stuart Christmases are remarkably timeless [and] nothing very much seems to have altered during the next century either.\" The diaries of 18th and early 19th century clergy take little note of any Christmas traditions.",
"title": "18th century—a low profile"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In The Country Squire, a play of 1732, Old Christmas is depicted as someone who is rarely-found: a generous squire. The character Scabbard remarks, \"Men are grown so ... stingy, now-a-days, that there is scarce One, in ten Parishes, makes any House-keeping. ... Squire Christmas ... keeps a good House, or else I do not know of One besides.\" When invited to spend Christmas with the squire, he comments \"I will ... else I shall forget Christmas, for aught I see.\" Similar opinions were expressed in Round About Our Coal Fire ... with some curious Memories of Old Father Christmas; Shewing what Hospitality was in former Times, and how little there remains of it at present (1734, reprinted with Father Christmas subtitle 1796).",
"title": "18th century—a low profile"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "David Garrick's popular 1774 Drury Lane production of A Christmas Tale included a personified Christmas character who announced \"Behold a personage well known to fame; / Once lov'd and honour'd – Christmas is my name! /.../ I, English hearts rejoic'd in days of yore; / for new strange modes, imported by the score, / You will not sure turn Christmas out of door!\"",
"title": "18th century—a low profile"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "By the late 18th century Father Christmas had become a stock character in the Christmas folk plays later known as mummers plays. During the following century they became probably the most widespread of all calendar customs. Hundreds of villages had their own mummers who performed traditional plays around the neighbourhood, especially at the big houses. Father Christmas appears as a character in plays of the Southern England type, being mostly confined to plays from the south and west of England and Wales. His ritual opening speech is characterised by variants of a couplet closely reminiscent of John Taylor's \"But welcome or not welcome, I am come...\" from 1652.",
"title": "18th century—a low profile"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The oldest extant speech is from Truro, Cornwall in the late 1780s:",
"title": "18th century—a low profile"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "During the Victorian period, Christmas customs enjoyed a significant revival, including the figure of Father Christmas himself as the emblem of 'good cheer'. His physical appearance at this time became more variable, and he was by no means always portrayed as the old and bearded figure imagined by 17th century writers.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In his 1808 poem Marmion, Walter Scott wrote:",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Scott's phrase Merry England has been adopted by historians to describe the romantic notion that there was a Golden Age of the English past, allegedly since lost, that was characterised by universal hospitality and charity. The notion had a profound influence on the way that popular customs were seen, and most of the 19th century writers who bemoaned the state of contemporary Christmases were, at least to some extent, yearning for the mythical Merry England version.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Thomas Hervey's The Book of Christmas (1836), illustrated by Robert Seymour, exemplifies this view. In Hervey's personification of the lost charitable festival, \"Old Father Christmas, at the head of his numerous and uproarious family, might ride his goat through the streets of the city and the lanes of the village, but he dismounted to sit for some few moments by each man's hearth; while some one or another of his merry sons would break away, to visit the remote farm-houses or show their laughing faces at many a poor man's door.\" Seymour's illustration shows Old Christmas dressed in a fur gown, crowned with a holly wreath, and riding a yule goat.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In an extended allegory, Hervey imagines his contemporary Old Father Christmas as a white-bearded magician dressed in a long robe and crowned with holly. His children are identified as Roast Beef (Sir Loin) and his faithful squire or bottle-holder Plum Pudding; the slender figure of Wassail with her fount of perpetual youth; a 'tricksy spirit' who bears the bowl and is on the best of terms with the Turkey; Mumming; Misrule, with a feather in his cap; the Lord of Twelfth Night under a state-canopy of cake and wearing his ancient crown; Saint Distaff looking like an old maid (\"she used to be a sad romp; but her merriest days we fear are over\"); Carol singing; the Waits; and the twin-faced Janus.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Hervey ends by lamenting the lost \"uproarious merriment\" of Christmas, and calls on his readers \"who know anything of the 'old, old, very old, gray-bearded gentleman' or his family to aid us in our search after them; and with their good help we will endeavor to restore them to some portion of their ancient honors in England\".",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Father Christmas or Old Christmas, represented as a jolly-faced bearded man often surrounded by plentiful food and drink, started to appear regularly in illustrated magazines of the 1840s. He was dressed in a variety of costumes and usually had holly on his head, as in these illustrations from the Illustrated London News:",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Charles Dickens's 1843 novel A Christmas Carol was highly influential, and has been credited both with reviving interest in Christmas in England and with shaping the themes attached to it. A famous image from the novel is John Leech's illustration of the 'Ghost of Christmas Present'. Although not explicitly named Father Christmas, the character wears a holly wreath, is shown sitting among food, drink and wassail bowl, and is dressed in the traditional loose furred gown—but in green rather than the red that later become ubiquitous.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Old Father Christmas continued to make his annual appearance in Christmas folk plays throughout the 19th century, his appearance varying considerably according to local custom. Sometimes, as in Hervey's book of 1836, he was portrayed (below left) as a hunchback.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "One unusual portrayal (below centre) was described several times by William Sandys between 1830 and 1852, all in essentially the same terms: \"Father Christmas is represented as a grotesque old man, with a large mask and comic wig, and a huge club in his hand.\" This representation is considered by the folklore scholar Peter Millington to be the result of the southern Father Christmas replacing the northern Beelzebub character in a hybrid play. A spectator to a Worcestershire version of the St George play in 1856 noted, \"Beelzebub was identical with Old Father Christmas.\"",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "A mummers play mentioned in The Book of Days (1864) opened with \"Old Father Christmas, bearing, as emblematic devices, the holly bough, wassail-bowl, &c\". A corresponding illustration (below right) shows the character wearing not only a holly wreath but also a gown with a hood.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In a Hampshire folk play of 1860 Father Christmas is portrayed as a disabled soldier: \"[he] wore breeches and stockings, carried a begging-box, and conveyed himself upon two sticks; his arms were striped with chevrons like a noncommissioned officer.\"",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In the latter part of the 19th century and the early years of the next the folk play tradition in England rapidly faded, and the plays almost died out after the First World War taking their ability to influence the character of Father Christmas with them.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In pre-Victorian personifications, Father Christmas had been concerned essentially with adult feasting and games. He had no particular connection with children, nor with the giving of presents. But as Victorian Christmases developed into family festivals centred mainly on children, Father Christmas started to be associated with the giving of gifts.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The Cornish Quaker diarist Barclay Fox relates a family party given on 26 December 1842 that featured \"the venerable effigies of Father Christmas with scarlet coat & cocked hat, stuck all over with presents for the guests, by his side the old year, a most dismal & haggard old beldame in a night cap and spectacles, then 1843 [the new year], a promising baby asleep in a cradle\".",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In Britain, the first evidence of a child writing letters to Father Christmas requesting gift has been found in 1895.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The figure of Santa Claus had originated in the US, drawing at least partly upon Dutch St Nicolas traditions. A New York publication of 1821, A New-Year’s Present, contained an illustrated poem Old Santeclaus with Much Delight in which a Santa figure on a reindeer sleigh brings presents for good children and a \"long, black birchen rod\" for use on the bad ones. In 1823 came the famous poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, usually attributed to the New York writer Clement Clarke Moore, which developed the character further. Moore's poem became immensely popular and Santa Claus customs, initially localized in the Dutch American areas, were becoming general in the United States by the middle of the century.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The January 1848 edition of Howitt's Journal of Literature and Popular Progress, published in London, carried an illustrated article entitled \"New Year's Eve in Different Nations\". This noted that one of the chief features of the American New Year's Eve was a custom carried over from the Dutch, namely the arrival of Santa Claus with gifts for the children. Santa Claus is \"no other than the Pelz Nickel of Germany ... the good Saint Nicholas of Russia ... He arrives in Germany about a fortnight before Christmas, but as may be supposed from all the visits he has to pay there, and the length of his voyage, he does not arrive in America, until this eve.\"",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "In 1851 advertisements began appearing in Liverpool newspapers for a new transatlantic passenger service to and from New York aboard the Eagle Line's ship Santa Claus, and returning visitors and emigrants to the British Isles on this and other vessels will have been familiar with the American figure. There were some early adoptions in Britain. A Scottish reference has Santa Claus leaving presents on New Year's Eve 1852, with children \"hanging their stockings up on each side of the fire-place, in their sleeping apartments, at night, and waiting patiently till morning, to see what Santa Claus puts into them during their slumbers\". In Ireland in 1853, on the other hand, presents were being left on Christmas Eve according to a character in a newspaper short story who says \"... tomorrow will be Christmas. What will Santa Claus bring us?\" A poem published in Belfast in 1858 includes the lines \"The children sleep; they dream of him, the fairy, / Kind Santa Claus, who with a right good will / Comes down the chimney with a footstep airy ...\"",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "A Visit from St. Nicholas was published in England in December 1853 in Notes and Queries. An explanatory note states that the St Nicholas figure is known as Santa Claus in New York State and as Krishkinkle in Pennsylvania.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "1854 marked the first English publication of Carl Krinkin; or, The Christmas Stocking by the popular American author Susan Warner. The novel was published three times in London in 1854–5, and there were several later editions. Characters in the book include both Santa Claus (complete with sleigh, stocking and chimney), leaving presents on Christmas Eve and—separately—Old Father Christmas. The Stocking of the title tells of how in England, \"a great many years ago\", it saw Father Christmas enter with his traditional refrain \"Oh! here come I, old father Christmas, welcome or not ...\" He wore a crown of yew and ivy, and he carried a long staff topped with holly-berries. His dress \"was a long brown robe which fell down about his feet, and on it were sewed little spots of white cloth to represent snow\".",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "As the US-inspired customs became popular in England, Father Christmas started to take on Santa's attributes. His costume became more standardised, and although depictions often still showed him carrying holly, the holly crown became rarer and was often replaced with a hood. It still remained common, though, for Father Christmas and Santa Claus to be distinguished, and as late as the 1890s there were still examples of the old-style Father Christmas appearing without any of the new American features.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The blurring of public roles occurred quite rapidly. In an 1854 newspaper description of the public Boxing Day festivities in Luton, Bedfordshire, a gift-giving Father Christmas/Santa Claus figure was already being described as 'familiar': \"On the right-hand side was Father Christmas's bower, formed of evergreens, and in front was the proverbial Yule log, glistening in the snow ... He wore a great furry white coat and cap, and a long white beard and hair spoke to his hoar antiquity. Behind his bower he had a large selection of fancy articles which formed the gifts he distributed to holders of prize tickets from time to time during the day ... Father Christmas bore in his hand a small Christmas tree laden with bright little gifts and bon-bons, and altogether he looked like the familiar Santa Claus or Father Christmas of the picture book.\" Discussing the shops of Regent Street in London, another writer noted in December of that year, \"you may fancy yourself in the abode of Father Christmas or St. Nicholas himself.\"",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "During the 1860s and the 1870s, Father Christmas became a popular subject on Christmas cards, where he was shown in many different costumes. Sometimes he gave presents and sometimes received them.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "An illustrated article of 1866 explained the concept of The Cave of Mystery. In an imagined children's party this took the form of a recess in the library which evoked \"dim visions of the cave of Aladdin\" and was \"well filled ... with all that delights the eye, pleases the ear, or tickles the fancy of children\". The young guests \"tremblingly await the decision of the improvised Father Christmas, with his flowing grey beard, long robe, and slender staff\".",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "From the 1870s onwards, Christmas shopping had begun to evolve as a separate seasonal activity, and by the late 19th century it had become an important part of the English Christmas. The purchasing of toys, especially from the new department stores, became strongly associated with the season. The first retail Christmas Grotto was set up in JR Robert's store in Stratford, London in December 1888, and shopping arenas for children—often called 'Christmas Bazaars'—spread rapidly during the 1890s and 1900s, helping to assimilate Father Christmas/Santa Claus into society.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Sometimes the two characters continued to be presented as separate, as in a procession at the Olympia Exhibition of 1888 in which both Father Christmas and Santa Claus took part, with Little Red Riding Hood and other children's characters in between. At other times the characters were conflated: in 1885 Mr Williamson's London Bazaar in Sunderland was reported to be a \"Temple of juvenile delectation and delight. In the well-lighted window is a representation of Father Christmas, with the printed intimation that 'Santa Claus is arranging within.'\"",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Even after the appearance of the store grotto, it was still not firmly established who should hand out gifts at parties. A writer in the Illustrated London News of December 1888 suggested that a Sibyl should dispense gifts from a 'snow cave', but a little over a year later she had changed her recommendation to a gypsy in a 'magic cave'. Alternatively, the hostess could \"have Father Christmas arrive, towards the end of the evening, with a sack of toys on his back. He must have a white head and a long white beard, of course. Wig and beard can be cheaply hired from a theatrical costumier, or may be improvised from tow in case of need. He should wear a greatcoat down to his heels, liberally sprinkled with flour as though he had just come from that land of ice where Father Christmas is supposed to reside.\"",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The nocturnal visitor aspect of the American myth took much longer to become naturalised. From the 1840s it had been accepted readily enough that presents were left for children by unseen hands overnight on Christmas Eve, but the receptacle was a matter of debate, as was the nature of the visitor. Dutch tradition had St Nicholas leaving presents in shoes laid out on 5 December, while in France shoes were filled by Père Noël. The older shoe custom and the newer American stocking custom trickled only slowly into Britain, with writers and illustrators remaining uncertain for many years. Although the stocking eventually triumphed, the shoe custom had still not been forgotten by 1901 when an illustration entitled Did you see Santa Claus, Mother? was accompanied by the verse \"Her Christmas dreams / Have all come true; / Stocking o'erflows / and likewise shoe.\"",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Before Santa Claus and the stocking became ubiquitous, one English tradition had been for fairies to visit on Christmas Eve to leave gifts in shoes set out in front of the fireplace.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Aspects of the American Santa Claus myth were sometimes adopted in isolation and applied to Father Christmas. In a short fantasy piece, the editor of the Cheltenham Chronicle in 1867 dreamt of being seized by the collar by Father Christmas, \"rising up like a Geni of the Arabian Nights ... and moving rapidly through the aether\". Hovering over the roof of a house, Father Christmas cries 'Open Sesame' to have the roof roll back to disclose the scene within.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "It was not until the 1870s that the tradition of a nocturnal Santa Claus began to be adopted by ordinary people. The poem The Baby's Stocking, which was syndicated to local newspapers in 1871, took it for granted that readers would be familiar with the custom, and would understand the joke that the stocking might be missed as \"Santa Claus wouldn't be looking for anything half so small.\" On the other hand, when The Preston Guardian published its poem Santa Claus and the Children in 1877 it felt the need to include a long preface explaining exactly who Santa Claus was.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Folklorists and antiquarians were not, it seems, familiar with the new local customs and Ronald Hutton notes that in 1879 the newly formed Folk-Lore Society, ignorant of American practices, was still \"excitedly trying to discover the source of the new belief\".",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "In January 1879 the antiquarian Edwin Lees wrote to Notes and Queries seeking information about an observance he had been told about by 'a country person': \"On Christmas Eve, when the inmates of a house in the country retire to bed, all those desirous of a present place a stocking outside the door of their bedroom, with the expectation that some mythical being called Santiclaus will fill the stocking or place something within it before the morning. This is of course well known, and the master of the house does in reality place a Christmas gift secretly in each stocking; but the giggling girls in the morning, when bringing down their presents, affect to say that Santiclaus visited and filled the stockings in the night. From what region of the earth or air this benevolent Santiclaus takes flight I have not been able to ascertain ...\" Lees received several responses, linking 'Santiclaus' with the continental traditions of St Nicholas and 'Petit Jesus' (Christkind), but no-one mentioned Father Christmas and no-one was correctly able to identify the American source.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "By the 1880s the American myth had become firmly established in the popular English imagination, the nocturnal visitor sometimes being known as Santa Claus and sometimes as Father Christmas (often complete with a hooded robe). An 1881 poem imagined a child awaiting a visit from Santa Claus and asking \"Will he come like Father Christmas, / Robed in green and beard all white? / Will he come amid the darkness? / Will he come at all tonight?\" The French writer Max O'Rell, who evidently thought the custom was established in the England of 1883, explained that Father Christmas \"descend par la cheminée, pour remplir de bonbons et de joux les bas que les enfants ont suspendus au pied du lit.\" [comes down the chimney, to fill with sweets and games the stockings that the children have hung from the foot of the bed]. And in her poem Agnes: A Fairy Tale (1891), Lilian M Bennett treats the two names as interchangeable: \"Old Santa Claus is exceedingly kind, / but he won't come to Wide-awakes, you will find... / Father Christmas won't come if he can hear / You're awake. So to bed my bairnies dear.\" The commercial availability from 1895 of Tom Smith & Co's Santa Claus Surprise Stockings indicates how deeply the American myth had penetrated English society by the end of the century.",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Representations of the developing character at this period were sometimes labelled 'Santa Claus' and sometimes 'Father Christmas', with a tendency for the latter still to allude to old-style associations with charity and with food and drink, as in several of these Punch illustrations:",
"title": "19th century—revival"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Any residual distinctions between Father Christmas and Santa Claus largely faded away in the early years of the new century, and it was reported in 1915, \"The majority of children to-day ... do not know of any difference between our old Father Christmas and the comparatively new Santa Claus, as, by both wearing the same garb, they have effected a happy compromise.\"",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "It took many years for authors and illustrators to agree that Father Christmas's costume should be portrayed as red—although that was always the most common colour—and he could sometimes be found in a gown of brown, green, blue or white. Mass media approval of the red costume came following a Coca-Cola advertising campaign that was launched in 1931.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Father Christmas's common form for much of the 20th century was described by his entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. He is \"the personification of Christmas as a benevolent old man with a flowing white beard, wearing a red sleeved gown and hood trimmed with white fur, and carrying a sack of Christmas presents\". One of the OED's sources is a 1919 cartoon in Punch, reproduced here. The caption reads:",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In 1951 an editorial in The Times opined that while most adults may be under the impression that [the English] Father Christmas is home-bred, and is \"a good insular John Bull old gentleman\", many children, \"led away ... by the false romanticism of sledges and reindeer\", post letters to Norway addressed simply to Father Christmas or, \"giving him a foreign veneer, Santa Claus\".",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Differences between the English and US representations were discussed in The Illustrated London News of 1985. The classic illustration by the US artist Thomas Nast was held to be \"the authorised version of how Santa Claus should look—in America, that is.\" In Britain, people were said to stick to the older Father Christmas, with a long robe, large concealing beard, and boots similar to Wellingtons.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Father Christmas appeared in many 20th century English-language works of fiction, including J. R. R. Tolkien's Father Christmas Letters, a series of private letters to his children written between 1920 and 1942 and first published in 1976. Other 20th century publications include C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), Raymond Briggs's Father Christmas (1973) and its sequel Father Christmas Goes on Holiday (1975). The character was also celebrated in popular songs, including \"I Believe in Father Christmas\" by Greg Lake (1974) and \"Father Christmas\" by The Kinks (1977).",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "In 1991, Raymond Briggs's two books were adapted as an animated short film, Father Christmas, starring Mel Smith as the voice of the title character.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Modern dictionaries consider the terms Father Christmas and Santa Claus to be synonymous. The respective characters are now to all intents and purposes indistinguishable, although some people are still said to prefer the term 'Father Christmas' over 'Santa', nearly 150 years after Santa's arrival in England. According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (19th edn, 2012), Father Christmas is considered to be \"[a] British rather than a US name for Santa Claus, associating him specifically with Christmas. The name carries a somewhat socially superior cachet and is thus preferred by certain advertisers.\"",
"title": "21st century"
}
] |
Father Christmas is the traditional English name for the personification of Christmas. Although now known as a Christmas gift-bringer, and typically considered to be synonymous with Santa Claus, he was originally part of a much older and unrelated English folkloric tradition. The recognisably modern figure of the English Father Christmas developed in the late Victorian period, but Christmas had been personified for centuries before then. English personifications of Christmas were first recorded in the 15th century, with Father Christmas himself first appearing in the mid 17th century in the aftermath of the English Civil War. The Puritan-controlled English government had legislated to abolish Christmas, considering it popish, and had outlawed its traditional customs. Royalist political pamphleteers, linking the old traditions with their cause, adopted Old Father Christmas as the symbol of 'the good old days' of feasting and good cheer. Following the Restoration in 1660, Father Christmas's profile declined. His character was maintained during the late 18th and into the 19th century by the Christmas folk plays later known as mummers' plays. Until Victorian times, Father Christmas was concerned with adult feasting and merry-making. He had no particular connection with children, nor with the giving of presents, nocturnal visits, stockings, chimneys or reindeer. But as later Victorian Christmases developed into child-centric family festivals, Father Christmas became a bringer of gifts. The popular American myth of Santa Claus arrived in England in the 1850s and Father Christmas started to take on Santa's attributes. By the 1880s the new customs had become established, with the nocturnal visitor sometimes being known as Santa Claus and sometimes as Father Christmas. He was often illustrated wearing a long red hooded gown trimmed with white fur. Most residual distinctions between Father Christmas and Santa Claus largely faded away in the early years of the 20th century, and modern dictionaries consider the terms Father Christmas and Santa Claus to be synonymous.
|
2001-11-29T16:30:07Z
|
2023-12-27T23:34:05Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Christmas
|
11,563 |
Federal jurisdiction (United States)
|
Federal jurisdiction refers to the legal scope of the government's powers in the United States of America.
The United States is a federal republic, governed by the U.S. Constitution, containing fifty states and a federal district which elect the President and Vice President, and having other territories and possessions in its national jurisdiction. This government is variously known as the Union, the United States, or the federal government.
Under the Constitution and various treaties, the legal jurisdiction of the United States includes territories and territorial waters.
One aspect of federal jurisdiction is the extent of legislative power. Under the Constitution, Congress has power to legislate only in the areas that are delegated to it. Under clause 17 Article I Section 8 of the Constitution however, Congress has power to "exercise exclusive Legislation in all cases whatsoever" over the federal district (Washington, D.C.) and other territory ceded to the federal government by the states, such as for military installations.
Federal jurisdiction in this sense is important in criminal law because federal law does not supersede state criminal law. Congress has enacted the Assimilative Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 13), which provides that any act that would have been a crime under the laws of the state in which a federal enclave is situated is also a federal crime. As most such enclaves are occupied by the military, military law is especially concerned with these enclaves, especially the issue of establishing who has jurisdiction and what type of jurisdiction. In such areas, the federal government may have proprietary jurisdiction (rights as landowner), concurrent jurisdiction (with federal and state law applicable), or exclusive jurisdiction over the land where an act was committed. Courts-martial involving military members subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice apply regardless of location.
Article Four of the United States Constitution also states that the Congress has the power to enact laws respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States. Federal jurisdiction exists over any territory thus subject to laws enacted by the Congress.
The American legal system includes both state courts and federal courts. State courts hear cases involving state law, and such federal laws as are not restricted to hearing in federal courts. Federal courts may only hear cases where federal jurisdiction can be established. Specifically, the court must have both subject-matter jurisdiction over the matter of the claim and personal jurisdiction over the parties.
The Federal Courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, meaning that they only exercise powers granted to them by the Constitution and Federal Laws. There are several forms of subject-matter jurisdiction, but the two most commonly appealed to are federal-question jurisdiction and diversity jurisdiction. Federal question jurisdiction is available when the plaintiff raises a claim that arises under the laws, treaties, or Constitution of the United States, as opposed to claims arising under state law. By the "Well-Pleaded Complaint" rule, federal question jurisdiction is not available if the federal issue arises only as a defense to a state-law claim. Diversity jurisdiction, on the other hand, is available regarding state-law claims if every plaintiff is from a different state from every defendant (the requirement for so-called complete or total diversity) and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000.
If a Federal Court has subject matter jurisdiction over one or more of the claims in a case, it has discretion to exercise ancillary jurisdiction over other state law claims.
The Supreme Court has "cautioned that ... Court[s] must take great care to 'resist the temptation' to express preferences about [certain types of cases] in the form of jurisdictional rules. Judges must strain to remove the influence of the merits from their jurisdictional rules. The law of jurisdiction must remain apart from the world upon which it operates".
Generally, when a case has successfully overcome the hurdles of standing, Case or Controversy and State Action, it will be heard by a trial court. The non-governmental party may raise claims or defenses relating to alleged constitutional violation(s) by the government. If the non-governmental party loses, the constitutional issue may form part of the appeal. Eventually, a petition for certiorari may be sent to the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court grants certiorari and accepts the case, it will receive written briefs from each side (and any amici curiae or friends of the court—usually interested third parties with some expertise to bear on the subject) and schedule oral arguments. The Justices will closely question both parties. When the Court renders its decision, it will generally do so in a single majority opinion and one or more dissenting opinions. Each opinion sets forth the facts, prior decisions, and legal reasoning behind the position taken. The majority opinion constitutes binding precedent on all lower courts; when faced with very similar facts, they are bound to apply the same reasoning or face reversal of their decision by a higher court.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Federal jurisdiction refers to the legal scope of the government's powers in the United States of America.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The United States is a federal republic, governed by the U.S. Constitution, containing fifty states and a federal district which elect the President and Vice President, and having other territories and possessions in its national jurisdiction. This government is variously known as the Union, the United States, or the federal government.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Under the Constitution and various treaties, the legal jurisdiction of the United States includes territories and territorial waters.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "One aspect of federal jurisdiction is the extent of legislative power. Under the Constitution, Congress has power to legislate only in the areas that are delegated to it. Under clause 17 Article I Section 8 of the Constitution however, Congress has power to \"exercise exclusive Legislation in all cases whatsoever\" over the federal district (Washington, D.C.) and other territory ceded to the federal government by the states, such as for military installations.",
"title": "Legislative Branch"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Federal jurisdiction in this sense is important in criminal law because federal law does not supersede state criminal law. Congress has enacted the Assimilative Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 13), which provides that any act that would have been a crime under the laws of the state in which a federal enclave is situated is also a federal crime. As most such enclaves are occupied by the military, military law is especially concerned with these enclaves, especially the issue of establishing who has jurisdiction and what type of jurisdiction. In such areas, the federal government may have proprietary jurisdiction (rights as landowner), concurrent jurisdiction (with federal and state law applicable), or exclusive jurisdiction over the land where an act was committed. Courts-martial involving military members subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice apply regardless of location.",
"title": "Legislative Branch"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Article Four of the United States Constitution also states that the Congress has the power to enact laws respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States. Federal jurisdiction exists over any territory thus subject to laws enacted by the Congress.",
"title": "Legislative Branch"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The American legal system includes both state courts and federal courts. State courts hear cases involving state law, and such federal laws as are not restricted to hearing in federal courts. Federal courts may only hear cases where federal jurisdiction can be established. Specifically, the court must have both subject-matter jurisdiction over the matter of the claim and personal jurisdiction over the parties.",
"title": "Judicial branch"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The Federal Courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, meaning that they only exercise powers granted to them by the Constitution and Federal Laws. There are several forms of subject-matter jurisdiction, but the two most commonly appealed to are federal-question jurisdiction and diversity jurisdiction. Federal question jurisdiction is available when the plaintiff raises a claim that arises under the laws, treaties, or Constitution of the United States, as opposed to claims arising under state law. By the \"Well-Pleaded Complaint\" rule, federal question jurisdiction is not available if the federal issue arises only as a defense to a state-law claim. Diversity jurisdiction, on the other hand, is available regarding state-law claims if every plaintiff is from a different state from every defendant (the requirement for so-called complete or total diversity) and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000.",
"title": "Judicial branch"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "If a Federal Court has subject matter jurisdiction over one or more of the claims in a case, it has discretion to exercise ancillary jurisdiction over other state law claims.",
"title": "Judicial branch"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Supreme Court has \"cautioned that ... Court[s] must take great care to 'resist the temptation' to express preferences about [certain types of cases] in the form of jurisdictional rules. Judges must strain to remove the influence of the merits from their jurisdictional rules. The law of jurisdiction must remain apart from the world upon which it operates\".",
"title": "Judicial branch"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Generally, when a case has successfully overcome the hurdles of standing, Case or Controversy and State Action, it will be heard by a trial court. The non-governmental party may raise claims or defenses relating to alleged constitutional violation(s) by the government. If the non-governmental party loses, the constitutional issue may form part of the appeal. Eventually, a petition for certiorari may be sent to the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court grants certiorari and accepts the case, it will receive written briefs from each side (and any amici curiae or friends of the court—usually interested third parties with some expertise to bear on the subject) and schedule oral arguments. The Justices will closely question both parties. When the Court renders its decision, it will generally do so in a single majority opinion and one or more dissenting opinions. Each opinion sets forth the facts, prior decisions, and legal reasoning behind the position taken. The majority opinion constitutes binding precedent on all lower courts; when faced with very similar facts, they are bound to apply the same reasoning or face reversal of their decision by a higher court.",
"title": "Judicial branch"
}
] |
Federal jurisdiction refers to the legal scope of the government's powers in the United States of America. The United States is a federal republic, governed by the U.S. Constitution, containing fifty states and a federal district which elect the President and Vice President, and having other territories and possessions in its national jurisdiction. This government is variously known as the Union, the United States, or the federal government. Under the Constitution and various treaties, the legal jurisdiction of the United States includes territories and territorial waters.
|
2021-07-28T04:00:12Z
|
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"Template:USArticleIII",
"Template:Short description",
"Template:United States federal civil procedure",
"Template:UnitedStatesCode",
"Template:See also",
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] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_jurisdiction_(United_States)
|
|
11,564 |
Fossil Record
|
Fossil Record is a biannual peer-reviewed scientific journal covering palaeontology. It was established in 1998 as the Mitteilungen aus dem Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Geowissenschaftliche Reihe and originally published on behalf of the Museum für Naturkunde by Wiley-VCH. On 1 January 2022, Fossil Record changed publisher to Pensoft Publishers, the editor-in-chief is Florian Witzmann.
The journal is abstracted and indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded, BIOSIS Previews, The Zoological Record, and Scopus. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2020 impact factor of 2.081.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Fossil Record is a biannual peer-reviewed scientific journal covering palaeontology. It was established in 1998 as the Mitteilungen aus dem Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Geowissenschaftliche Reihe and originally published on behalf of the Museum für Naturkunde by Wiley-VCH. On 1 January 2022, Fossil Record changed publisher to Pensoft Publishers, the editor-in-chief is Florian Witzmann.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The journal is abstracted and indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded, BIOSIS Previews, The Zoological Record, and Scopus. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2020 impact factor of 2.081.",
"title": "Abstracting and indexing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "",
"title": "External links"
}
] |
Fossil Record is a biannual peer-reviewed scientific journal covering palaeontology. It was established in 1998 as the Mitteilungen aus dem Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Geowissenschaftliche Reihe and originally published on behalf of the Museum für Naturkunde by Wiley-VCH. On 1 January 2022, Fossil Record changed publisher to Pensoft Publishers, the editor-in-chief is Florian Witzmann.
|
2023-04-27T01:11:11Z
|
[
"Template:Infobox journal",
"Template:Reflist",
"Template:Cite web",
"Template:Official website",
"Template:Paleontology-journal-stub"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_Record
|
|
11,569 |
Frequency modulation synthesis
|
Frequency modulation synthesis (or FM synthesis) is a form of sound synthesis whereby the frequency of a waveform is changed by modulating its frequency with a modulator. The (instantaneous) frequency of an oscillator is altered in accordance with the amplitude of a modulating signal.
FM synthesis can create both harmonic and inharmonic sounds. To synthesize harmonic sounds, the modulating signal must have a harmonic relationship to the original carrier signal. As the amount of frequency modulation increases, the sound grows progressively complex. Through the use of modulators with frequencies that are non-integer multiples of the carrier signal (i.e. inharmonic), inharmonic bell-like and percussive spectra can be created.
FM synthesis using analog oscillators may result in pitch instability. However, FM synthesis can also be implemented digitally, which is more stable and became standard practice. Digital FM synthesis (equivalent to the phase modulation using the time integration of instantaneous frequency) was the basis of several musical instruments beginning as early as 1974. Yamaha built the first prototype digital synthesizer in 1974, based on FM synthesis, before commercially releasing the Yamaha GS-1 in 1980. The Synclavier I, manufactured by New England Digital Corporation beginning in 1978, included a digital FM synthesizer, using an FM synthesis algorithm licensed from Yamaha. Yamaha's groundbreaking Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, released in 1983, brought FM to the forefront of synthesis in the mid-1980s.
FM synthesis also became the usual setting for games and software up until the mid-nineties. For IBM PC compatible systems, sound cards like the AdLib and Sound Blaster popularized Yamaha chips like the OPL2 and OPL3. Other computers such as the Sharp X68000 and MSX (Yamaha CX5M computer unit) use the OPM sound chip (which was also commonly used for arcade machines up to the mid-nineties), and the NEC PC-88 and PC-98 computers use the OPN and OPNA. For arcade systems and game consoles, OPNB was used as main basic sound generator board in Taito's arcade boards and notably used in SNK's Neo Geo arcade (MVS) and home console (AES) machines. A variant of the OPNB was used in the Taito Z System. The related OPN2 was used in the Sega's Mega Drive (Genesis) and Fujitsu's FM Towns Marty as one of its sound generator chips. Throughout the 2000s, FM synthesis was also used on a wide range of phones to play ringtones and other sounds, typically in the Yamaha SMAF format.
Don Buchla implemented FM on his instruments in the mid-1960s, prior to Chowning's patent. His 158, 258 and 259 dual oscillator modules had a specific FM control voltage input, and the model 208 (Music Easel) had a modulation oscillator hard-wired to allow FM as well as AM of the primary oscillator. These early applications used analog oscillators, and this capability was also followed by other modular synthesizers and portable synthesizers including Minimoog and ARP Odyssey.
By the mid-20th century, frequency modulation (FM), a means of carrying sound, had been understood for decades and was being used to broadcast radio transmissions. FM synthesis was developed since 1967 at Stanford University, California, by John Chowning, who was trying to create sounds different from analog synthesis. His algorithm was licensed to Japanese company Yamaha in 1973. The implementation commercialized by Yamaha (US Patent 4018121 Apr 1977 or U.S. Patent 4,018,121) is actually based on phase modulation, but the results end up being equivalent mathematically as both are essentially a special case of quadrature amplitude modulation.
Yamaha's engineers began adapting Chowning's algorithm for use in a commercial digital synthesizer, adding improvements such as the "key scaling" method to avoid the introduction of distortion that normally occurred in analog systems during frequency modulation, though it would take several years before Yamaha released their FM digital synthesizers. In the 1970s, Yamaha were granted a number of patents, under the company's former name "Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha", evolving Chowning's work. Yamaha built the first prototype FM digital synthesizer in 1974. Yamaha eventually commercialized FM synthesis technology with the Yamaha GS-1, the first FM digital synthesizer, released in 1980.
FM synthesis was the basis of some of the early generations of digital synthesizers, most notably those from Yamaha, as well as New England Digital Corporation under license from Yamaha. Yamaha's DX7 synthesizer, released in 1983, was ubiquitous throughout the 1980s. Several other models by Yamaha provided variations and evolutions of FM synthesis during that decade.
Yamaha had patented its hardware implementation of FM in the 1970s, allowing it to nearly monopolize the market for FM technology until the mid-1990s.
Casio developed a related form of synthesis called phase distortion synthesis, used in its CZ range of synthesizers. It had a similar (but slightly differently derived) sound quality to the DX series.
With the expiration of the Stanford University FM patent in 1995, digital FM synthesis can now be implemented freely by other manufacturers. The FM synthesis patent brought Stanford $20 million before it expired, making it (in 1994) "the second most lucrative licensing agreement in Stanford's history". FM today is mostly found in software-based synths such as FM8 by Native Instruments or Sytrus by Image-Line, but it has also been incorporated into the synthesis repertoire of some modern digital synthesizers, usually coexisting as an option alongside other methods of synthesis such as subtractive, sample-based synthesis, additive synthesis, and other techniques. The degree of complexity of the FM in such hardware synths may vary from simple 2-operator FM, to the highly flexible 6-operator engines of the Korg Kronos and Alesis Fusion, to creation of FM in extensively modular engines such as those in the latest synthesisers by Kurzweil Music Systems.
New hardware synths specifically marketed for their FM capabilities disappeared from the market after the release of the Yamaha SY99 and FS1R, and even those marketed their highly powerful FM abilities as counterparts to sample-based synthesis and formant synthesis respectively. However, well-developed FM synthesis options are a feature of Nord Lead synths manufactured by Clavia, the Alesis Fusion range, the Korg Oasys and Kronos and the Modor NF-1. Various other synthesizers offer limited FM abilities to supplement their main engines.
Combining sets of 8 FM operators with multi-spectral wave forms began in 1999 by Yamaha in the FS1R. The FS1R had 16 operators, 8 standard FM operators and 8 additional operators that used a noise source rather than an oscillator as its sound source. By adding in tuneable noise sources the FS1R could model the sounds produced in the human voice and in a wind instrument, along with making percussion instrument sounds. The FS1R also contained an additional wave form called the Formant wave form. Formants can be used to model resonating body instrument sounds like the cello, violin, acoustic guitar, bassoon, English horn, or human voice. Formants can even be found in the harmonic spectrum of several brass instruments.
In 2016, Korg released the Korg Volca FM, a, 3-voice, 6 operators FM iteration of the Korg Volca series of compact, affordable desktop modules,. More recently Korg released the opsix (2020) and opsix SE (2023) integrating 6 operators FM synthesis with subtractive, analogue modeling, additive, semi-modular and Waveshaping. Yamaha released the Montage, which combines a 128-voice sample-based engine with a 128-voice FM engine. This iteration of FM is called FM-X, and features 8 operators; each operator has a choice of several basic wave forms, but each wave form has several parameters to adjust its spectrum. The Yamaha Montage was followed by the more affordable Yamaha MODX in 2018, with 64-voice, 8 operators FM-X architecture in addition to a 128-voice sample-based engine. Elektron in 2018 launched the Digitone, an 8-voice, 4 operators FM synth featuring Elektron's renowned sequence engine.
FM-X synthesis was introduced with the Yamaha Montage synthesizers in 2016. FM-X uses 8 operators. Each FM-X operator has a set of multi-spectral wave forms to choose from, which means each FM-X operator can be equivalent to a stack of 3 or 4 DX7 FM operators. The list of selectable wave forms includes sine waves, the All1 and All2 wave forms, the Odd1 and Odd2 wave forms, and the Res1 and Res2 wave forms. The sine wave selection works the same as the DX7 wave forms. The All1 and All2 wave forms are a saw-tooth wave form. The Odd1 and Odd2 wave forms are pulse or square waves. These two types of wave forms can be used to model the basic harmonic peaks in the bottom of the harmonic spectrum of most instruments. The Res1 and Res2 wave forms move the spectral peak to a specific harmonic and can be used to model either triangular or rounded groups of harmonics further up in the spectrum of an instrument. Combining an All1 or Odd1 wave form with multiple Res1 (or Res2) wave forms (and adjusting their amplitudes) can model the harmonic spectrum of an instrument or sound.
There are multiple variations of FM synthesis, including:
etc.
As the basic of these variations, we analyze the spectrum of 2 operators (linear FM synthesis using two sinusoidal operators) on the following.
The spectrum generated by FM synthesis with one modulator is expressed as follows:
For modulation signal m ( t ) = B sin ( ω m t ) {\displaystyle m(t)=B\,\sin(\omega _{m}t)\,} , the carrier signal is:
If we were to ignore the constant phase terms on the carrier ϕ c = B / ω m {\displaystyle \phi _{c}=B/\omega _{m}\,} and the modulator ϕ m = − π / 2 {\displaystyle \phi _{m}=-\pi /2\,} , finally we would get the following expression, as seen on Chowning 1973 and Roads 1996, p. 232:
where ω c , ω m {\displaystyle \omega _{c}\,,\,\omega _{m}\,} are angular frequencies ( ω = 2 π f {\displaystyle \,\omega =2\pi f\,} ) of carrier and modulator, β = B / ω m {\displaystyle \beta =B/\omega _{m}\,} is frequency modulation index, and amplitudes J n ( β ) {\displaystyle J_{n}(\beta )\,} is n {\displaystyle n\,} -th Bessel function of first kind, respectively.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Frequency modulation synthesis (or FM synthesis) is a form of sound synthesis whereby the frequency of a waveform is changed by modulating its frequency with a modulator. The (instantaneous) frequency of an oscillator is altered in accordance with the amplitude of a modulating signal.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "FM synthesis can create both harmonic and inharmonic sounds. To synthesize harmonic sounds, the modulating signal must have a harmonic relationship to the original carrier signal. As the amount of frequency modulation increases, the sound grows progressively complex. Through the use of modulators with frequencies that are non-integer multiples of the carrier signal (i.e. inharmonic), inharmonic bell-like and percussive spectra can be created.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "FM synthesis using analog oscillators may result in pitch instability. However, FM synthesis can also be implemented digitally, which is more stable and became standard practice. Digital FM synthesis (equivalent to the phase modulation using the time integration of instantaneous frequency) was the basis of several musical instruments beginning as early as 1974. Yamaha built the first prototype digital synthesizer in 1974, based on FM synthesis, before commercially releasing the Yamaha GS-1 in 1980. The Synclavier I, manufactured by New England Digital Corporation beginning in 1978, included a digital FM synthesizer, using an FM synthesis algorithm licensed from Yamaha. Yamaha's groundbreaking Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, released in 1983, brought FM to the forefront of synthesis in the mid-1980s.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "FM synthesis also became the usual setting for games and software up until the mid-nineties. For IBM PC compatible systems, sound cards like the AdLib and Sound Blaster popularized Yamaha chips like the OPL2 and OPL3. Other computers such as the Sharp X68000 and MSX (Yamaha CX5M computer unit) use the OPM sound chip (which was also commonly used for arcade machines up to the mid-nineties), and the NEC PC-88 and PC-98 computers use the OPN and OPNA. For arcade systems and game consoles, OPNB was used as main basic sound generator board in Taito's arcade boards and notably used in SNK's Neo Geo arcade (MVS) and home console (AES) machines. A variant of the OPNB was used in the Taito Z System. The related OPN2 was used in the Sega's Mega Drive (Genesis) and Fujitsu's FM Towns Marty as one of its sound generator chips. Throughout the 2000s, FM synthesis was also used on a wide range of phones to play ringtones and other sounds, typically in the Yamaha SMAF format.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Don Buchla implemented FM on his instruments in the mid-1960s, prior to Chowning's patent. His 158, 258 and 259 dual oscillator modules had a specific FM control voltage input, and the model 208 (Music Easel) had a modulation oscillator hard-wired to allow FM as well as AM of the primary oscillator. These early applications used analog oscillators, and this capability was also followed by other modular synthesizers and portable synthesizers including Minimoog and ARP Odyssey.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "By the mid-20th century, frequency modulation (FM), a means of carrying sound, had been understood for decades and was being used to broadcast radio transmissions. FM synthesis was developed since 1967 at Stanford University, California, by John Chowning, who was trying to create sounds different from analog synthesis. His algorithm was licensed to Japanese company Yamaha in 1973. The implementation commercialized by Yamaha (US Patent 4018121 Apr 1977 or U.S. Patent 4,018,121) is actually based on phase modulation, but the results end up being equivalent mathematically as both are essentially a special case of quadrature amplitude modulation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Yamaha's engineers began adapting Chowning's algorithm for use in a commercial digital synthesizer, adding improvements such as the \"key scaling\" method to avoid the introduction of distortion that normally occurred in analog systems during frequency modulation, though it would take several years before Yamaha released their FM digital synthesizers. In the 1970s, Yamaha were granted a number of patents, under the company's former name \"Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha\", evolving Chowning's work. Yamaha built the first prototype FM digital synthesizer in 1974. Yamaha eventually commercialized FM synthesis technology with the Yamaha GS-1, the first FM digital synthesizer, released in 1980.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "FM synthesis was the basis of some of the early generations of digital synthesizers, most notably those from Yamaha, as well as New England Digital Corporation under license from Yamaha. Yamaha's DX7 synthesizer, released in 1983, was ubiquitous throughout the 1980s. Several other models by Yamaha provided variations and evolutions of FM synthesis during that decade.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Yamaha had patented its hardware implementation of FM in the 1970s, allowing it to nearly monopolize the market for FM technology until the mid-1990s.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Casio developed a related form of synthesis called phase distortion synthesis, used in its CZ range of synthesizers. It had a similar (but slightly differently derived) sound quality to the DX series.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "With the expiration of the Stanford University FM patent in 1995, digital FM synthesis can now be implemented freely by other manufacturers. The FM synthesis patent brought Stanford $20 million before it expired, making it (in 1994) \"the second most lucrative licensing agreement in Stanford's history\". FM today is mostly found in software-based synths such as FM8 by Native Instruments or Sytrus by Image-Line, but it has also been incorporated into the synthesis repertoire of some modern digital synthesizers, usually coexisting as an option alongside other methods of synthesis such as subtractive, sample-based synthesis, additive synthesis, and other techniques. The degree of complexity of the FM in such hardware synths may vary from simple 2-operator FM, to the highly flexible 6-operator engines of the Korg Kronos and Alesis Fusion, to creation of FM in extensively modular engines such as those in the latest synthesisers by Kurzweil Music Systems.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "New hardware synths specifically marketed for their FM capabilities disappeared from the market after the release of the Yamaha SY99 and FS1R, and even those marketed their highly powerful FM abilities as counterparts to sample-based synthesis and formant synthesis respectively. However, well-developed FM synthesis options are a feature of Nord Lead synths manufactured by Clavia, the Alesis Fusion range, the Korg Oasys and Kronos and the Modor NF-1. Various other synthesizers offer limited FM abilities to supplement their main engines.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Combining sets of 8 FM operators with multi-spectral wave forms began in 1999 by Yamaha in the FS1R. The FS1R had 16 operators, 8 standard FM operators and 8 additional operators that used a noise source rather than an oscillator as its sound source. By adding in tuneable noise sources the FS1R could model the sounds produced in the human voice and in a wind instrument, along with making percussion instrument sounds. The FS1R also contained an additional wave form called the Formant wave form. Formants can be used to model resonating body instrument sounds like the cello, violin, acoustic guitar, bassoon, English horn, or human voice. Formants can even be found in the harmonic spectrum of several brass instruments.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 2016, Korg released the Korg Volca FM, a, 3-voice, 6 operators FM iteration of the Korg Volca series of compact, affordable desktop modules,. More recently Korg released the opsix (2020) and opsix SE (2023) integrating 6 operators FM synthesis with subtractive, analogue modeling, additive, semi-modular and Waveshaping. Yamaha released the Montage, which combines a 128-voice sample-based engine with a 128-voice FM engine. This iteration of FM is called FM-X, and features 8 operators; each operator has a choice of several basic wave forms, but each wave form has several parameters to adjust its spectrum. The Yamaha Montage was followed by the more affordable Yamaha MODX in 2018, with 64-voice, 8 operators FM-X architecture in addition to a 128-voice sample-based engine. Elektron in 2018 launched the Digitone, an 8-voice, 4 operators FM synth featuring Elektron's renowned sequence engine.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "FM-X synthesis was introduced with the Yamaha Montage synthesizers in 2016. FM-X uses 8 operators. Each FM-X operator has a set of multi-spectral wave forms to choose from, which means each FM-X operator can be equivalent to a stack of 3 or 4 DX7 FM operators. The list of selectable wave forms includes sine waves, the All1 and All2 wave forms, the Odd1 and Odd2 wave forms, and the Res1 and Res2 wave forms. The sine wave selection works the same as the DX7 wave forms. The All1 and All2 wave forms are a saw-tooth wave form. The Odd1 and Odd2 wave forms are pulse or square waves. These two types of wave forms can be used to model the basic harmonic peaks in the bottom of the harmonic spectrum of most instruments. The Res1 and Res2 wave forms move the spectral peak to a specific harmonic and can be used to model either triangular or rounded groups of harmonics further up in the spectrum of an instrument. Combining an All1 or Odd1 wave form with multiple Res1 (or Res2) wave forms (and adjusting their amplitudes) can model the harmonic spectrum of an instrument or sound.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "There are multiple variations of FM synthesis, including:",
"title": "Spectral analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "etc.",
"title": "Spectral analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "As the basic of these variations, we analyze the spectrum of 2 operators (linear FM synthesis using two sinusoidal operators) on the following.",
"title": "Spectral analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The spectrum generated by FM synthesis with one modulator is expressed as follows:",
"title": "Spectral analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "For modulation signal m ( t ) = B sin ( ω m t ) {\\displaystyle m(t)=B\\,\\sin(\\omega _{m}t)\\,} , the carrier signal is:",
"title": "Spectral analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "If we were to ignore the constant phase terms on the carrier ϕ c = B / ω m {\\displaystyle \\phi _{c}=B/\\omega _{m}\\,} and the modulator ϕ m = − π / 2 {\\displaystyle \\phi _{m}=-\\pi /2\\,} , finally we would get the following expression, as seen on Chowning 1973 and Roads 1996, p. 232:",
"title": "Spectral analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "where ω c , ω m {\\displaystyle \\omega _{c}\\,,\\,\\omega _{m}\\,} are angular frequencies ( ω = 2 π f {\\displaystyle \\,\\omega =2\\pi f\\,} ) of carrier and modulator, β = B / ω m {\\displaystyle \\beta =B/\\omega _{m}\\,} is frequency modulation index, and amplitudes J n ( β ) {\\displaystyle J_{n}(\\beta )\\,} is n {\\displaystyle n\\,} -th Bessel function of first kind, respectively.",
"title": "Spectral analysis"
}
] |
Frequency modulation synthesis is a form of sound synthesis whereby the frequency of a waveform is changed by modulating its frequency with a modulator. The (instantaneous) frequency of an oscillator is altered in accordance with the amplitude of a modulating signal. FM synthesis can create both harmonic and inharmonic sounds. To synthesize harmonic sounds, the modulating signal must have a harmonic relationship to the original carrier signal. As the amount of frequency modulation increases, the sound grows progressively complex. Through the use of modulators with frequencies that are non-integer multiples of the carrier signal, inharmonic bell-like and percussive spectra can be created.
|
2001-12-01T13:05:37Z
|
2023-12-23T23:17:00Z
|
[
"Template:Cite news",
"Template:Div col end",
"Template:Cite book",
"Template:Cite web",
"Template:Cite journal",
"Template:Div col",
"Template:Citation",
"Template:Citation needed",
"Template:Expand section",
"Template:Cite magazine",
"Template:Sound synthesis types",
"Template:Reflist",
"Template:Short description",
"Template:Citation needed span",
"Template:Harvnb"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_modulation_synthesis
|
11,572 |
Font (disambiguation)
|
A font in typography is a complete character set in a particular point size, in a particular typeface.
Font may also refer to:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A font in typography is a complete character set in a particular point size, in a particular typeface.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Font may also refer to:",
"title": ""
}
] |
A font in typography is a complete character set in a particular point size, in a particular typeface. Font may also refer to:
|
2001-12-02T00:06:14Z
|
2023-09-16T06:06:23Z
|
[
"Template:Wiktionary",
"Template:Tocright",
"Template:Disambiguation"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Font_(disambiguation)
|
11,574 |
Friedrich Bessel
|
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (German: [ˈbɛsl̩]; 22 July 1784 – 17 March 1846) was a German astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and geodesist. He was the first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the sun to another star by the method of parallax. Certain important mathematical functions were named Bessel functions after Bessel's death, though they had originally been discovered by Daniel Bernoulli before being generalised by Bessel.
Bessel was born in Minden, Westphalia, then capital of the Prussian administrative region Minden-Ravensberg, as second son of a civil servant into a large family. At the age of 14 he left the school, because he did not like the education in latin language, and apprenticed in the import-export concern Kulenkamp at Bremen. The business's reliance on cargo ships led him to turn his mathematical skills to problems in navigation. This in turn led to an interest in astronomy as a way of determining longitude.
Bessel came to the attention of Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers, a practising physician of Bremen and well-known astronomer, by producing a refinement on the orbital calculations for Halley's Comet in 1804, using old observation data taken from Thomas Harriot and Nathaniel Torporley in 1607. Franz Xaver von Zach edited the results in his journal Monatliche Correspondenz.
Having finished his commercial education, Bessel left Kulenkamp in 1806 and became assistant at Johann Hieronymus Schröter's private observatory in Lilienthal near Bremen as successor of Karl Ludwig Harding. There he worked on James Bradley's stellar observation data to produce precise positions for some 3,222 stars.
Despite lacking any higher education, especially at university, Bessel was appointed director of the newly founded Königsberg Observatory by King Frederick William III of Prussia in January 1810, at the age of 25, and remained in that position until his death. By reason of lacking any academical degree some colleagues of the Philosophical Faculty disputed Bessel's right to teach mathematics. Therefore he turned to his fellow Carl Friedrich Gauss, who provided the award of an honorary doctor degree from the University of Göttingen in March 1811. Both scientists were in correspondence from 1804 to 1843. In 1837 they got in quarrel about Gauss' habit of very slow publication.
In 1842 Bessel took part in the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Manchester, accompanied by the geophysicist Georg Adolf Erman and the mathematician Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, where he gave a report on astronomical clocks.
Bessel married Johanna Hagen, the daughter of the chemist and pharmacist Karl Gottfried Hagen who was the uncle of the physician and biologist Hermann August Hagen and the hydraulic engineer Gotthilf Hagen, the latter also Bessel's student and assistant from 1816 to 1818. The physicist Franz Ernst Neumann, Bessel's close companion and colleague, was married to Johanna Hagen's sister Florentine. Neumann introduced Bessel's exacting methods of measurement and data reduction into his mathematico-physical seminar, which he co-directed with Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi at Königsberg. These exacting methods had a lasting impact upon the work of Neumann's students and upon the Prussian conception of precision in measurement.
Bessel had two sons and three daughters. His elder son became an architect but died suddenly in 1840 aged 26; his younger son died shortly after birth. His eldest daughter, Marie, married the physicist Georg Adolf Erman, member of the scholar family Erman. One of their sons in turn was the renowned Egyptologist Adolf Erman. His third daughter Johanna married the politician Adolf Hermann Hagen; one of their sons was the physicist Ernst Bessel Hagen, and the mathematician Erich Bessel-Hagen was a grandson of them. Bessel was godfather of Adolf von Baeyer, son of his collaborator Johann Jacob Baeyer.
After several months of illness Bessel died in March 1846 at his observatory from retroperitoneal fibrosis.
While the observatory was still in construction Bessel elaborated the Fundamenta Astronomiae based on Bradley's observations. As a preliminary result he produced tables of atmospheric refraction that won him the Lalande Prize from the French Academy of Sciences in 1811. The Königsberg Observatory began operation in 1813.
Starting in 1819, Bessel determined the position of over 50,000 stars using a meridian circle from Reichenbach, assisted by some of his qualified students. The most prominent of them was Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander, his successors were Otto August Rosenberger and August Ludwig Busch.
Bessel determined the first reliable value for the distance between a star and the solar system using the method of stellar parallax. In 1838 he published a parallax of 0.314 arcseconds for 61 Cygni, which, given the diameter of the Earth's orbit, indicated that the star is 10.3 ly away. Compared with the current measurement of 11.4 ly, Bessel's figure had an error of 9.6%. Thanks to these results astronomers had not only enlarged the vision of the universe well beyond the cosmic magnitude, but after the discovery in 1728 by James Bradley of the aberration of light a second empirical evidence of the Earth's relative movement was produced. A short time later Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve and Thomas Henderson reported the parallaxes of Vega and Alpha Centauri.
Bessel's precise measurements with a new meridian circle from Adolf Repsold allowed him to notice deviations in the motions of Sirius and Procyon, which he deduced must be caused by the gravitational attraction of unseen companions. His announcement of Sirius's "dark companion" in 1844 was the first correct claim of a previously unobserved companion by positional measurement, and eventually led to the discovery of Sirius B.
Bessel was the first scientist who realized the effect later called personal equation, that several simultaneously observing persons determine slightly different values, especially recording the transit time of stars.
In 1824, Bessel developed a new method for calculating the circumstances of eclipses using the so-called Besselian elements. His method simplified the calculation to such an extent, without sacrificing accuracy, that it is still in use today.
On Bessel's proposal in 1825 the Prussian Academy of Sciences started the edition of the Berliner Akademische Sternkarten (Berlin Academic Star Charts) as an international project with Johann Franz Encke as executive editor. One unpublished new chart enabled Johann Gottfried Galle to find Neptune near the position calculated by Le Verrier in September 1846 at Berlin Observatory.
In the second decade of the 19th century while studying the dynamics gravitational systems as multi-body problem, Bessel developed what are now known as Bessel functions. Critical for the solution of certain differential equations, these functions are used throughout both classical and quantum physics.
Bessel is responsible for the correction to the formula for the sample variance estimator named in his honour. This is the use of the factor n − 1 in the denominator of the formula, rather than just n. This occurs when the sample mean rather than the population mean is used to centre the data and since the sample mean is a linear combination of the data the residual to the sample mean overcounts the number of degrees of freedom by the number of constraint equations — in this case one.
Like numerous astronomers of his time Bessel dealt on the field of geodesy, too, first theoretically, when he published a method for solving the main geodetic problem. In 1830 he got the royal order for the survey of East Prussia with the purpose to connect the yet existing Prussian and Russian triangulation networks. This work was carried out in cooperation with Johann Jacob Baeyer, then major of the Prussian army; the final report was published in 1838. He also obtained an estimate of increased accuracy for the Earth's ellipsoid, nowadays called the Bessel ellipsoid, based on several arc measurements.
Bessel was one of the first members of the Order Pour le Merite (Civil class) when it was established in 1842.
The first cosmic object named after Bessel is the largest crater in the Moon's Mare Serenitatis. The main-belt asteroid 1552 Bessel was named at the centenary of the parallaxe determination in 1938.
Geographical commemorations are two fjords in Greenland, Bessel Fjord, NE Greenland and Bessel Fjord, NW Greenland.
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (German: [ˈbɛsl̩]; 22 July 1784 – 17 March 1846) was a German astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and geodesist. He was the first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the sun to another star by the method of parallax. Certain important mathematical functions were named Bessel functions after Bessel's death, though they had originally been discovered by Daniel Bernoulli before being generalised by Bessel.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Bessel was born in Minden, Westphalia, then capital of the Prussian administrative region Minden-Ravensberg, as second son of a civil servant into a large family. At the age of 14 he left the school, because he did not like the education in latin language, and apprenticed in the import-export concern Kulenkamp at Bremen. The business's reliance on cargo ships led him to turn his mathematical skills to problems in navigation. This in turn led to an interest in astronomy as a way of determining longitude.",
"title": "Life and family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Bessel came to the attention of Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers, a practising physician of Bremen and well-known astronomer, by producing a refinement on the orbital calculations for Halley's Comet in 1804, using old observation data taken from Thomas Harriot and Nathaniel Torporley in 1607. Franz Xaver von Zach edited the results in his journal Monatliche Correspondenz.",
"title": "Life and family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Having finished his commercial education, Bessel left Kulenkamp in 1806 and became assistant at Johann Hieronymus Schröter's private observatory in Lilienthal near Bremen as successor of Karl Ludwig Harding. There he worked on James Bradley's stellar observation data to produce precise positions for some 3,222 stars.",
"title": "Life and family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Despite lacking any higher education, especially at university, Bessel was appointed director of the newly founded Königsberg Observatory by King Frederick William III of Prussia in January 1810, at the age of 25, and remained in that position until his death. By reason of lacking any academical degree some colleagues of the Philosophical Faculty disputed Bessel's right to teach mathematics. Therefore he turned to his fellow Carl Friedrich Gauss, who provided the award of an honorary doctor degree from the University of Göttingen in March 1811. Both scientists were in correspondence from 1804 to 1843. In 1837 they got in quarrel about Gauss' habit of very slow publication.",
"title": "Life and family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1842 Bessel took part in the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Manchester, accompanied by the geophysicist Georg Adolf Erman and the mathematician Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, where he gave a report on astronomical clocks.",
"title": "Life and family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Bessel married Johanna Hagen, the daughter of the chemist and pharmacist Karl Gottfried Hagen who was the uncle of the physician and biologist Hermann August Hagen and the hydraulic engineer Gotthilf Hagen, the latter also Bessel's student and assistant from 1816 to 1818. The physicist Franz Ernst Neumann, Bessel's close companion and colleague, was married to Johanna Hagen's sister Florentine. Neumann introduced Bessel's exacting methods of measurement and data reduction into his mathematico-physical seminar, which he co-directed with Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi at Königsberg. These exacting methods had a lasting impact upon the work of Neumann's students and upon the Prussian conception of precision in measurement.",
"title": "Life and family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Bessel had two sons and three daughters. His elder son became an architect but died suddenly in 1840 aged 26; his younger son died shortly after birth. His eldest daughter, Marie, married the physicist Georg Adolf Erman, member of the scholar family Erman. One of their sons in turn was the renowned Egyptologist Adolf Erman. His third daughter Johanna married the politician Adolf Hermann Hagen; one of their sons was the physicist Ernst Bessel Hagen, and the mathematician Erich Bessel-Hagen was a grandson of them. Bessel was godfather of Adolf von Baeyer, son of his collaborator Johann Jacob Baeyer.",
"title": "Life and family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "After several months of illness Bessel died in March 1846 at his observatory from retroperitoneal fibrosis.",
"title": "Life and family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "While the observatory was still in construction Bessel elaborated the Fundamenta Astronomiae based on Bradley's observations. As a preliminary result he produced tables of atmospheric refraction that won him the Lalande Prize from the French Academy of Sciences in 1811. The Königsberg Observatory began operation in 1813.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Starting in 1819, Bessel determined the position of over 50,000 stars using a meridian circle from Reichenbach, assisted by some of his qualified students. The most prominent of them was Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander, his successors were Otto August Rosenberger and August Ludwig Busch.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Bessel determined the first reliable value for the distance between a star and the solar system using the method of stellar parallax. In 1838 he published a parallax of 0.314 arcseconds for 61 Cygni, which, given the diameter of the Earth's orbit, indicated that the star is 10.3 ly away. Compared with the current measurement of 11.4 ly, Bessel's figure had an error of 9.6%. Thanks to these results astronomers had not only enlarged the vision of the universe well beyond the cosmic magnitude, but after the discovery in 1728 by James Bradley of the aberration of light a second empirical evidence of the Earth's relative movement was produced. A short time later Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve and Thomas Henderson reported the parallaxes of Vega and Alpha Centauri.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Bessel's precise measurements with a new meridian circle from Adolf Repsold allowed him to notice deviations in the motions of Sirius and Procyon, which he deduced must be caused by the gravitational attraction of unseen companions. His announcement of Sirius's \"dark companion\" in 1844 was the first correct claim of a previously unobserved companion by positional measurement, and eventually led to the discovery of Sirius B.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Bessel was the first scientist who realized the effect later called personal equation, that several simultaneously observing persons determine slightly different values, especially recording the transit time of stars.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In 1824, Bessel developed a new method for calculating the circumstances of eclipses using the so-called Besselian elements. His method simplified the calculation to such an extent, without sacrificing accuracy, that it is still in use today.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "On Bessel's proposal in 1825 the Prussian Academy of Sciences started the edition of the Berliner Akademische Sternkarten (Berlin Academic Star Charts) as an international project with Johann Franz Encke as executive editor. One unpublished new chart enabled Johann Gottfried Galle to find Neptune near the position calculated by Le Verrier in September 1846 at Berlin Observatory.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In the second decade of the 19th century while studying the dynamics gravitational systems as multi-body problem, Bessel developed what are now known as Bessel functions. Critical for the solution of certain differential equations, these functions are used throughout both classical and quantum physics.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Bessel is responsible for the correction to the formula for the sample variance estimator named in his honour. This is the use of the factor n − 1 in the denominator of the formula, rather than just n. This occurs when the sample mean rather than the population mean is used to centre the data and since the sample mean is a linear combination of the data the residual to the sample mean overcounts the number of degrees of freedom by the number of constraint equations — in this case one.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Like numerous astronomers of his time Bessel dealt on the field of geodesy, too, first theoretically, when he published a method for solving the main geodetic problem. In 1830 he got the royal order for the survey of East Prussia with the purpose to connect the yet existing Prussian and Russian triangulation networks. This work was carried out in cooperation with Johann Jacob Baeyer, then major of the Prussian army; the final report was published in 1838. He also obtained an estimate of increased accuracy for the Earth's ellipsoid, nowadays called the Bessel ellipsoid, based on several arc measurements.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Bessel was one of the first members of the Order Pour le Merite (Civil class) when it was established in 1842.",
"title": "Honors and prizes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The first cosmic object named after Bessel is the largest crater in the Moon's Mare Serenitatis. The main-belt asteroid 1552 Bessel was named at the centenary of the parallaxe determination in 1938.",
"title": "Honors and prizes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Geographical commemorations are two fjords in Greenland, Bessel Fjord, NE Greenland and Bessel Fjord, NW Greenland.",
"title": "Honors and prizes"
}
] |
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel was a German astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and geodesist. He was the first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the sun to another star by the method of parallax. Certain important mathematical functions were named Bessel functions after Bessel's death, though they had originally been discovered by Daniel Bernoulli before being generalised by Bessel.
|
2001-12-02T19:41:25Z
|
2023-10-19T12:34:32Z
|
[
"Template:Cite web",
"Template:ISSN",
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Bessel
|
11,577 |
FSB
|
FSB may refer to:
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "FSB may refer to:",
"title": ""
}
] |
FSB may refer to:
|
2002-02-25T15:43:11Z
|
2023-10-30T09:24:03Z
|
[
"Template:Wiktionary",
"Template:Tocright",
"Template:Lang-rus",
"Template:Lang",
"Template:Disambiguation"
] |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSB
|
11,579 |
Fermi paradox
|
The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence. As a 2015 article put it, "If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now."
Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi's name is associated with the paradox because of a casual conversation in the summer of 1950 with fellow physicists Edward Teller, Herbert York, and Emil Konopinski. While walking to lunch, the men discussed recent UFO reports and the possibility of faster-than-light travel. The conversation moved on to other topics, until during lunch Fermi blurted out, "But where is everybody?" (although the exact quote is uncertain).
There have been many attempts to resolve the Fermi paradox, such as suggesting that intelligent extraterrestrial beings are extremely rare, that the lifetime of such civilizations is short, or that they exist but (for various reasons) humans see no evidence.
The following are some of the facts and hypotheses that together serve to highlight the apparent contradiction:
Fermi was not the first to ask the question. An earlier implicit mention was by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in an unpublished manuscript from 1933. He noted "people deny the presence of intelligent beings on the planets of the universe" because "(i) if such beings exist they would have visited Earth, and (ii) if such civilizations existed then they would have given us some sign of their existence." This was not a paradox for others, who took this to imply the absence of extraterrestrial life. But it was one for him, since he believed in extraterrestrial life and the possibility of space travel. Therefore, he proposed what is now known as the zoo hypothesis and speculated that mankind is not yet ready for higher beings to contact us. In turn, Tsiolkovsky himself was not the first to discover the paradox, as shown by his reference to other people's reasons for not accepting the premise that extraterrestrial civilizations exist.
In 1975, Michael H. Hart published a detailed examination of the paradox, one of the first to do so. He argued that if intelligent extraterrestrials exist, and are capable of space travel, then the galaxy could have been colonized in a time much less than that of the age of the Earth. However, there is no observable evidence they have been here, which Hart called "Fact A".
Other names closely related to Fermi's question ("Where are they?") include the Great Silence, and silentium universi (Latin for "silence of the universe"), though these only refer to one portion of the Fermi Paradox, that humans see no evidence of other civilizations.
In the summer of 1950 at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Enrico Fermi and co-workers Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller, and Herbert York had one or several lunchtime conversations. In one, Fermi suddenly blurted out, "Where is everybody?" (Teller's letter), or "Don't you ever wonder where everybody is?" (York's letter), or "But where is everybody?" (Konopinski's letter). Teller wrote, "The result of his question was general laughter because of the strange fact that in spite of Fermi's question coming from the clear blue, everybody around the table seemed to understand at once that he was talking about extraterrestrial life."
In 1984 York wrote that Fermi "followed up with a series of calculations on the probability of earthlike planets, the probability of life given an earth, the probability of humans given life, the likely rise and duration of high technology, and so on. He concluded on the basis of such calculations that we ought to have been visited long ago and many times over." Teller remembers that not much came of this conversation "except perhaps a statement that the distances to the next location of living beings may be very great and that, indeed, as far as our galaxy is concerned, we are living somewhere in the sticks, far removed from the metropolitan area of the galactic center."
Fermi died of cancer in 1954. However, in letters to the three surviving men decades later in 1984, Dr. Eric Jones of Los Alamos was able to partially put the original conversation back together. He informed each of the men that he wished to include a reasonably accurate version or composite in the written proceedings he was putting together for a previously held conference entitled "Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience". Jones first sent a letter to Edward Teller which included a secondhand account from Hans Mark. Teller responded, and then Jones sent Teller's letter to Herbert York. York responded, and finally, Jones sent both Teller's and York's letters to Emil Konopinski who also responded. Furthermore, Konopinski was able to later identify a cartoon which Jones found as the one involved in the conversation and thereby help to settle the time period as being the summer of 1950.
The Fermi paradox is a conflict between the argument that scale and probability seem to favor intelligent life being common in the universe, and the total lack of evidence of intelligent life having ever arisen anywhere other than on Earth.
The first aspect of the Fermi paradox is a function of the scale or the large numbers involved: there are an estimated 200–400 billion stars in the Milky Way (2–4 × 10) and 70 sextillion (7×10) in the observable universe. Even if intelligent life occurs on only a minuscule percentage of planets around these stars, there might still be a great number of extant civilizations, and if the percentage were high enough it would produce a significant number of extant civilizations in the Milky Way. This assumes the mediocrity principle, by which Earth is a typical planet.
The second aspect of the Fermi paradox is the argument of probability: given intelligent life's ability to overcome scarcity, and its tendency to colonize new habitats, it seems possible that at least some civilizations would be technologically advanced, seek out new resources in space, and colonize their star system and, subsequently, surrounding star systems. Since there is no significant evidence on Earth, or elsewhere in the known universe, of other intelligent life after 13.8 billion years of the universe's history, there is a conflict requiring a resolution. Some examples of possible resolutions are that intelligent life is rarer than is thought, that assumptions about the general development or behavior of intelligent species are flawed, or, more radically, that current scientific understanding of the nature of the universe itself is quite incomplete.
The Fermi paradox can be asked in two ways. The first is, "Why are no aliens or their artifacts found on Earth, or in the Solar System?". If interstellar travel is possible, even the "slow" kind nearly within the reach of Earth technology, then it would only take from 5 million to 50 million years to colonize the galaxy. This is relatively brief on a geological scale, let alone a cosmological one. Since there are many stars older than the Sun, and since intelligent life might have evolved earlier elsewhere, the question then becomes why the galaxy has not been colonized already. Even if colonization is impractical or undesirable to all alien civilizations, large-scale exploration of the galaxy could be possible by probes. These might leave detectable artifacts in the Solar System, such as old probes or evidence of mining activity, but none of these have been observed.
The second form of the question is "Why are there no signs of intelligence elsewhere in the universe?". This version does not assume interstellar travel, but includes other galaxies as well. For distant galaxies, travel times may well explain the lack of alien visits to Earth, but a sufficiently advanced civilization could potentially be observable over a significant fraction of the size of the observable universe. Even if such civilizations are rare, the scale argument indicates they should exist somewhere at some point during the history of the universe, and since they could be detected from far away over a considerable period of time, many more potential sites for their origin are within range of human observation. It is unknown whether the paradox is stronger for the Milky Way galaxy or for the universe as a whole.
The theories and principles in the Drake equation are closely related to the Fermi paradox. The equation was formulated by Frank Drake in 1961 in an attempt to find a systematic means to evaluate the numerous probabilities involved in the existence of alien life. The equation is presented as follows:
Where N {\displaystyle N} is the number of technologically advanced civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy, and N {\displaystyle N} is asserted to be the product of
The fundamental problem is that the last four terms ( f l {\displaystyle f_{l}} , f i {\displaystyle f_{i}} , f c {\displaystyle f_{c}} , and L {\displaystyle L} ) are entirely unknown, rendering statistical estimates impossible.
The Drake equation has been used by both optimists and pessimists, with wildly differing results. The first scientific meeting on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), which had 10 attendees including Frank Drake and Carl Sagan, speculated that the number of civilizations was roughly between 1,000 and 100,000,000 civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy. Conversely, Frank Tipler and John D. Barrow used pessimistic numbers and speculated that the average number of civilizations in a galaxy is much less than one. Almost all arguments involving the Drake equation suffer from the overconfidence effect, a common error of probabilistic reasoning about low-probability events, by guessing specific numbers for likelihoods of events whose mechanism is not yet understood, such as the likelihood of abiogenesis on an Earth-like planet, with current likelihood estimates varying over many hundreds of orders of magnitude. An analysis that takes into account some of the uncertainty associated with this lack of understanding has been carried out by Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler and Toby Ord, and suggests "a substantial ex ante probability of there being no other intelligent life in our observable universe".
The Great Filter, a concept introduced by Robin Hanson in 1996, represents whatever natural phenomena that would make it unlikely for life to evolve from inanimate matter to an advanced civilization. The most commonly agreed-upon low probability event is abiogenesis: a gradual process of increasing complexity of the first self-replicating molecules by a randomly occurring chemical process. Other proposed great filters are the emergence of eukaryotic cells or of meiosis or some of the steps involved in the evolution of a brain capable of complex logical deductions.
Astrobiologists Dirk Schulze-Makuch and William Bains, reviewing the history of life on Earth, including convergent evolution, concluded that transitions such as oxygenic photosynthesis, the eukaryotic cell, multicellularity, and tool-using intelligence are likely to occur on any Earth-like planet given enough time. They argue that the Great Filter may be abiogenesis, the rise of technological human-level intelligence, or an inability to settle other worlds because of self-destruction or a lack of resources.
There are two parts of the Fermi paradox that rely on empirical evidence—that there are many potential habitable planets, and that humans see no evidence of life. The first point, that many suitable planets exist, was an assumption in Fermi's time but is now supported by the discovery that exoplanets are common. Current models predict billions of habitable worlds in the Milky Way.
The second part of the paradox, that humans see no evidence of extraterrestrial life, is also an active field of scientific research. This includes both efforts to find any indication of life, and efforts specifically directed to finding intelligent life. These searches have been made since 1960, and several are ongoing.
Although astronomers do not usually search for extraterrestrials, they have observed phenomena that they could not immediately explain without positing an intelligent civilization as the source. For example, pulsars, when first discovered in 1967, were called little green men (LGM) because of the precise repetition of their pulses. In all cases, explanations with no need for intelligent life have been found for such observations, but the possibility of discovery remains. Proposed examples include asteroid mining that would change the appearance of debris disks around stars, or spectral lines from nuclear waste disposal in stars.
Explanations based on technosignatures, such as radio communications, have been presented.
Radio technology and the ability to construct a radio telescope are presumed to be a natural advance for technological species, theoretically creating effects that might be detected over interstellar distances. The careful searching for non-natural radio emissions from space may lead to the detection of alien civilizations. Sensitive alien observers of the Solar System, for example, would note unusually intense radio waves for a G2 star due to Earth's television and telecommunication broadcasts. In the absence of an apparent natural cause, alien observers might infer the existence of a terrestrial civilization. Such signals could be either "accidental" by-products of a civilization, or deliberate attempts to communicate, such as the Arecibo message. It is unclear whether "leakage", as opposed to a deliberate beacon, could be detected by an extraterrestrial civilization. The most sensitive radio telescopes on Earth, as of 2019, would not be able to detect non-directional radio signals even at a fraction of a light-year away, but other civilizations could hypothetically have much better equipment.
A number of astronomers and observatories have attempted and are attempting to detect such evidence, mostly through the SETI organization. Several decades of SETI analysis have not revealed any unusually bright or meaningfully repetitive radio emissions.
Exoplanet detection and classification is a very active sub-discipline in astronomy; the first possible terrestrial planet discovered within a star's habitable zone was found in 2007. New refinements in exoplanet detection methods, and use of existing methods from space (such as the Kepler and TESS missions) are starting to detect and characterize Earth-size planets, to determine whether they are within the habitable zones of their stars. Such observational refinements may allow for a better estimation of how common these potentially habitable worlds are.
The Hart-Tipler conjecture is a form of contraposition which states that because no interstellar probes have been detected, there likely is no other intelligent life in the universe, as such life should be expected to eventually create and launch such probes. Self-replicating probes could exhaustively explore a galaxy the size of the Milky Way in as little as a million years. If even a single civilization in the Milky Way attempted this, such probes could spread throughout the entire galaxy. Another speculation for contact with an alien probe—one that would be trying to find human beings—is an alien Bracewell probe. Such a hypothetical device would be an autonomous space probe whose purpose is to seek out and communicate with alien civilizations (as opposed to von Neumann probes, which are usually described as purely exploratory). These were proposed as an alternative to carrying a slow speed-of-light dialogue between vastly distant neighbors. Rather than contending with the long delays a radio dialogue would suffer, a probe housing an artificial intelligence would seek out an alien civilization to carry on a close-range communication with the discovered civilization. The findings of such a probe would still have to be transmitted to the home civilization at light speed, but an information-gathering dialogue could be conducted in real time.
Direct exploration of the Solar System has yielded no evidence indicating a visit by aliens or their probes. Detailed exploration of areas of the Solar System where resources would be plentiful may yet produce evidence of alien exploration, though the entirety of the Solar System is vast and difficult to investigate. Attempts to signal, attract, or activate hypothetical Bracewell probes in Earth's vicinity have not succeeded.
In 1959, Freeman Dyson observed that every developing human civilization constantly increases its energy consumption, and he conjectured that a civilization might try to harness a large part of the energy produced by a star. He proposed a hypothetical "Dyson sphere" as a possible means: a shell or cloud of objects enclosing a star to absorb and utilize as much radiant energy as possible. Such a feat of astroengineering would drastically alter the observed spectrum of the star involved, changing it at least partly from the normal emission lines of a natural stellar atmosphere to those of black-body radiation, probably with a peak in the infrared. Dyson speculated that advanced alien civilizations might be detected by examining the spectra of stars and searching for such an altered spectrum.
There have been some attempts to find evidence of the existence of Dyson spheres that would alter the spectra of their core stars. Direct observation of thousands of galaxies has shown no explicit evidence of artificial construction or modifications. In October 2015, there was some speculation that a dimming of light from star KIC 8462852, observed by the Kepler space telescope, could have been a result of Dyson sphere construction. However, in 2018, observations determined that the amount of dimming varied by the frequency of the light, pointing to dust, rather than an opaque object such as a Dyson sphere, as the culprit for causing the dimming.
Those who think that intelligent extraterrestrial life is (nearly) impossible argue that the conditions needed for the evolution of life—or at least the evolution of biological complexity—are rare or even unique to Earth. Under this assumption, called the rare Earth hypothesis, a rejection of the mediocrity principle, complex multicellular life is regarded as exceedingly unusual.
The rare Earth hypothesis argues that the evolution of biological complexity requires a host of fortuitous circumstances, such as a galactic habitable zone, a star and planet(s) having the requisite conditions, such as enough of a continuous habitable zone, the advantage of a giant guardian like Jupiter and a large moon, conditions needed to ensure the planet has a magnetosphere and plate tectonics, the chemistry of the lithosphere, atmosphere, and oceans, the role of "evolutionary pumps" such as massive glaciation and rare bolide impacts. Perhaps most importantly, advanced life needs whatever it was that led to the transition of (some) prokaryotic cells to eukaryotic cells, sexual reproduction and the Cambrian explosion.
In his book Wonderful Life (1989), Stephen Jay Gould suggested that if the "tape of life" were rewound to the time of the Cambrian explosion, and one or two tweaks made, human beings most probably never would have evolved. Other thinkers such as Fontana, Buss, and Kauffman have written about the self-organizing properties of life.
It is possible that even if complex life is common, intelligence (and consequently civilizations) is not. While there are remote sensing techniques that could perhaps detect life-bearing planets without relying on the signs of technology, none of them have any ability to tell if any detected life is intelligent. This is sometimes referred to as the "algae vs. alumnae" problem.
Charles Lineweaver states that when considering any extreme trait in an animal, intermediate stages do not necessarily produce "inevitable" outcomes. For example, large brains are no more "inevitable", or convergent, than are the long noses of animals such as aardvarks and elephants. Humans, apes, whales, dolphins, octopuses, and squids are among the small group of definite or probable intelligence on Earth. As he points out, "dolphins have had ~20 million years to build a radio telescope and have not done so".
In addition, Rebecca Boyle points out that of all the species who have ever evolved in the history of life on the planet Earth, only one—human beings and only in the beginning stages—has ever become space-faring.
New life might commonly die out due to runaway heating or cooling on their fledgling planets. On Earth, there have been numerous major extinction events that destroyed the majority of complex species alive at the time; the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs is the best known example. These are thought to have been caused by events such as impact from a large meteorite, massive volcanic eruptions, or astronomical events such as gamma-ray bursts. It may be the case that such extinction events are common throughout the universe and periodically destroy intelligent life, or at least its civilizations, before the species is able to develop the technology to communicate with other intelligent species.
It may be that while alien species with intelligence exist, they are primitive or have not reached the level of technological advancement necessary to communicate. Along with non-intelligent life, such civilizations would also be very difficult to detect. A trip using conventional rockets would take hundreds of thousands of years to reach the nearest stars.
To skeptics, the fact that in the history of life on the Earth only one species has developed a civilization to the point of being capable of spaceflight and radio technology lends more credence to the idea that technologically advanced civilizations are rare in the universe.
Another hypothesis in this category is the "Water World hypothesis". According to author and scientist David Brin: "it turns out that our Earth skates the very inner edge of our sun's continuously habitable—or 'Goldilocks'—zone. And Earth may be anomalous. It may be that because we are so close to our sun, we have an anomalously oxygen-rich atmosphere, and we have anomalously little ocean for a water world. In other words, 32 percent continental mass may be high among water worlds..." Brin continues, "In which case, the evolution of creatures like us, with hands and fire and all that sort of thing, may be rare in the galaxy. In which case, when we do build starships and head out there, perhaps we'll find lots and lots of life worlds, but they're all like Polynesia. We'll find lots and lots of intelligent lifeforms out there, but they're all dolphins, whales, squids, who could never build their own starships. What a perfect universe for us to be in, because nobody would be able to boss us around, and we'd get to be the voyagers, the Star Trek people, the starship builders, the policemen, and so on."
This is the argument that technological civilizations may usually or invariably destroy themselves before or shortly after developing radio or spaceflight technology. The astrophysicist Sebastian von Hoerner stated that the progress of science and technology on Earth was driven by two factors—the struggle for domination and the desire for an easy life. The former potentially leads to complete destruction, while the latter may lead to biological or mental degeneration. Possible means of annihilation via major global issues, where global interconnectedness actually makes humanity more vulnerable than resilient, are many, including war, accidental environmental contamination or damage, the development of biotechnology, synthetic life like mirror life, resource depletion, climate change, or poorly-designed artificial intelligence. This general theme is explored both in fiction and in scientific hypothesizing.
In 1966, Sagan and Shklovskii speculated that technological civilizations will either tend to destroy themselves within a century of developing interstellar communicative capability or master their self-destructive tendencies and survive for billion-year timescales. Self-annihilation may also be viewed in terms of thermodynamics: insofar as life is an ordered system that can sustain itself against the tendency to disorder, Stephen Hawking's "external transmission" or interstellar communicative phase, where knowledge production and knowledge management is more important than transmission of information via evolution, may be the point at which the system becomes unstable and self-destructs. Here, Hawking emphasizes self-design of the human genome (transhumanism) or enhancement via machines (e.g., brain–computer interface) to enhance human intelligence and reduce aggression, without which he implies human civilization may be too stupid collectively to survive an increasingly unstable system. For instance, the development of technologies during the "external transmission" phase, such as weaponization of artificial general intelligence or antimatter, may not be met by concomitant increases in human ability to manage its own inventions. Consequently, disorder increases in the system: global governance may become increasingly destabilized, worsening humanity's ability to manage the possible means of annihilation listed above, resulting in global societal collapse.
Using extinct civilizations such as Easter Island (Rapa Nui) as models, a study conducted in 2018 by Adam Frank et al. posited that climate change induced by "energy intensive" civilizations may prevent sustainability within such civilizations, thus explaining the paradoxical lack of evidence for intelligent extraterrestrial life. According to his model, possible outcomes of climate change include gradual population decline until an equilibrium is reached; a scenario where sustainability is attained and both population and surface temperature level decrease; and societal collapse, including scenarios where a tipping point is crossed.
A less theoretical example might be the resource-depletion issue on Polynesian islands, of which Easter Island is only the best known. David Brin points out that during the expansion phase from 1500 BC to 800 AD there were cycles of overpopulation followed by what might be called periodic cullings of adult males through war or ritual. He writes, "There are many stories of islands whose men were almost wiped out—sometimes by internal strife, and sometimes by invading males from other islands."
Another hypothesis is that an intelligent species beyond a certain point of technological capability will destroy other intelligent species as they appear, perhaps by using self-replicating probes. Science fiction writer Fred Saberhagen has explored this idea in his Berserker series, as has physicist Gregory Benford and, as well, science fiction writer Greg Bear in his The Forge of God novel, and later Liu Cixin in his The Three-Body Problem series.
A species might undertake such extermination out of expansionist motives, greed, paranoia, or aggression. In 1981, cosmologist Edward Harrison argued that such behavior would be an act of prudence: an intelligent species that has overcome its own self-destructive tendencies might view any other species bent on galactic expansion as a threat. It has also been suggested that a successful alien species would be a superpredator, as are humans. Another possibility invokes the "tragedy of the commons" and the anthropic principle: the first lifeform to achieve interstellar travel will necessarily (even if unintentionally) prevent competitors from arising, and humans simply happen to be first.
It may be that alien civilizations are detectable through their radio emissions for only a short time, reducing the likelihood of spotting them. The usual assumption is that civilizations outgrow radio through technological advancement. However, there could be other leakage such as that from microwaves used to transmit power from solar satellites to ground receivers.
Regarding the first point, in a 2006 Sky & Telescope article, Seth Shostak wrote, "Moreover, radio leakage from a planet is only likely to get weaker as a civilization advances and its communications technology gets better. Earth itself is increasingly switching from broadcasts to leakage-free cables and fiber optics, and from primitive but obvious carrier-wave broadcasts to subtler, hard-to-recognize spread-spectrum transmissions."
More hypothetically, advanced alien civilizations may evolve beyond broadcasting at all in the electromagnetic spectrum and communicate by technologies not developed or used by mankind. Some scientists have hypothesized that advanced civilizations may send neutrino signals. If such signals exist, they could be detectable by neutrino detectors that are now under construction for other goals.
Another possibility is that human theoreticians have underestimated how much alien life might differ from that on Earth. Aliens may be psychologically unwilling to attempt to communicate with human beings. Perhaps human mathematics is parochial to Earth and not shared by other life, though others argue this can only apply to abstract math since the math associated with physics must be similar (in results, if not in methods).
Physiology might also cause a communication barrier. Carl Sagan speculated that an alien species might have a thought process orders of magnitude slower (or faster) than that of humans. A message broadcast by that species might well seem like random background noise to humans, and therefore go undetected.
Another thought is that technological civilizations invariably experience a technological singularity and attain a post-biological character. Hypothetical civilizations of this sort may have advanced drastically enough to render communication impossible.
In his 2009 book, SETI scientist Seth Shostak wrote, "Our experiments [such as plans to use drilling rigs on Mars] are still looking for the type of extraterrestrial that would have appealed to Percival Lowell [astronomer who believed he had observed canals on Mars]."
Paul Davies states that 500 years ago the very idea of a computer doing work merely by manipulating internal data may not have been viewed as a technology at all. He writes, "Might there be a still higher level [...] If so, this 'third level' would never be manifest through observations made at the informational level, still less the matter level. There is no vocabulary to describe the third level, but that doesn't mean it is non-existent, and we need to be open to the possibility that alien technology may operate at the third level, or maybe the fourth, fifth [...] levels."
Arthur C. Clarke hypothesized that "our technology must still be laughably primitive; we may well be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms, while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime".
In response to Tipler's idea of self-replicating probes, Stephen Jay Gould wrote, "I must confess that I simply don't know how to react to such arguments. I have enough trouble predicting the plans and reactions of the people closest to me. I am usually baffled by the thoughts and accomplishments of humans in different cultures. I'll be damned if I can state with certainty what some extraterrestrial source of intelligence might do."
A February 2019 article in Popular Science states, "Sweeping across the Milky Way and establishing a unified galactic empire might be inevitable for a monolithic super-civilization, but most cultures are neither monolithic nor super—at least if our experience is any guide." Astrophysicist Adam Frank, along with co-authors such as astronomer Jason Wright, ran a variety of simulations in which they varied such factors as settlement lifespans, fractions of suitable planets, and recharge times between launches. They found many of their simulations seemingly resulted in a "third category" in which the Milky Way remains partially settled indefinitely. The abstract to their 2019 paper states, "These results break the link between Hart's famous 'Fact A' (no interstellar visitors on Earth now) and the conclusion that humans must, therefore, be the only technological civilization in the galaxy. Explicitly, our solutions admit situations where our current circumstances are consistent with an otherwise settled, steady-state galaxy."
An alternative scenario is that long-lived civilizations may only choose to colonize stars during closest approach. As low mass K- and M-type dwarfs are by far the most common types of main sequence stars in the Milky Way, they are more likely to pass close to existing civilizations. These stars have longer life spans, which may be preferred by such a civilization. Interstellar travel capability of 0.3 light years is theoretically sufficient to colonize all M-dwarfs in the galaxy within 2 billion years. If the travel capability is increased to 2 light years, then all K-dwarfs can be colonized in the same time frame.
Some colonization scenarios predict spherical expansion across star systems, with continued expansion coming from the systems just previously settled. It has been suggested that this would cause a strong selection process among the colonization front favoring cultural or biological adaptations to living in starships or space habitats. As a result, they may forgo living on planets.
This may result in the destruction of terrestrial planets in these systems for use as building materials, thus preventing the development of life on those worlds. Or, they may have an ethic of protection for "nursery worlds", and protect them in a similar fashion to the zoo hypothesis.
It has been suggested that some advanced beings may divest themselves of physical form, create massive artificial virtual environments, transfer themselves into these environments through mind uploading, and exist totally within virtual worlds, ignoring the external physical universe.
It may also be that intelligent alien life develops an "increasing disinterest" in their outside world. Possibly any sufficiently advanced society will develop highly engaging media and entertainment well before the capacity for advanced space travel, with the rate of appeal of these social contrivances being destined, because of their inherent reduced complexity, to overtake any desire for complex, expensive endeavors such as space exploration and communication. Once any sufficiently advanced civilization becomes able to master its environment, and most of its physical needs are met through technology, various "social and entertainment technologies", including virtual reality, are postulated to become the primary drivers and motivations of that civilization.
The ability of an alien culture to colonize other star systems is based on the idea that interstellar travel is technologically feasible. While the current understanding of physics rules out the possibility of faster-than-light travel, it appears that there are no major theoretical barriers to the construction of "slow" interstellar ships, even though the engineering required is considerably beyond present human capabilities. This idea underlies the concept of the Von Neumann probe and the Bracewell probe as a potential evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence.
It is possible, however, that present scientific knowledge cannot properly gauge the feasibility and costs of such interstellar colonization. Theoretical barriers may not yet be understood, and the resources needed may be so great as to make it unlikely that any civilization could afford to attempt it. Even if interstellar travel and colonization are possible, they may be difficult, leading to a colonization model based on percolation theory.
Colonization efforts may not occur as an unstoppable rush, but rather as an uneven tendency to "percolate" outwards, within an eventual slowing and termination of the effort given the enormous costs involved and the expectation that colonies will inevitably develop a culture and civilization of their own. Colonization may thus occur in "clusters", with large areas remaining uncolonized at any one time.
If a human-capability machine construct, such as via mind uploading, is possible, and if it is possible to transfer such constructs over vast distances and rebuild them on a remote machine, then it might not make strong economic sense to travel the galaxy by spaceflight. After the first civilization has physically explored or colonized the galaxy, as well as sent such machines for easy exploration, then any subsequent civilizations, after having contacted the first, may find it cheaper, faster, and easier to explore the galaxy through intelligent mind transfers to the machines built by the first civilization, which is cheaper than spaceflight by a factor of 10–10. However, since a star system needs only one such remote machine, and the communication is most likely highly directed, transmitted at high-frequencies, and at a minimal power to be economical, such signals would be hard to detect from Earth.
There are some assumptions that underlie the SETI programs that may cause searchers to miss signals that are present. Extraterrestrials might, for example, transmit signals that have a very high or low data rate, or employ unconventional (in human terms) frequencies, which would make them hard to distinguish from background noise. Signals might be sent from non-main sequence star systems that humans search with lower priority; current programs assume that most alien life will be orbiting Sun-like stars.
The greatest challenge is the sheer size of the radio search needed to look for signals (effectively spanning the entire observable universe), the limited amount of resources committed to SETI, and the sensitivity of modern instruments. SETI estimates, for instance, that with a radio telescope as sensitive as the Arecibo Observatory, Earth's television and radio broadcasts would only be detectable at distances up to 0.3 light-years, less than 1/10 the distance to the nearest star. A signal is much easier to detect if it consists of a deliberate, powerful transmission directed at Earth. Such signals could be detected at ranges of hundreds to tens of thousands of light-years distance. However, this means that detectors must be listening to an appropriate range of frequencies, and be in that region of space to which the beam is being sent. Many SETI searches assume that extraterrestrial civilizations will be broadcasting a deliberate signal, like the Arecibo message, in order to be found.
Thus, to detect alien civilizations through their radio emissions, Earth observers either need more sensitive instruments or must hope for fortunate circumstances: that the broadband radio emissions of alien radio technology are much stronger than humanity's own; that one of SETI's programs is listening to the correct frequencies from the right regions of space; or that aliens are deliberately sending focused transmissions in Earth's general direction.
Humanity's ability to detect intelligent extraterrestrial life has existed for only a very brief period—from 1937 onwards, if the invention of the radio telescope is taken as the dividing line—and Homo sapiens is a geologically recent species. The whole period of modern human existence to date is a very brief period on a cosmological scale, and radio transmissions have only been propagated since 1895. Thus, it remains possible that human beings have neither existed long enough nor made themselves sufficiently detectable to be found by extraterrestrial intelligence.
It may be that non-colonizing technologically capable alien civilizations exist, but that they are simply too far apart for meaningful two-way communication. Sebastian von Hoerner estimated the average duration of civilization at 6,500 years and the average distance between civilizations in the Milky Way at 1,000 light years. If two civilizations are separated by several thousand light-years, it is possible that one or both cultures may become extinct before meaningful dialogue can be established. Human searches may be able to detect their existence, but communication will remain impossible because of distance. It has been suggested that this problem might be ameliorated somewhat if contact and communication is made through a Bracewell probe. In this case at least one partner in the exchange may obtain meaningful information. Alternatively, a civilization may simply broadcast its knowledge, and leave it to the receiver to make what they may of it. This is similar to the transmission of information from ancient civilizations to the present, and humanity has undertaken similar activities like the Arecibo message, which could transfer information about Earth's intelligent species, even if it never yields a response or does not yield a response in time for humanity to receive it. It is possible that observational signatures of self-destroyed civilizations could be detected, depending on the destruction scenario and the timing of human observation relative to it.
A related speculation by Sagan and Newman suggests that if other civilizations exist, and are transmitting and exploring, their signals and probes simply have not arrived yet. However, critics have noted that this is unlikely, since it requires that humanity's advancement has occurred at a very special point in time, while the Milky Way is in transition from empty to full. This is a tiny fraction of the lifespan of a galaxy under ordinary assumptions, so the likelihood that humanity is in the midst of this transition is considered low in the paradox.
Some SETI skeptics may also believe that humanity is at a very special point of time. Specifically, a transitional period from no space-faring societies to one space-faring society, namely that of human beings.
Planetary scientist Alan Stern put forward the idea that there could be a number of worlds with subsurface oceans (such as Jupiter's Europa or Saturn's Enceladus). The surface would provide a large degree of protection from such things as cometary impacts and nearby supernovae, as well as creating a situation in which a much broader range of orbits are acceptable. Life, and potentially intelligence and civilization, could evolve. Stern states, "If they have technology, and let's say they're broadcasting, or they have city lights or whatever—we can't see it in any part of the spectrum, except maybe very-low-frequency [radio]."
If life is abundant in the universe but the cost of space travel is high, an advanced civilization may choose to focus its search not on signs of life in general, but on those of other advanced civilizations, and specifically on radio signals. Since humanity has only recently began to use radio communication, its signals may have yet to arrive to other inhabited planets, and if they have, probes from those planets may have yet to arrive on Earth.
Alien civilizations might be technically capable of contacting Earth, but could be only listening instead of transmitting. If all or most civilizations act in the same way, the galaxy could be full of civilizations eager for contact, but everyone is listening and no one is transmitting. This is the so-called SETI Paradox.
The only civilization known, humanity, does not explicitly transmit, except for a few small efforts. Even these efforts, and certainly any attempt to expand them, are controversial. It is not even clear humanity would respond to a detected signal—the official policy within the SETI community is that "[no] response to a signal or other evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence should be sent until appropriate international consultations have taken place". However, given the possible impact of any reply, it may be very difficult to obtain any consensus on who would speak and what they would say.
An alien civilization might feel it is too dangerous to communicate, either for humanity or for them. It is argued that when very different civilizations have met on Earth, the results have often been disastrous for one side or the other, and the same may well apply to interstellar contact. Even contact at a safe distance could lead to infection by computer code or even ideas themselves. Perhaps prudent civilizations actively hide not only from Earth but from everyone, out of fear of other civilizations.
Perhaps the Fermi paradox itself—or the alien equivalent of it—is the reason for any civilization to avoid contact with other civilizations, even if no other obstacles existed. From any one civilization's point of view, it would be unlikely for them to be the first ones to make first contact. Therefore, according to this reasoning, it is likely that previous civilizations faced fatal problems with first contact and doing so should be avoided. So perhaps every civilization keeps quiet because of the possibility that there is a real reason for others to do so.
In Liu Cixin's 2008 novel The Dark Forest, the author proposes a literary explanation for the Fermi paradox in which many multiple alien civilizations exist, but are both silent and paranoid, destroying any nascent lifeforms loud enough to make themselves known. This is because any other intelligent life may represent a future threat. As a result, Liu's fictional universe contains a plethora of quiet civilizations which do not reveal themselves, as in a "dark forest"...filled with "armed hunter(s) stalking through the trees like a ghost". This idea has come to be known as the dark forest hypothesis.
The zoo hypothesis states that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists and does not contact life on Earth to allow for its natural evolution and development. A variation on the zoo hypothesis is the laboratory hypothesis, where humanity has been or is being subject to experiments, with Earth or the Solar System effectively serving as a laboratory. The zoo hypothesis may break down under the uniformity of motive flaw: all it takes is a single culture or civilization to decide to act contrary to the imperative within humanity's range of detection for it to be abrogated, and the probability of such a violation of hegemony increases with the number of civilizations, tending not towards a 'Galactic Club' with a unified foreign policy with regard to life on Earth but multiple 'Galactic Cliques'. However, if artificial superintelligences dominate galactic life, and if it is true that such intelligences tend towards merged hegemonic behavior, then this would address the uniformity of motive flaw by dissuading rogue behavior.
Analysis of the inter-arrival times between civilizations in the galaxy based on common astrobiological assumptions suggests that the initial civilization would have a commanding lead over the later arrivals. As such, it may have established what has been termed the zoo hypothesis through force or as a galactic or universal norm and the resultant "paradox" by a cultural founder effect with or without the continued activity of the founder.
It is possible that a civilization advanced enough to travel between solar systems could be actively visiting or observing Earth while remaining undetected or unrecognized.
A related idea to the zoo hypothesis is that, beyond a certain distance, the perceived universe is a simulated reality. The planetarium hypothesis speculates that beings may have created this simulation so that the universe appears to be empty of other life.
A significant fraction of the population believes that at least some UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) are spacecraft piloted by aliens. While most of these are unrecognized or mistaken interpretations of mundane phenomena, some occurrences remain puzzling even after investigation. The consensus scientific view is that although they may be unexplained, they do not rise to the level of convincing evidence.
Similarly, it is theoretically possible that SETI groups are not reporting positive detections, or governments have been blocking signals or suppressing publication. This response might be attributed to security or economic interests from the potential use of advanced extraterrestrial technology. It has been suggested that the detection of an extraterrestrial radio signal or technology could well be the most highly secret information that exists. Claims that this has already happened are common in the popular press, but the scientists involved report the opposite experience—the press becomes informed and interested in a potential detection even before a signal can be confirmed.
Regarding the idea that aliens are in secret contact with governments, David Brin writes, "Aversion to an idea, simply because of its long association with crackpots, gives crackpots altogether too much influence."
|
[
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence. As a 2015 article put it, \"If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi's name is associated with the paradox because of a casual conversation in the summer of 1950 with fellow physicists Edward Teller, Herbert York, and Emil Konopinski. While walking to lunch, the men discussed recent UFO reports and the possibility of faster-than-light travel. The conversation moved on to other topics, until during lunch Fermi blurted out, \"But where is everybody?\" (although the exact quote is uncertain).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "There have been many attempts to resolve the Fermi paradox, such as suggesting that intelligent extraterrestrial beings are extremely rare, that the lifetime of such civilizations is short, or that they exist but (for various reasons) humans see no evidence.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The following are some of the facts and hypotheses that together serve to highlight the apparent contradiction:",
"title": "Chain of reasoning"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Fermi was not the first to ask the question. An earlier implicit mention was by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in an unpublished manuscript from 1933. He noted \"people deny the presence of intelligent beings on the planets of the universe\" because \"(i) if such beings exist they would have visited Earth, and (ii) if such civilizations existed then they would have given us some sign of their existence.\" This was not a paradox for others, who took this to imply the absence of extraterrestrial life. But it was one for him, since he believed in extraterrestrial life and the possibility of space travel. Therefore, he proposed what is now known as the zoo hypothesis and speculated that mankind is not yet ready for higher beings to contact us. In turn, Tsiolkovsky himself was not the first to discover the paradox, as shown by his reference to other people's reasons for not accepting the premise that extraterrestrial civilizations exist.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1975, Michael H. Hart published a detailed examination of the paradox, one of the first to do so. He argued that if intelligent extraterrestrials exist, and are capable of space travel, then the galaxy could have been colonized in a time much less than that of the age of the Earth. However, there is no observable evidence they have been here, which Hart called \"Fact A\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Other names closely related to Fermi's question (\"Where are they?\") include the Great Silence, and silentium universi (Latin for \"silence of the universe\"), though these only refer to one portion of the Fermi Paradox, that humans see no evidence of other civilizations.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In the summer of 1950 at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Enrico Fermi and co-workers Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller, and Herbert York had one or several lunchtime conversations. In one, Fermi suddenly blurted out, \"Where is everybody?\" (Teller's letter), or \"Don't you ever wonder where everybody is?\" (York's letter), or \"But where is everybody?\" (Konopinski's letter). Teller wrote, \"The result of his question was general laughter because of the strange fact that in spite of Fermi's question coming from the clear blue, everybody around the table seemed to understand at once that he was talking about extraterrestrial life.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1984 York wrote that Fermi \"followed up with a series of calculations on the probability of earthlike planets, the probability of life given an earth, the probability of humans given life, the likely rise and duration of high technology, and so on. He concluded on the basis of such calculations that we ought to have been visited long ago and many times over.\" Teller remembers that not much came of this conversation \"except perhaps a statement that the distances to the next location of living beings may be very great and that, indeed, as far as our galaxy is concerned, we are living somewhere in the sticks, far removed from the metropolitan area of the galactic center.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Fermi died of cancer in 1954. However, in letters to the three surviving men decades later in 1984, Dr. Eric Jones of Los Alamos was able to partially put the original conversation back together. He informed each of the men that he wished to include a reasonably accurate version or composite in the written proceedings he was putting together for a previously held conference entitled \"Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience\". Jones first sent a letter to Edward Teller which included a secondhand account from Hans Mark. Teller responded, and then Jones sent Teller's letter to Herbert York. York responded, and finally, Jones sent both Teller's and York's letters to Emil Konopinski who also responded. Furthermore, Konopinski was able to later identify a cartoon which Jones found as the one involved in the conversation and thereby help to settle the time period as being the summer of 1950.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Fermi paradox is a conflict between the argument that scale and probability seem to favor intelligent life being common in the universe, and the total lack of evidence of intelligent life having ever arisen anywhere other than on Earth.",
"title": "Basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The first aspect of the Fermi paradox is a function of the scale or the large numbers involved: there are an estimated 200–400 billion stars in the Milky Way (2–4 × 10) and 70 sextillion (7×10) in the observable universe. Even if intelligent life occurs on only a minuscule percentage of planets around these stars, there might still be a great number of extant civilizations, and if the percentage were high enough it would produce a significant number of extant civilizations in the Milky Way. This assumes the mediocrity principle, by which Earth is a typical planet.",
"title": "Basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The second aspect of the Fermi paradox is the argument of probability: given intelligent life's ability to overcome scarcity, and its tendency to colonize new habitats, it seems possible that at least some civilizations would be technologically advanced, seek out new resources in space, and colonize their star system and, subsequently, surrounding star systems. Since there is no significant evidence on Earth, or elsewhere in the known universe, of other intelligent life after 13.8 billion years of the universe's history, there is a conflict requiring a resolution. Some examples of possible resolutions are that intelligent life is rarer than is thought, that assumptions about the general development or behavior of intelligent species are flawed, or, more radically, that current scientific understanding of the nature of the universe itself is quite incomplete.",
"title": "Basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Fermi paradox can be asked in two ways. The first is, \"Why are no aliens or their artifacts found on Earth, or in the Solar System?\". If interstellar travel is possible, even the \"slow\" kind nearly within the reach of Earth technology, then it would only take from 5 million to 50 million years to colonize the galaxy. This is relatively brief on a geological scale, let alone a cosmological one. Since there are many stars older than the Sun, and since intelligent life might have evolved earlier elsewhere, the question then becomes why the galaxy has not been colonized already. Even if colonization is impractical or undesirable to all alien civilizations, large-scale exploration of the galaxy could be possible by probes. These might leave detectable artifacts in the Solar System, such as old probes or evidence of mining activity, but none of these have been observed.",
"title": "Basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The second form of the question is \"Why are there no signs of intelligence elsewhere in the universe?\". This version does not assume interstellar travel, but includes other galaxies as well. For distant galaxies, travel times may well explain the lack of alien visits to Earth, but a sufficiently advanced civilization could potentially be observable over a significant fraction of the size of the observable universe. Even if such civilizations are rare, the scale argument indicates they should exist somewhere at some point during the history of the universe, and since they could be detected from far away over a considerable period of time, many more potential sites for their origin are within range of human observation. It is unknown whether the paradox is stronger for the Milky Way galaxy or for the universe as a whole.",
"title": "Basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The theories and principles in the Drake equation are closely related to the Fermi paradox. The equation was formulated by Frank Drake in 1961 in an attempt to find a systematic means to evaluate the numerous probabilities involved in the existence of alien life. The equation is presented as follows:",
"title": "Basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Where N {\\displaystyle N} is the number of technologically advanced civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy, and N {\\displaystyle N} is asserted to be the product of",
"title": "Basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The fundamental problem is that the last four terms ( f l {\\displaystyle f_{l}} , f i {\\displaystyle f_{i}} , f c {\\displaystyle f_{c}} , and L {\\displaystyle L} ) are entirely unknown, rendering statistical estimates impossible.",
"title": "Basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Drake equation has been used by both optimists and pessimists, with wildly differing results. The first scientific meeting on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), which had 10 attendees including Frank Drake and Carl Sagan, speculated that the number of civilizations was roughly between 1,000 and 100,000,000 civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy. Conversely, Frank Tipler and John D. Barrow used pessimistic numbers and speculated that the average number of civilizations in a galaxy is much less than one. Almost all arguments involving the Drake equation suffer from the overconfidence effect, a common error of probabilistic reasoning about low-probability events, by guessing specific numbers for likelihoods of events whose mechanism is not yet understood, such as the likelihood of abiogenesis on an Earth-like planet, with current likelihood estimates varying over many hundreds of orders of magnitude. An analysis that takes into account some of the uncertainty associated with this lack of understanding has been carried out by Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler and Toby Ord, and suggests \"a substantial ex ante probability of there being no other intelligent life in our observable universe\".",
"title": "Basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The Great Filter, a concept introduced by Robin Hanson in 1996, represents whatever natural phenomena that would make it unlikely for life to evolve from inanimate matter to an advanced civilization. The most commonly agreed-upon low probability event is abiogenesis: a gradual process of increasing complexity of the first self-replicating molecules by a randomly occurring chemical process. Other proposed great filters are the emergence of eukaryotic cells or of meiosis or some of the steps involved in the evolution of a brain capable of complex logical deductions.",
"title": "Basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Astrobiologists Dirk Schulze-Makuch and William Bains, reviewing the history of life on Earth, including convergent evolution, concluded that transitions such as oxygenic photosynthesis, the eukaryotic cell, multicellularity, and tool-using intelligence are likely to occur on any Earth-like planet given enough time. They argue that the Great Filter may be abiogenesis, the rise of technological human-level intelligence, or an inability to settle other worlds because of self-destruction or a lack of resources.",
"title": "Basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "There are two parts of the Fermi paradox that rely on empirical evidence—that there are many potential habitable planets, and that humans see no evidence of life. The first point, that many suitable planets exist, was an assumption in Fermi's time but is now supported by the discovery that exoplanets are common. Current models predict billions of habitable worlds in the Milky Way.",
"title": "Empirical evidence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The second part of the paradox, that humans see no evidence of extraterrestrial life, is also an active field of scientific research. This includes both efforts to find any indication of life, and efforts specifically directed to finding intelligent life. These searches have been made since 1960, and several are ongoing.",
"title": "Empirical evidence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Although astronomers do not usually search for extraterrestrials, they have observed phenomena that they could not immediately explain without positing an intelligent civilization as the source. For example, pulsars, when first discovered in 1967, were called little green men (LGM) because of the precise repetition of their pulses. In all cases, explanations with no need for intelligent life have been found for such observations, but the possibility of discovery remains. Proposed examples include asteroid mining that would change the appearance of debris disks around stars, or spectral lines from nuclear waste disposal in stars.",
"title": "Empirical evidence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Explanations based on technosignatures, such as radio communications, have been presented.",
"title": "Empirical evidence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Radio technology and the ability to construct a radio telescope are presumed to be a natural advance for technological species, theoretically creating effects that might be detected over interstellar distances. The careful searching for non-natural radio emissions from space may lead to the detection of alien civilizations. Sensitive alien observers of the Solar System, for example, would note unusually intense radio waves for a G2 star due to Earth's television and telecommunication broadcasts. In the absence of an apparent natural cause, alien observers might infer the existence of a terrestrial civilization. Such signals could be either \"accidental\" by-products of a civilization, or deliberate attempts to communicate, such as the Arecibo message. It is unclear whether \"leakage\", as opposed to a deliberate beacon, could be detected by an extraterrestrial civilization. The most sensitive radio telescopes on Earth, as of 2019, would not be able to detect non-directional radio signals even at a fraction of a light-year away, but other civilizations could hypothetically have much better equipment.",
"title": "Empirical evidence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "A number of astronomers and observatories have attempted and are attempting to detect such evidence, mostly through the SETI organization. Several decades of SETI analysis have not revealed any unusually bright or meaningfully repetitive radio emissions.",
"title": "Empirical evidence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Exoplanet detection and classification is a very active sub-discipline in astronomy; the first possible terrestrial planet discovered within a star's habitable zone was found in 2007. New refinements in exoplanet detection methods, and use of existing methods from space (such as the Kepler and TESS missions) are starting to detect and characterize Earth-size planets, to determine whether they are within the habitable zones of their stars. Such observational refinements may allow for a better estimation of how common these potentially habitable worlds are.",
"title": "Empirical evidence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The Hart-Tipler conjecture is a form of contraposition which states that because no interstellar probes have been detected, there likely is no other intelligent life in the universe, as such life should be expected to eventually create and launch such probes. Self-replicating probes could exhaustively explore a galaxy the size of the Milky Way in as little as a million years. If even a single civilization in the Milky Way attempted this, such probes could spread throughout the entire galaxy. Another speculation for contact with an alien probe—one that would be trying to find human beings—is an alien Bracewell probe. Such a hypothetical device would be an autonomous space probe whose purpose is to seek out and communicate with alien civilizations (as opposed to von Neumann probes, which are usually described as purely exploratory). These were proposed as an alternative to carrying a slow speed-of-light dialogue between vastly distant neighbors. Rather than contending with the long delays a radio dialogue would suffer, a probe housing an artificial intelligence would seek out an alien civilization to carry on a close-range communication with the discovered civilization. The findings of such a probe would still have to be transmitted to the home civilization at light speed, but an information-gathering dialogue could be conducted in real time.",
"title": "Empirical evidence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Direct exploration of the Solar System has yielded no evidence indicating a visit by aliens or their probes. Detailed exploration of areas of the Solar System where resources would be plentiful may yet produce evidence of alien exploration, though the entirety of the Solar System is vast and difficult to investigate. Attempts to signal, attract, or activate hypothetical Bracewell probes in Earth's vicinity have not succeeded.",
"title": "Empirical evidence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In 1959, Freeman Dyson observed that every developing human civilization constantly increases its energy consumption, and he conjectured that a civilization might try to harness a large part of the energy produced by a star. He proposed a hypothetical \"Dyson sphere\" as a possible means: a shell or cloud of objects enclosing a star to absorb and utilize as much radiant energy as possible. Such a feat of astroengineering would drastically alter the observed spectrum of the star involved, changing it at least partly from the normal emission lines of a natural stellar atmosphere to those of black-body radiation, probably with a peak in the infrared. Dyson speculated that advanced alien civilizations might be detected by examining the spectra of stars and searching for such an altered spectrum.",
"title": "Empirical evidence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "There have been some attempts to find evidence of the existence of Dyson spheres that would alter the spectra of their core stars. Direct observation of thousands of galaxies has shown no explicit evidence of artificial construction or modifications. In October 2015, there was some speculation that a dimming of light from star KIC 8462852, observed by the Kepler space telescope, could have been a result of Dyson sphere construction. However, in 2018, observations determined that the amount of dimming varied by the frequency of the light, pointing to dust, rather than an opaque object such as a Dyson sphere, as the culprit for causing the dimming.",
"title": "Empirical evidence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Those who think that intelligent extraterrestrial life is (nearly) impossible argue that the conditions needed for the evolution of life—or at least the evolution of biological complexity—are rare or even unique to Earth. Under this assumption, called the rare Earth hypothesis, a rejection of the mediocrity principle, complex multicellular life is regarded as exceedingly unusual.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The rare Earth hypothesis argues that the evolution of biological complexity requires a host of fortuitous circumstances, such as a galactic habitable zone, a star and planet(s) having the requisite conditions, such as enough of a continuous habitable zone, the advantage of a giant guardian like Jupiter and a large moon, conditions needed to ensure the planet has a magnetosphere and plate tectonics, the chemistry of the lithosphere, atmosphere, and oceans, the role of \"evolutionary pumps\" such as massive glaciation and rare bolide impacts. Perhaps most importantly, advanced life needs whatever it was that led to the transition of (some) prokaryotic cells to eukaryotic cells, sexual reproduction and the Cambrian explosion.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In his book Wonderful Life (1989), Stephen Jay Gould suggested that if the \"tape of life\" were rewound to the time of the Cambrian explosion, and one or two tweaks made, human beings most probably never would have evolved. Other thinkers such as Fontana, Buss, and Kauffman have written about the self-organizing properties of life.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "It is possible that even if complex life is common, intelligence (and consequently civilizations) is not. While there are remote sensing techniques that could perhaps detect life-bearing planets without relying on the signs of technology, none of them have any ability to tell if any detected life is intelligent. This is sometimes referred to as the \"algae vs. alumnae\" problem.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Charles Lineweaver states that when considering any extreme trait in an animal, intermediate stages do not necessarily produce \"inevitable\" outcomes. For example, large brains are no more \"inevitable\", or convergent, than are the long noses of animals such as aardvarks and elephants. Humans, apes, whales, dolphins, octopuses, and squids are among the small group of definite or probable intelligence on Earth. As he points out, \"dolphins have had ~20 million years to build a radio telescope and have not done so\".",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In addition, Rebecca Boyle points out that of all the species who have ever evolved in the history of life on the planet Earth, only one—human beings and only in the beginning stages—has ever become space-faring.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "New life might commonly die out due to runaway heating or cooling on their fledgling planets. On Earth, there have been numerous major extinction events that destroyed the majority of complex species alive at the time; the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs is the best known example. These are thought to have been caused by events such as impact from a large meteorite, massive volcanic eruptions, or astronomical events such as gamma-ray bursts. It may be the case that such extinction events are common throughout the universe and periodically destroy intelligent life, or at least its civilizations, before the species is able to develop the technology to communicate with other intelligent species.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "It may be that while alien species with intelligence exist, they are primitive or have not reached the level of technological advancement necessary to communicate. Along with non-intelligent life, such civilizations would also be very difficult to detect. A trip using conventional rockets would take hundreds of thousands of years to reach the nearest stars.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "To skeptics, the fact that in the history of life on the Earth only one species has developed a civilization to the point of being capable of spaceflight and radio technology lends more credence to the idea that technologically advanced civilizations are rare in the universe.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Another hypothesis in this category is the \"Water World hypothesis\". According to author and scientist David Brin: \"it turns out that our Earth skates the very inner edge of our sun's continuously habitable—or 'Goldilocks'—zone. And Earth may be anomalous. It may be that because we are so close to our sun, we have an anomalously oxygen-rich atmosphere, and we have anomalously little ocean for a water world. In other words, 32 percent continental mass may be high among water worlds...\" Brin continues, \"In which case, the evolution of creatures like us, with hands and fire and all that sort of thing, may be rare in the galaxy. In which case, when we do build starships and head out there, perhaps we'll find lots and lots of life worlds, but they're all like Polynesia. We'll find lots and lots of intelligent lifeforms out there, but they're all dolphins, whales, squids, who could never build their own starships. What a perfect universe for us to be in, because nobody would be able to boss us around, and we'd get to be the voyagers, the Star Trek people, the starship builders, the policemen, and so on.\"",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "This is the argument that technological civilizations may usually or invariably destroy themselves before or shortly after developing radio or spaceflight technology. The astrophysicist Sebastian von Hoerner stated that the progress of science and technology on Earth was driven by two factors—the struggle for domination and the desire for an easy life. The former potentially leads to complete destruction, while the latter may lead to biological or mental degeneration. Possible means of annihilation via major global issues, where global interconnectedness actually makes humanity more vulnerable than resilient, are many, including war, accidental environmental contamination or damage, the development of biotechnology, synthetic life like mirror life, resource depletion, climate change, or poorly-designed artificial intelligence. This general theme is explored both in fiction and in scientific hypothesizing.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In 1966, Sagan and Shklovskii speculated that technological civilizations will either tend to destroy themselves within a century of developing interstellar communicative capability or master their self-destructive tendencies and survive for billion-year timescales. Self-annihilation may also be viewed in terms of thermodynamics: insofar as life is an ordered system that can sustain itself against the tendency to disorder, Stephen Hawking's \"external transmission\" or interstellar communicative phase, where knowledge production and knowledge management is more important than transmission of information via evolution, may be the point at which the system becomes unstable and self-destructs. Here, Hawking emphasizes self-design of the human genome (transhumanism) or enhancement via machines (e.g., brain–computer interface) to enhance human intelligence and reduce aggression, without which he implies human civilization may be too stupid collectively to survive an increasingly unstable system. For instance, the development of technologies during the \"external transmission\" phase, such as weaponization of artificial general intelligence or antimatter, may not be met by concomitant increases in human ability to manage its own inventions. Consequently, disorder increases in the system: global governance may become increasingly destabilized, worsening humanity's ability to manage the possible means of annihilation listed above, resulting in global societal collapse.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Using extinct civilizations such as Easter Island (Rapa Nui) as models, a study conducted in 2018 by Adam Frank et al. posited that climate change induced by \"energy intensive\" civilizations may prevent sustainability within such civilizations, thus explaining the paradoxical lack of evidence for intelligent extraterrestrial life. According to his model, possible outcomes of climate change include gradual population decline until an equilibrium is reached; a scenario where sustainability is attained and both population and surface temperature level decrease; and societal collapse, including scenarios where a tipping point is crossed.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "A less theoretical example might be the resource-depletion issue on Polynesian islands, of which Easter Island is only the best known. David Brin points out that during the expansion phase from 1500 BC to 800 AD there were cycles of overpopulation followed by what might be called periodic cullings of adult males through war or ritual. He writes, \"There are many stories of islands whose men were almost wiped out—sometimes by internal strife, and sometimes by invading males from other islands.\"",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Another hypothesis is that an intelligent species beyond a certain point of technological capability will destroy other intelligent species as they appear, perhaps by using self-replicating probes. Science fiction writer Fred Saberhagen has explored this idea in his Berserker series, as has physicist Gregory Benford and, as well, science fiction writer Greg Bear in his The Forge of God novel, and later Liu Cixin in his The Three-Body Problem series.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "A species might undertake such extermination out of expansionist motives, greed, paranoia, or aggression. In 1981, cosmologist Edward Harrison argued that such behavior would be an act of prudence: an intelligent species that has overcome its own self-destructive tendencies might view any other species bent on galactic expansion as a threat. It has also been suggested that a successful alien species would be a superpredator, as are humans. Another possibility invokes the \"tragedy of the commons\" and the anthropic principle: the first lifeform to achieve interstellar travel will necessarily (even if unintentionally) prevent competitors from arising, and humans simply happen to be first.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "It may be that alien civilizations are detectable through their radio emissions for only a short time, reducing the likelihood of spotting them. The usual assumption is that civilizations outgrow radio through technological advancement. However, there could be other leakage such as that from microwaves used to transmit power from solar satellites to ground receivers.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Regarding the first point, in a 2006 Sky & Telescope article, Seth Shostak wrote, \"Moreover, radio leakage from a planet is only likely to get weaker as a civilization advances and its communications technology gets better. Earth itself is increasingly switching from broadcasts to leakage-free cables and fiber optics, and from primitive but obvious carrier-wave broadcasts to subtler, hard-to-recognize spread-spectrum transmissions.\"",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "More hypothetically, advanced alien civilizations may evolve beyond broadcasting at all in the electromagnetic spectrum and communicate by technologies not developed or used by mankind. Some scientists have hypothesized that advanced civilizations may send neutrino signals. If such signals exist, they could be detectable by neutrino detectors that are now under construction for other goals.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Another possibility is that human theoreticians have underestimated how much alien life might differ from that on Earth. Aliens may be psychologically unwilling to attempt to communicate with human beings. Perhaps human mathematics is parochial to Earth and not shared by other life, though others argue this can only apply to abstract math since the math associated with physics must be similar (in results, if not in methods).",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Physiology might also cause a communication barrier. Carl Sagan speculated that an alien species might have a thought process orders of magnitude slower (or faster) than that of humans. A message broadcast by that species might well seem like random background noise to humans, and therefore go undetected.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Another thought is that technological civilizations invariably experience a technological singularity and attain a post-biological character. Hypothetical civilizations of this sort may have advanced drastically enough to render communication impossible.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In his 2009 book, SETI scientist Seth Shostak wrote, \"Our experiments [such as plans to use drilling rigs on Mars] are still looking for the type of extraterrestrial that would have appealed to Percival Lowell [astronomer who believed he had observed canals on Mars].\"",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Paul Davies states that 500 years ago the very idea of a computer doing work merely by manipulating internal data may not have been viewed as a technology at all. He writes, \"Might there be a still higher level [...] If so, this 'third level' would never be manifest through observations made at the informational level, still less the matter level. There is no vocabulary to describe the third level, but that doesn't mean it is non-existent, and we need to be open to the possibility that alien technology may operate at the third level, or maybe the fourth, fifth [...] levels.\"",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Arthur C. Clarke hypothesized that \"our technology must still be laughably primitive; we may well be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms, while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime\".",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In response to Tipler's idea of self-replicating probes, Stephen Jay Gould wrote, \"I must confess that I simply don't know how to react to such arguments. I have enough trouble predicting the plans and reactions of the people closest to me. I am usually baffled by the thoughts and accomplishments of humans in different cultures. I'll be damned if I can state with certainty what some extraterrestrial source of intelligence might do.\"",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "A February 2019 article in Popular Science states, \"Sweeping across the Milky Way and establishing a unified galactic empire might be inevitable for a monolithic super-civilization, but most cultures are neither monolithic nor super—at least if our experience is any guide.\" Astrophysicist Adam Frank, along with co-authors such as astronomer Jason Wright, ran a variety of simulations in which they varied such factors as settlement lifespans, fractions of suitable planets, and recharge times between launches. They found many of their simulations seemingly resulted in a \"third category\" in which the Milky Way remains partially settled indefinitely. The abstract to their 2019 paper states, \"These results break the link between Hart's famous 'Fact A' (no interstellar visitors on Earth now) and the conclusion that humans must, therefore, be the only technological civilization in the galaxy. Explicitly, our solutions admit situations where our current circumstances are consistent with an otherwise settled, steady-state galaxy.\"",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "An alternative scenario is that long-lived civilizations may only choose to colonize stars during closest approach. As low mass K- and M-type dwarfs are by far the most common types of main sequence stars in the Milky Way, they are more likely to pass close to existing civilizations. These stars have longer life spans, which may be preferred by such a civilization. Interstellar travel capability of 0.3 light years is theoretically sufficient to colonize all M-dwarfs in the galaxy within 2 billion years. If the travel capability is increased to 2 light years, then all K-dwarfs can be colonized in the same time frame.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Some colonization scenarios predict spherical expansion across star systems, with continued expansion coming from the systems just previously settled. It has been suggested that this would cause a strong selection process among the colonization front favoring cultural or biological adaptations to living in starships or space habitats. As a result, they may forgo living on planets.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "This may result in the destruction of terrestrial planets in these systems for use as building materials, thus preventing the development of life on those worlds. Or, they may have an ethic of protection for \"nursery worlds\", and protect them in a similar fashion to the zoo hypothesis.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "It has been suggested that some advanced beings may divest themselves of physical form, create massive artificial virtual environments, transfer themselves into these environments through mind uploading, and exist totally within virtual worlds, ignoring the external physical universe.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "It may also be that intelligent alien life develops an \"increasing disinterest\" in their outside world. Possibly any sufficiently advanced society will develop highly engaging media and entertainment well before the capacity for advanced space travel, with the rate of appeal of these social contrivances being destined, because of their inherent reduced complexity, to overtake any desire for complex, expensive endeavors such as space exploration and communication. Once any sufficiently advanced civilization becomes able to master its environment, and most of its physical needs are met through technology, various \"social and entertainment technologies\", including virtual reality, are postulated to become the primary drivers and motivations of that civilization.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "The ability of an alien culture to colonize other star systems is based on the idea that interstellar travel is technologically feasible. While the current understanding of physics rules out the possibility of faster-than-light travel, it appears that there are no major theoretical barriers to the construction of \"slow\" interstellar ships, even though the engineering required is considerably beyond present human capabilities. This idea underlies the concept of the Von Neumann probe and the Bracewell probe as a potential evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "It is possible, however, that present scientific knowledge cannot properly gauge the feasibility and costs of such interstellar colonization. Theoretical barriers may not yet be understood, and the resources needed may be so great as to make it unlikely that any civilization could afford to attempt it. Even if interstellar travel and colonization are possible, they may be difficult, leading to a colonization model based on percolation theory.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Colonization efforts may not occur as an unstoppable rush, but rather as an uneven tendency to \"percolate\" outwards, within an eventual slowing and termination of the effort given the enormous costs involved and the expectation that colonies will inevitably develop a culture and civilization of their own. Colonization may thus occur in \"clusters\", with large areas remaining uncolonized at any one time.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "If a human-capability machine construct, such as via mind uploading, is possible, and if it is possible to transfer such constructs over vast distances and rebuild them on a remote machine, then it might not make strong economic sense to travel the galaxy by spaceflight. After the first civilization has physically explored or colonized the galaxy, as well as sent such machines for easy exploration, then any subsequent civilizations, after having contacted the first, may find it cheaper, faster, and easier to explore the galaxy through intelligent mind transfers to the machines built by the first civilization, which is cheaper than spaceflight by a factor of 10–10. However, since a star system needs only one such remote machine, and the communication is most likely highly directed, transmitted at high-frequencies, and at a minimal power to be economical, such signals would be hard to detect from Earth.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "There are some assumptions that underlie the SETI programs that may cause searchers to miss signals that are present. Extraterrestrials might, for example, transmit signals that have a very high or low data rate, or employ unconventional (in human terms) frequencies, which would make them hard to distinguish from background noise. Signals might be sent from non-main sequence star systems that humans search with lower priority; current programs assume that most alien life will be orbiting Sun-like stars.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "The greatest challenge is the sheer size of the radio search needed to look for signals (effectively spanning the entire observable universe), the limited amount of resources committed to SETI, and the sensitivity of modern instruments. SETI estimates, for instance, that with a radio telescope as sensitive as the Arecibo Observatory, Earth's television and radio broadcasts would only be detectable at distances up to 0.3 light-years, less than 1/10 the distance to the nearest star. A signal is much easier to detect if it consists of a deliberate, powerful transmission directed at Earth. Such signals could be detected at ranges of hundreds to tens of thousands of light-years distance. However, this means that detectors must be listening to an appropriate range of frequencies, and be in that region of space to which the beam is being sent. Many SETI searches assume that extraterrestrial civilizations will be broadcasting a deliberate signal, like the Arecibo message, in order to be found.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Thus, to detect alien civilizations through their radio emissions, Earth observers either need more sensitive instruments or must hope for fortunate circumstances: that the broadband radio emissions of alien radio technology are much stronger than humanity's own; that one of SETI's programs is listening to the correct frequencies from the right regions of space; or that aliens are deliberately sending focused transmissions in Earth's general direction.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Humanity's ability to detect intelligent extraterrestrial life has existed for only a very brief period—from 1937 onwards, if the invention of the radio telescope is taken as the dividing line—and Homo sapiens is a geologically recent species. The whole period of modern human existence to date is a very brief period on a cosmological scale, and radio transmissions have only been propagated since 1895. Thus, it remains possible that human beings have neither existed long enough nor made themselves sufficiently detectable to be found by extraterrestrial intelligence.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "It may be that non-colonizing technologically capable alien civilizations exist, but that they are simply too far apart for meaningful two-way communication. Sebastian von Hoerner estimated the average duration of civilization at 6,500 years and the average distance between civilizations in the Milky Way at 1,000 light years. If two civilizations are separated by several thousand light-years, it is possible that one or both cultures may become extinct before meaningful dialogue can be established. Human searches may be able to detect their existence, but communication will remain impossible because of distance. It has been suggested that this problem might be ameliorated somewhat if contact and communication is made through a Bracewell probe. In this case at least one partner in the exchange may obtain meaningful information. Alternatively, a civilization may simply broadcast its knowledge, and leave it to the receiver to make what they may of it. This is similar to the transmission of information from ancient civilizations to the present, and humanity has undertaken similar activities like the Arecibo message, which could transfer information about Earth's intelligent species, even if it never yields a response or does not yield a response in time for humanity to receive it. It is possible that observational signatures of self-destroyed civilizations could be detected, depending on the destruction scenario and the timing of human observation relative to it.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "A related speculation by Sagan and Newman suggests that if other civilizations exist, and are transmitting and exploring, their signals and probes simply have not arrived yet. However, critics have noted that this is unlikely, since it requires that humanity's advancement has occurred at a very special point in time, while the Milky Way is in transition from empty to full. This is a tiny fraction of the lifespan of a galaxy under ordinary assumptions, so the likelihood that humanity is in the midst of this transition is considered low in the paradox.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Some SETI skeptics may also believe that humanity is at a very special point of time. Specifically, a transitional period from no space-faring societies to one space-faring society, namely that of human beings.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Planetary scientist Alan Stern put forward the idea that there could be a number of worlds with subsurface oceans (such as Jupiter's Europa or Saturn's Enceladus). The surface would provide a large degree of protection from such things as cometary impacts and nearby supernovae, as well as creating a situation in which a much broader range of orbits are acceptable. Life, and potentially intelligence and civilization, could evolve. Stern states, \"If they have technology, and let's say they're broadcasting, or they have city lights or whatever—we can't see it in any part of the spectrum, except maybe very-low-frequency [radio].\"",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "If life is abundant in the universe but the cost of space travel is high, an advanced civilization may choose to focus its search not on signs of life in general, but on those of other advanced civilizations, and specifically on radio signals. Since humanity has only recently began to use radio communication, its signals may have yet to arrive to other inhabited planets, and if they have, probes from those planets may have yet to arrive on Earth.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Alien civilizations might be technically capable of contacting Earth, but could be only listening instead of transmitting. If all or most civilizations act in the same way, the galaxy could be full of civilizations eager for contact, but everyone is listening and no one is transmitting. This is the so-called SETI Paradox.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "The only civilization known, humanity, does not explicitly transmit, except for a few small efforts. Even these efforts, and certainly any attempt to expand them, are controversial. It is not even clear humanity would respond to a detected signal—the official policy within the SETI community is that \"[no] response to a signal or other evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence should be sent until appropriate international consultations have taken place\". However, given the possible impact of any reply, it may be very difficult to obtain any consensus on who would speak and what they would say.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "An alien civilization might feel it is too dangerous to communicate, either for humanity or for them. It is argued that when very different civilizations have met on Earth, the results have often been disastrous for one side or the other, and the same may well apply to interstellar contact. Even contact at a safe distance could lead to infection by computer code or even ideas themselves. Perhaps prudent civilizations actively hide not only from Earth but from everyone, out of fear of other civilizations.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Perhaps the Fermi paradox itself—or the alien equivalent of it—is the reason for any civilization to avoid contact with other civilizations, even if no other obstacles existed. From any one civilization's point of view, it would be unlikely for them to be the first ones to make first contact. Therefore, according to this reasoning, it is likely that previous civilizations faced fatal problems with first contact and doing so should be avoided. So perhaps every civilization keeps quiet because of the possibility that there is a real reason for others to do so.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "In Liu Cixin's 2008 novel The Dark Forest, the author proposes a literary explanation for the Fermi paradox in which many multiple alien civilizations exist, but are both silent and paranoid, destroying any nascent lifeforms loud enough to make themselves known. This is because any other intelligent life may represent a future threat. As a result, Liu's fictional universe contains a plethora of quiet civilizations which do not reveal themselves, as in a \"dark forest\"...filled with \"armed hunter(s) stalking through the trees like a ghost\". This idea has come to be known as the dark forest hypothesis.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "The zoo hypothesis states that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists and does not contact life on Earth to allow for its natural evolution and development. A variation on the zoo hypothesis is the laboratory hypothesis, where humanity has been or is being subject to experiments, with Earth or the Solar System effectively serving as a laboratory. The zoo hypothesis may break down under the uniformity of motive flaw: all it takes is a single culture or civilization to decide to act contrary to the imperative within humanity's range of detection for it to be abrogated, and the probability of such a violation of hegemony increases with the number of civilizations, tending not towards a 'Galactic Club' with a unified foreign policy with regard to life on Earth but multiple 'Galactic Cliques'. However, if artificial superintelligences dominate galactic life, and if it is true that such intelligences tend towards merged hegemonic behavior, then this would address the uniformity of motive flaw by dissuading rogue behavior.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Analysis of the inter-arrival times between civilizations in the galaxy based on common astrobiological assumptions suggests that the initial civilization would have a commanding lead over the later arrivals. As such, it may have established what has been termed the zoo hypothesis through force or as a galactic or universal norm and the resultant \"paradox\" by a cultural founder effect with or without the continued activity of the founder.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "It is possible that a civilization advanced enough to travel between solar systems could be actively visiting or observing Earth while remaining undetected or unrecognized.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "A related idea to the zoo hypothesis is that, beyond a certain distance, the perceived universe is a simulated reality. The planetarium hypothesis speculates that beings may have created this simulation so that the universe appears to be empty of other life.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "A significant fraction of the population believes that at least some UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) are spacecraft piloted by aliens. While most of these are unrecognized or mistaken interpretations of mundane phenomena, some occurrences remain puzzling even after investigation. The consensus scientific view is that although they may be unexplained, they do not rise to the level of convincing evidence.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Similarly, it is theoretically possible that SETI groups are not reporting positive detections, or governments have been blocking signals or suppressing publication. This response might be attributed to security or economic interests from the potential use of advanced extraterrestrial technology. It has been suggested that the detection of an extraterrestrial radio signal or technology could well be the most highly secret information that exists. Claims that this has already happened are common in the popular press, but the scientists involved report the opposite experience—the press becomes informed and interested in a potential detection even before a signal can be confirmed.",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Regarding the idea that aliens are in secret contact with governments, David Brin writes, \"Aversion to an idea, simply because of its long association with crackpots, gives crackpots altogether too much influence.\"",
"title": "Hypothetical explanations for the paradox"
}
] |
The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence. As a 2015 article put it, "If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now." Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi's name is associated with the paradox because of a casual conversation in the summer of 1950 with fellow physicists Edward Teller, Herbert York, and Emil Konopinski. While walking to lunch, the men discussed recent UFO reports and the possibility of faster-than-light travel. The conversation moved on to other topics, until during lunch Fermi blurted out, "But where is everybody?". There have been many attempts to resolve the Fermi paradox, such as suggesting that intelligent extraterrestrial beings are extremely rare, that the lifetime of such civilizations is short, or that they exist but humans see no evidence.
|
2001-12-03T18:41:50Z
|
2023-12-23T13:29:56Z
|
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
|
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