The River Parrett flows through the counties of Dorset and Somerset in South West England, from its source in the Thorney Mills springs in the hills around Chedington in Dorset. Flowing northwest through Somerset and the Somerset Levels to its mouth at Burnham-on-Sea, into the Bridgwater BayNature Reserve on the Bristol Channel, the Parrett drains about 50 per cent of Somerset's land area. The 37-mile (60 km) long river is tidal for 27 miles (43 km) up to Oath. Because the fall of the river between Langport and Bridgwater is only 1 foot per mile (0.2 m/km), it is prone to frequent flooding in winter and during high tides. During the Roman era the river was crossed by a ford, and in Anglo-Saxon times formed a boundary between Wessex and Dumnonia. From the medieval period the river served the Port of Bridgwater, enabling cargoes to be transported inland. The arrival of the railways led to a decline and commercial shipping now only docks at Dunball. The Parrett along with its connected waterways and network of drains supports an ecosystem that includes several rare species of flora and fauna. The River Parrett Trail has been established along the banks of the river. (more...)
1983 – After writing a letter to Soviet premierYuri Andropov, American schoolgirl Samantha Smith visited the Soviet Union as Andropov's personal guest, becoming known as "America's Youngest Ambassador".
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In May 2011, the Pheu Thai Party, which maintained close ties to Thaksin, nominated Yingluck as their candidate for Prime Minister in the 2011 general election.[2][3] Preliminary election result indicated that Pheu Thai won a landslide victory 265 out of 500-seat House of Representatives of Thailand,[4] making it only the second time in Thai political history that a single party won a parliamentary majority. Yingluck is set to become Thailand's first female Prime Minister.[5]
Yingluck's great-grandfather, Seng Sae Khu, was a overseas Chinese from Guangdong who arrived in Siam in the 1860s and settled in Chiang Mai in 1908. His eldest son, Chiang Sae Khu, was born in Chanthaburi province in 1890 and married a Thai woman, called Saeng Somna. Chiang's eldest son, Sak, adopted the Thai surname Shinawatra ("routinely appropriate action") in 1938. The Khu/Shinawatra later founded Shinawatra Silks and then moved into finance, construction and real estate development. Yingluck's father, Lert, was born at Chiang Mai in 1919 and married Yindi Ramingwong (a daughter of Princess Jantip Na Chiang Mai). In 1968, Lert Shinawatra entered politics and became an MP for Chiang Mai and deputy leader of the now-defunct Liberal party.[6] Lert quit politics in 1976 and opened a coffee shop, grew oranges and flowers in Chiang Mai's San Kamphaeng district, and opened two movie theatres, a gas station, and a car and motorcycle dealership.
Yingluck Shinawatra is the youngest of nine children of Lert and Yindee. She was given the nickname Pou (Thai: ปู, meaning "crab"). Yingluck grew up in Chiang Mai and attended Regina Coeli College, a girls school, at the lower secondary level and then Yupparaj College, a co-ed school, at the upper secondary level.[7] She graduated with a BA degree from the Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration, Chiang Mai University in 1988 and earned a MPA degree (specialization in Management Information Systems) from Kentucky State University in 1991.
Yingluck started her career as a sales and marketing intern at Shinawatra Directories Co., Ltd., a telephone directory business founded by AT&T International. She later became the director of procurement and the director of operations. In 1994, she became the general manager of Rainbow Media, a subsidiary of International Broadcasting Corporation (which later became TrueVisions). She left as Deputy CEO of IBC in 2002, and became the CEO of Advanced Info Service (AIS), Thailand's largest mobile phone operator.[8] After the sale of Shin Corporation (the parent company of AIS) to Temasek Holdings, Yingluck resigned from AIS, but remained Managing Director of SC Asset Co Ltd, the Shinawatra family property development company. She was investigated by Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission regarding possible insider trading after she sold shares of her AIS stock for a profit prior to the sale of the Shin Corporation to Temasek Holdings. No charges were filed.[9] Yingluck Shinawatra is also a committee member and secretary of the Thaicom Foundation.
She has one son, Supasek, with her common-law husband, Anusorn Amornchat. Anusorn was an executive of the Charoen Pokphand Group and managing director of M Link Asia Corporation PCL.[10] Her sister, Yaowapa Wongsawat, is the wife of former prime minister Somchai Wongsawat.
After the Thai Rak Thai party was shut down and its executive board banned from politics after the 2006 military coup, many former Thai Rak Thai MPs established the People's Power Party. After the People's Power party was shut down and its executive board banned from politics by the Constitutional Court on 2 December 2008, former MPs established the Pheu Thai Party.[11] Yingluck was asked to become the leader of the party but she declined, stating that she did not want to be Prime Minister and wanted to focus on business.[12]Yongyuth Wichaidit became the leader of the party.
US diplomatic cables leaked in 2011 revealed that during a 9 September 2009 meeting, former Deputy Prime Minister and "close Thaksin ally" Sompong Amornvivat told Ambassador to Thailand Eric John that he did not envision a big role for Yingluck in the Pheu Thai Party, and that "Thaksin himself was not eager to raise her profile within the party, and was more focused on finding ways to keep his own hand active in politics." However, in a subsequent cable dated 25 November 2009, the Ambassador noted that in a meeting with Yingluck, she spoke with confidence about the "operations, strategy and goals" of the Pheu Thai party and seemed "far more poised" than in previous meetings. The cable cited Yingluck saying that, "Someone could easily emerge relatively late in the game to take the reins of the party and serve as the next Prime Minister."[13]
Yongyuth had stated his intention of resigning as party leader in late 2010. Speculation about a snap election in early 2011 heightened internal debate with regards to the party leadership. The front runners were Yingluck and Mingkwan Sangsuwan, who had led the opposition in an unsuccessful no confidence motion against the Democrat Party-led coalition government. As late as 28 January 2011, Yingluck continued to rule out the party leadership, repeating that she wanted to focus on business. However, she was endorsed by veteran politician Chalerm Ubumrung.[14] On 16 May 2011, the Pheu Thai party voted to name Yingluck as the party's top candidate under the party list system (and presumably be the party's nominee for Prime Minister) for parliamentary election scheduled for 3 July. However, she was not made party leader and she did not join the executive board of the party. The ultimate decision was made by Thaksin. "Some said she is my nominee. That's not true. But it can be said that Yingluck is my clone... Another important thing is that Ms Yingluck is my sister and she can make decisions for me. She can say 'yes' or 'no' on my behalf," Thaksin noted in an interview.[15]
Yingluck's main campaign theme was reconciliation following the extended political crisis from 2008 to 2010, culminating in the military's 2010 crackdown on protesters which left nearly a hundred protesters dead and thousands injured. She promised to empower the Independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Thailand (ITRC), the panel that the Democrat Party-led government had set up to investigate the killings.[16] The ITRC had complained that its work was hampered by the military and the government.[17] Yingluck also proposed a general amnesty for all major politically-motivated incidents that had taken place since the 2006 coup, which could include the coup itself, court rulings banning Thai Rak Thai and People's Power Party leaders from seeking office, the PAD seizures of Government House and Don Muang and Suvarnabhumi Airports, the military crackdowns of 2009 and 2010, and the conviction of Thaksin Shinawatra for abuse of power.[18] The proposal was fiercely attacked by the government, who claimed that it would specifically give amnesty to Thaksin, and also result in the return to him of the 46 billion baht of his wealth that that the government had seized as a penalty. However, Yingluck denied that the return of seized assets was a priority for the Pheu Thai party, and repeated that she had no intention of giving amnesty to any one person. Abhisit claimed outright that Yingluck was lying and that amnesty to Thaksin actually was the Pheu Thai party's policy.[19] The government also blamed The government blamed Pheu Thai for the bloodshed during the military crackdown.[20]
Yingluck described a 2020 vision for the elimination of poverty.[21] She promised to reduce the corporate income tax from 30% to 23% and then 20% by 2013 and to raise the minimum wage to 300 baht per day and the minimum wage for university graduates to 15,000 baht per month. Her agricultural policies included improving operating cashflow to farmers and providing loans of up to 70% of expected income, based on a guaranteed rice price of 15,000 baht/ton.[22] She also planned to provide free public WiFi and a tablet PC to every schoolchild (a Thai Rak Thai Party plan to provide one laptop per child was cancelled after the 2006 military coup).[23]
The Democrat Party derided her chances in the election. "The novelty will wear off," claimed a Party executive.[24] When Democrat Party Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij was asked about his thoughts on her, his only reply was, "She’s quite good-looking."[25]
Nearly all pre-election polls predicted a large victory for Pheu Thai.[26]
[edit]Election results and the establishment of the government
Exit polls indicated a landslide victory, with Pheu Thai projected to win as many as 310 seats in the 500-seat parliament.[27] The official result was 265 seats for Pheu Thai, with a 65.99% turnout rate (nearly 31 million voters). There were 3 million invalid ballots; the large number was cited as the cause for the difference between the exit poll results and the official count.[28] It was only the 2nd time in Thai history where a single party won more than half of the seats in parliament; the first time was in 2005 with Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai Party.
United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon welcomed the outcome of the elections and called for all parties to "respect the will of the Thai people as expressed through the democratic process." Aung San Su Kyi congratulated Yingluck, praised the election as “free and fair,” and expected “the ties between Myanmar and Thailand to get better.”[29][30]
Yingluck quickly formed a coalition with the Chartthaipattana (19 seats), Chart Thai Pattana Puea Pandin (7 seats), and Palang Chon (7 seats), and Mahachon (1 seat) parties, giving her a total of 299 seats.[31] Outgoing Defense Minister General Prawit Wongsuwon said that he accepted the election results, and after having talked with military leaders, would not to intervene.[32] Army Commander Prayuth Chanocha, normally a vocal critic of Pheu Thai, refused to give any interviews.[33]
In her first post-election Facebook post, she said that her top priorities were peoples' livelihoods and national reconciliation. She promised truth, justice, and rule of law for all, and asked people to work together to achieve her 2020 vision.[34]
Ms. Shinawatra’s bank account was among 86 bank accounts that the government accused of being used to fund the Red Shirt protesters during their demonstrations in 2010. However, the government did not pursue any legal case against her. The Department for Special Investigation found that from 28 April 2009 to May 2010, 150 million baht was deposited into her account while 166 million baht was withdrawn. On 28 April 2010 alone, 144 million baht was withdrawn.[35] The military's April crackdown on the protestors killed nearly a hundred civilians and wounded thousands.[36]
Ms. Shinawatra received 0.68% of Shin Corp shares out of the 46.87% that Thaksin and his then wife held in 1999. The military junta-appointed Assets Examination Committee claimed that Yingluck made up false transactions and that “there were no real payments for each Ample Rich Co.,Ltd shares sold” and “the transactions were made at a cost basis of par value in order to avoid income taxes, and all the dividends paid out by Shin to those people were transferred to [her sister-in-law] Potjaman's bank accounts”. However, the AEC did not pursue a case against her.[37] Yingluck claimed that “her family has been as a victim of political persecution”.[38]
^"ก๊ก"มิ่งขวัญ"ขวาง"ยิ่งลักษณ์"นั่งหัวหน้า พท. อ้าง"ผู้จัดการอำนาจ"ไม่ปลื้มนามสกุล"ชินวัตร" ["Mingkwan" faction obstructs "Yingluck" as PTP leader, claims "power manager" does not like surname "Shinawatra"]" (in Thai). Matichon Online (Bangkok). 6 January 2011.
The Siberian Tiger is a subspecies of tiger that is critically endangered; three subspecies of tiger are already extinct.
Wildlife conservation is the preservation, protection, or restoration of wildlife and their environment, especially in relation to endangered and vulnerable species. All living non-domesticated animals, even if bred, hatched or born in captivity, are considered wild animals. Wildlife represents all the non-cultivated and non-domesticated animals living in their natural habitats. Our world has many unique and rare animals, birds and reptiles. However the pressure of growing population in different parts of the world has led to the increasing need of using land for human habitations and agriculture. This has led to the reduced habitat of many wild animals.
This section is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this section to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (May 2011)
Major threats to wildlife can be categorized as below:
Habitat loss: Fewer natural wildlife habitat areas remain each year. Moreover, the habitat that remains has often been degraded to bear little resemblance to the natural wild areas which existed in the past.
Climate change: Because many types of plants and animals have specific habitat requirements, climate change could cause disastrous loss of wildlife species. A slight drop or rise in average rainfall will translate into large seasonal changes. Hibernating mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects are harmed and disturbed. Plants and wildlife are sensitive to moisture change so, they will be harmed by any change in the moisture level.
Pesticides and toxic chemicals: Pesticides are deliberately spread to make the environment toxic to certain plants, insects, and rodents, so it should not be surprising that other plants and wildlife are deliberately harmed at the same time. In addition many chemical pollutants are toxic to wildlife, such as PCBs, mercury, petroleum by-products, solvents, antifreeze, etc.
Hunting and poaching: Unregulated hunting and poaching causes a major threat to wildlife. Along with this, mismanagement of forest department and forest guards triggers this problem.
Pollution: Pollutants released into the environment are ingested by a wide variety of organisms.
Over-exploitation of resources: Exploitation of wild populations for food has resulted in population crashes (over-fishing, for example).
Accidental deaths: Car hits, window collisions (birds), collisions with ships (whales).
[edit]The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation
The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is considered to be one the most successful conservation model in world.[1] It has its origins in 19th century conservation movements, the near extinction of several species of wildlife (including the American Bison) and the rise of sportsmen with the middle class.[2][3] Beginning in the 1860s sportsmen began to organize and advocate for the preservation of wilderness areas and wildlife. The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation rests on two basic principles – fish and wildlife are for the non-commercial use of citizens, and should be managed such that they are available at optimum population levels forever. These core principles are elaborated upon in the seven major tenets of the model.
Public trust doctrine
In the North American Model, wildlife is held in the public trust. This means that fish and wildlife are held by the public through state and federal governments. In other words, though an individual may own the land up which wildlife resides, that individual does not own said wildlife. Instead, the wildlife is owned by all citizens. With origins in Roman times and English Common law, the public trust doctrine has at its heart the 1842 Supreme Court ruling Martin V. Waddell.[3][4]
Regulated commerce in wildlife
Under the North American Model, wildlife exist outside the market, removing any direct commercial value from wild game as they and the meat thereof cannot be bought or sold. Certain products such as antlers and fur may, however, be bought and sold. The end of market hunting was a major step in the restoration of North American species. By removing the pressure of market hunting allowed game and fish species to recover and eventually be taken by hunters and anglers at sustainable levels.[5]
Hunting and angling laws are created through the public process
Through democratic representation, citizens create the policies that regulate, conserve, and manage wildlife within the United States and Canada. The creation and implementation of wildlife and natural resource management policy is an open and public process.[6]
Opportunity for all, funded by all
All citizens have a right to hunting and fishing. Additionally the management of fish and wildlife is funded through the sale of licenses and in the taxation of hunting and fishing equipment. Additional funding comes from state and federal budgets, but the bulk of funding is through these sources.[1]
Non-frivolous use
Under the North American Model, the killing of game must be done only for food, fur, self-defense, and the protection of property (including livestock). In other words, it is broadly regarded as unlawful and unethical to kill fish or wildlife.
Wildlife as an international resource
As wildlife do exist only within fixed political boundaries, effective management of these resources must be done internationally, through treaties and the cooperation of management agencies.[5][6]
Scientific management
Effective management of wildlife and other natural resources must be based on continuous and sound scientific research.[5][6]
The Wildlife Conservation Act was enacted by the Government of India in 1972. Soon after the trend of policy makers enacting regulations on conservation a strategy was developed to allow actors, both government and non-government, to follow a detailed "framework" to successful conservation. The World Conservation Strategy was developed in 1980 by the "International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) with advice, cooperation and financial assistance of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Wildlife Fund and in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco)"[7] The strategy aims to "provide an intellectual framework and practical guidance for conservation actions."[7] This thorough guidebook covers everything from the intended "users" of the strategy to its very priorities and even a map section containing areas that have large seafood consumption therefore endangering the area to over fishing. The main sections are as follows:
The objectives of conservation and requirements for their achievement:
Maintenance of essential ecological processes and life-support systems.
Preservation of genetic diversity.
Sustainable utilization of species and ecosystems.
Priority requirements: ecological processes and life support systems.
Priority requirements: genetic diversity.
Priority requirements: sustainable utilization.
Priorities for national action:
A framework for national and subnational conservation strategies.
Policy making and the integration of conservation and development.
Environmental planning and rational use allocation.
Improving the capacity to manage: legislation and organization.
Improving the capacity to manage: training and research.
Building support for conservation: Participation and education.
Conservation-based rural development.
Priorities for international action:
International action: law and assistance.
Tropical forests and drylands.
A global programme for the protection of genetic resource areas.
The global commons
Regional strategies for international river basins and seas.
Towards sustainable development.
Map sections:
Tropical forests
Deserts and areas subject to desertification.
Priority biogeographical provinces of the land for the establishment of protected areas.
International river basins.
Major consumers and exporters of seafood and gainers of large fisheries.
As “major development agencies” became “discouraged with the public sector” of environmental conservation in the late 1980s, these agencies began to lean their support towards the “private sector” or Non-Government Organizations.[8] In a World Bank Discussion Paper it is made apparent that “the explosive emergence of nongovernmental organizations” was widely known to government policy makers. Seeing this rise in NGO support, U.S. Congress made amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act in 1979 and 1986 “earmarking U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funds for biodiversity”.[8] From 1990 moving through recent years Environmental Conservation in the Non-Government Organizations sector has become increasingly more focused on the political and economic impact of USAID given towards the “Environment and Natural Resources”.[9] After the terror attacks on the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001 and the start of Former President Bush’s War on Terror maintaining and improving the quality of the environment and natural resources became a “priority” to “prevent international tensions” according to the Legislation on Foreign Relations Through 2002[9] and section 117 of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act.[9] Furthermore in 2002 U.S. Congress modified the section on endangered species of the previously amended Foreign Assistance Act.
Sec. 119.100 Endangered Species:
(a) The Congress finds the survival of many animals and plant species is endangered by over hunting, by the presence of toxic chemicals in water, air and soil, and by the destruction of habitats. The Congress further finds that the extinction of animal and plant species is an irreparable loss with potentially serious environmental and economic consequences for developing and developed countries alike. Accordingly, the preservation of animal and plant species through the regulation of the hunting and trade in endangered species, through limitations on the pollution of natural ecosystems, and through the protection of wildlife habitats should be an important objective of the United States development assistance.
(b) 100 In order to preserve biological diversity, the President is authorized to furnish assistance under this part, notwithstanding section 660,101 to assist countries in protecting and maintaining wildlife habitats and in developing sound wildlife management and plant conservation programs. Special efforts should be made to establish and maintain wildlife sanctuaries, reserves, and parks; to enact and enforce anti-poaching measures; and to identify, study, and catalog animal and plant species, especially in tropical environments.[9]
The amendments to the section also included modifications on the section concerning "PVOs and other Nongovernmental Organizations."[9] The section requires that PVOs and NGO's, "to the fullest extent possible involve local people with all stages of design and implementation."[9] These amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act and the recent rise in USAID funding towards foreign environmental conservation have lead to several disagreements in terms of NGO's role in foreign development.
This section is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this section to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (May 2011)
The Nature Conservancy is a US charitable environmental organization that works to preserve the plants, animals, and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.[10]
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization working on issues regarding the conservation, research and restoration of the environment, formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States. It is the world's largest independent conservation organization with over 5 million supporters worldwide, working in more than 90 countries, supporting around 1300[4] conservation and environmental projects around the world. It is a charity, with approximately 60% of its funding coming from voluntary donations by private individuals. 45% of the fund's income comes from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United. States.[11]
Wyoming Outdoor Council is Wyoming’s oldest, independent, membership-based conservation organization. Wyoming native Tom Bell founded the group in 1967, along with Carrol R. Noble, Margaret E. “Mardy” Murie, Dr. Harold McCracken, Ann Lindahl and others. The Wyoming Outdoor Council’s stated mission since 2008 is to “protect Wyoming’s environment and quality of life for future generations.”
The Yemen Arab Republic (YAR; in Arabic: الجمهوريّة العربية اليمنية al-Jamhūrīyah al-`Arabīyah al-Yamanīyah), also known as North Yemen or Yemen (Sana'a), was a country from 1962 to 1990 in the western part of what is now Yemen.[1] Its capital was at Sana'a.
Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, northern Yemen became an independent state as the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen. On 27 September 1962, revolutionaries inspired by the Arab nationalistideology of United Arab Republic (Egyptian) President Gamal Abdul Nasser deposed the newly-crowned King Muhammad al-Badr, took control of Sana'a, and established the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR). This coup d'état marked the beginning of the North Yemen Civil War that pitted YAR troops assisted by the United Arab Republic (Egypt) while Saudi Arabia and Jordan supported Badr's royalist forces opposing the newly formed republic. Conflict continued periodically until 1967 when Egyptian troops were withdrawn. By 1968, following a final royalist siege of Sana'a, most of the opposing leaders reached a reconciliation; Saudi Arabia recognized the Republic in 1970.
Unlike East and West Germany or North and South Korea, the YAR and its southern neighbour, the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), also known as South Yemen, remained relatively friendly, though relations were often strained. In 1972 it was declared unification would eventually occur. However, these plans were put on hold in 1979, and war was only prevented by an Arab League intervention. The goal of unity was reaffirmed by the northern and southern heads of state during a summit meeting in Kuwait in March 1979. What the PDRY government failed to tell the YAR government was that it wished to be the dominant power in any unification, and left-wing rebels in North Yemen began to receive extensive funding and arms from South Yemen.
In May 1988, the YAR and PDRY governments came to an understanding that considerably reduced tensions including agreement to renew discussions concerning unification, to establish a joint oil exploration area along their undefined border, to demilitarize the border, and to allow Yemenis unrestricted border passage on the basis of only a national identification card.
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1950 – A mentally ill Buddhist monk set fire to the Golden Pavilion at Kinkaku-ji(restoration pictured), destroying what is now one of the most popular tourist destinations in Japan.
1945 – The Brazilian cruiser Bahia(pictured) was accidentally sunk by one of her own crewmen, killing more than 300 and stranding the survivors in shark-infested waters.
2005 – The NASA space probe Deep Impact impacted the nucleus of the comet Tempel 1, excavating debris from its interior so that its composition could be studied.
1937 – The Hormel Foods Corporation introduced Spam(pictured), the canned precooked meat product that would eventually enter into pop culture, folklore, and urban legend.
1983 – After writing a letter to Soviet premierYuri Andropov, American schoolgirl Samantha Smith visited the Soviet Union as Andropov's personal guest, becoming known as "America's Youngest Ambassador".
1925 – Indian mystic and spiritual masterMeher Baba(pictured) began his silence until his death in 1969, only communicating by means of an alphabet board or by unique hand gestures.
1823 – A fire, accidentally started by a workman who was repairing the lead of the roof, destroyed the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. The church was restored by 1840.
1994 – Fragments of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet began hitting the planet Jupiter, with the first one causing a fireball which reached a peak temperature of about 24,000K.
This article's factual accuracy is disputed. Please help to ensure that disputed facts are reliably sourced. See the relevant discussion on the talk page. (June 2011)
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (Russian: Ю́рий Влади́мирович Андро́пов, Yury Vladimirovich Andropov; 15 June [O.S. 2 June] 1914 – 9 February 1984) was a Soviet politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death fifteen months later.
Andropov was the son of a railway official Vladimir Konstantinovich Andropov, who was a member of a Don Cossacknoble family.[1] His mother was Yevgenia Karlovna Fleckenstein, a daughter of a wealthy Moscow businessman, Karl Franzovich Fleckenstein, a German Russian from Vyborg.[2] He was educated at the Rybinsk Water Transport Technical College before he joined Komsomol in 1930. He became a member of the Communist Party in 1939 and was First Secretary of the Central Committee of Komsomol in the Soviet Karelo-Finnish Republic from 1940 to 1944. During World War II, Andropov took part of partisan guerrilla activities in Finland. From 1944 onwards, he left Komsomol for party work. In 1947 he was elected Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Karelo-Finnish SSR.[3] He moved to Moscow in 1951 and joined the party secretariat. In 1954, he became the Soviet ambassador to Hungary.
In 1954, Andropov became the Soviet Ambassador in Hungary and held this position during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. After these events, Andropov suffered from a "Hungarian complex", according to historian Christopher Andrew: "he had watched in horror from the windows of his embassy as officers of the hated Hungarian security service were strung up from lampposts. Andropov remained haunted for the rest of his life by the speed with which an apparently all-powerful Communist one-party state had begun to topple. When other Communist regimes later seemed at risk - in Prague in 1968, in Kabul in 1979, in Warsaw in 1981, he was convinced that, as in Budapest in 1956, only armed force could ensure their survival".[4]
Andropov played a key role in crushing the Hungarian Revolution. He convinced a reluctant Nikita Khrushchev that military intervention was necessary.[4] He deceived Imre Nagy and other Hungarian leaders that the Soviet government did not order an attack on Hungary at the very moment of this attack.[citation needed] The Hungarian leaders were arrested and Nagy executed.
Andropov returned to Moscow to head the Department for Liaison with Communist and Workers' Parties in Socialist Countries (1957–1967). In 1961, he was elected full member of the CPSU Central Committee and was promoted to the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee in 1962. In 1967, he was relieved of his work in the Central Committee apparatus and appointed head of the KGB on recommendation of Mikhail Suslov. He gained additional powers in 1973, when he was promoted to full member of the Politburo.
During the Prague Spring events in Czechoslovakia, Andropov was the main proponent of the "extreme measures". He ordered the fabrication of false intelligence not only for public consumption, but also for the Soviet Politburo. "The KGB whipped up the fear that Czechoslovakia could fall victim to NATO aggression or to a coup".[4] At this time, agent Oleg Kalugin reported from Washington that he gained access to "absolutely reliable documents proving that neither the CIA nor any other agency was manipulating the Czechoslovak reform movement".[4] However his message was destroyed because it contradicted the conspiracy theory fabricated by Andropov.[4] Andropov ordered a number of active measures, collectively known as operation PROGRESS, against Czechoslovak reformers.
[edit]Suppression of the Soviet dissident movement
Andropov aimed to achieve "the destruction of dissent in all its forms" and always insisted that "the struggle for human rights was a part of a wide-ranging imperialist plot to undermine the foundation of the Soviet state".[4] In 1968 he issued a KGB Chairman's order "On the tasks of State security agencies in combating the ideological sabotage by the adversary", calling for struggle against dissidents and their imperialist masters. The repression of dissidents[5][6] included plans to maim the dancer Rudolf Nureyev, who had defected in 1961. There are some who believe that Andropov was behind the deaths of Fyodor Kulakov and Pyotr Masherov, the two youngest members of the Soviet leadership.[7]
Andropov played the dominant role in the decision to invade Afghanistan in 1979. He insisted on the invasion, although he expected that the international community would blame the USSR for this action;[8] the decision led to the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1988).
Andropov was the longest-serving KGB chairman and did not resign as head of the KGB until May 1982, when he was again promoted to the Secretariat to succeed the late Mikhail Suslov as secretary responsible for ideological affairs.
Two days after Leonid Brezhnev's death, on 12 November 1982, Andropov was elected General Secretary of the CPSU, the first former head of the KGB to become General Secretary. His appointment was received in the West with apprehension, in view of his roles in the KGB and in Hungary. At the time his personal background was a mystery in the West, with major newspapers printing detailed profiles of him that were inconsistent and in many cases fabricated.[9]
During his rule, Andropov attempted to improve the economy by raising management effectiveness without changing the principles of socialist economy. In contrast to Brezhnev's policy of avoiding conflicts and dismissals, he began to fight violations of party, state and labour discipline, which led to significant personnel changes. During 15 months in office, Andropov dismissed 18 ministers, 37 first secretaries of obkoms, kraikoms and Central Committees of Communist Parties of Soviet Republics; criminal cases on highest party and state officials were started. For the first time, the facts about economic stagnation and obstacles to scientific progress were made available to the public and criticised.[10]
In foreign policy, the war continued in Afghanistan, although Andropov - who felt the invasion may have been a mistake - did half-heartedly explore options for a negotiated withdrawal. Andropov's rule was also marked by deterioration of relations with the United States. U.S. plans to deploy Pershing missiles in Western Europe in response to the Soviet SS-20 missiles were contentious. But when Paul Nitze, the American negotiator, suggested a compromise plan for nuclear missiles in Europe in the celebrated “walk in the woods” with Soviet negotiator Yuli Kvitsinsky, the Soviets never responded.[11] Kvitsinsky would later write that, despite his own efforts, the Soviet side was not interested in compromise, instead calculating that peace movements in the West would force the Americans to capitulate.[12] On 8 March 1983, during Andropov's reign as General Secretary, U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously labeled the Soviet Union an "evil empire."
In August 1983 Andropov made a sensational announcement that the country was stopping all work on space-based weapons. One of his most notable acts during his short time as leader of the Soviet Union was in response to a letter from an American child from Maine named Samantha Smith, inviting her to the Soviet Union. Some people think he used Smith to make the Soviet Union less corrupt. Smith made friends with children in Moscow. This resulted in Smith becoming a well-known peace activist. Meanwhile, Soviet-U.S. arms control talks on intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe were suspended by the Soviet Union in November 1983 and by the end of 1983, the Soviets had broken off all arms control negotiations.[13]
Cold War tensions were exacerbated by the downing near Moneron Island by Soviet fighters of a civilian jet liner, Korean Air Flight KAL-007 with a complement of 269 passengers and crew, including a congressman from Georgia, Larry McDonald. KAL 007 had strayed over the Soviet Union on 1 September 1983 on its way from Anchorage, Alaska, to Seoul, South Korea. Andropov was advised by his Defence MinisterDmitriy Ustinov and by the head of the KGB Victor Chebrikov to keep secret the fact that the Soviet Union held in its possession the sought-after "black box" from KAL 007. Andropov was encouraged to state that the Soviet Union engage in the deception that they too were looking for KAL 007 and the black box. Andropov agreed to this and the ruse continued until Boris Yeltsin disclosed the secret in 1992.
When he could no longer work in the Kremlin or attend the Politburo meetings, from September 1983, he adopted an original way of governing: he would suggest ideas to his assistants and speech writers, who would then prepare analytical "notes" for the Politburo.
On a Saturday preceding a Tuesday plenum of the Central Committee, Arkady Volsky, an aide to Andropov, came to Andropov's room at the Central Clinical Hospital in Kuntsevo to help him draft a speech. Andropov was in no shape to attend the plenum and he would have one of his men in the Politburo deliver the speech in his name. The last lines in the speech said that Central Committee staff members should be exemplary in their behavior, uncorrupted, responsible for the life of the country. Then Andropov gave Volsky a folder with the final draft and said, "The material looks good. Make sure you pay attention to the agenda I've written." Since the doctor walked him to the car, he did not have time to look right away at what he had written. Later, he got a chance to read it and saw that at the bottom of the last page Andropov had added in ink, in a somewhat unsteady handwriting, a new paragraph. It went like this: "Members of the Central Committee know that due to certain reasons, I am unable to come to the plenum. I can neither attend the meetings of the Politburo nor the secretariat. Therefore, I believe Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev should be assigned to preside over the meetings of the Politburo and the secretariat (of the Central Committee)." Andropov was recommending that Gorbachev be his inheritor. Volsky made a photocopy of the document and put the copy in his safe. He delivered the original to the Party leadership and assumed that it would be read out at the plenum. But at the meeting neither Konstantin Chernenko, Viktor Grishin, Nikolai Tikhonov, Dmitriy Ustinov nor any of the other politburo members made mention of Andropov's stated wishes. Volsky thought there must have been some mistake: "I went up to Chernenko and said, 'There was an addendum in the text.' He said, 'Think nothing of any addendum.' Then I saw his aide Bogolyubov and said, 'Klavdy Mikhailovich, there was a paragraph from Andropov's speech....' He led me off to the side, and said, 'Who do you think you are, a wise guy? Do you think your life ends with this?' I said, 'In that case, I'll have to phone Andropov.' And he replied, 'Then that will be your last phone call'". Andropov was furious when he heard what had happened at the plenum, but there was little he could do.[14][15]
In his memoirs, Mikhail Gorbachev recalled that when Andropov was the leader, he and Nikolai Ryzhkov, the chairman of Gosplan, asked Andropov for access to real budget figures. "You are asking too much," he responded. "The budget is off limits to you."
In February 1983, Andropov suffered total renal failure. In August 1983, he entered the Central Clinical Hospital in western Moscow on a permanent basis, where he would spend the remainder of his life. His aides would take turns visiting him in the hospital with important matters and paperwork.
Shortly before he was due to leave for the Crimea, Andropov's health severely deteriorated. The lightly dressed Andropov had become tired, and had taken a rest on a granite bench in the shade; his body became thoroughly chilled, and he soon began shivering uncontrollably.
For the last two months of his life Andropov did not get out of bed, except when he was lifted onto a couch while his sheets were changed. He was physically finished but his mind was clear.[citation needed] Throughout his last days Andropov still worked, even if it meant little more than signing papers or giving his assent to his aides' proposals.
On 31 December 1983 Andropov celebrated the New Year for the last time. Vladimir Kryuchkov together with other friends visited Andropov. He was very thankful that his doctors let him drink a glass of champagne. They remained with him for about an hour and a half. After they had gone, Andropov remained alone with Kryuchkov and told him that he wished health and success to all the friends. At that moment, Kryuchkov understood that Andropov was going to die. In January, the future prime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov visited Andropov. Andropov kissed him and told him to go.
In late January 1984 the gradual decline in his health that characterized his tenure suddenly intensified due to growing intoxication in his blood, as a result of which he had periods of failing consciousness. On 9 February 1984, Andropov's last day, the nurse came to Boris Klukov, one of his many bodyguards, and said that he did not want to eat. She asked him to try to convince Andropov to eat. Klukov came up to Andropov and convinced him that he must eat. Andropov finally agreed to eat and they ate together. Then, Boris Klukov left the room for some time. And after half an hour there was a sudden commotion. Doctors ran to Andropov's room and the assistant of the security director also went there. Klukov called the assistants. He came up to Andropov's room, looked at the display and observed his slowing pulse.[16] Andropov died on that day at 16:50 in his hospital room. Few of the top people, not even all the Politburo members, learned of the fact on the same day. According to the Soviet medical report, Andropov suffered from several medical conditions: interstitial nephritis, nephrosclerosis, residual hypertension and diabetes, which were worsened by chronic kidney deficiency.
A four-day period of nationwide mourning was announced. Inside the House of the Unions, mourners shuffled up a marble staircase beneath chandeliers draped in black gauze. On the stage at the left side of the Hall of Pillars, amid a veritable garden of flowers, a complete symphony orchestra in black tailcoats played classical music. Andropov's embalmed body, dressed in a black suit, white shirt and black-and-red tie, lay in an open coffin banked with carnations, red roses and tulips, faced the long queue of mourners. At the right side of the hall, in the front row of seats reserved for the dead leader's family, his wife Tatyana Filipovna with her red hair held in place with a hairclip, sat alongside with their two children, Igor and Irina.
On 14 February, the funeral parade began. Two officers led the funeral parade, carrying a large portrait of him followed by numerous red floral wreaths. Then general officers in tall Astrakhan hats appeared, carrying the late leader's 21 decorations and medals on small red cushions. Behind them, the coffin rested atop a gun carriage drawn by an olive-green military scout vehicle. Walking immediately behind were the members of Andropov's family. The Politburo leaders, almost indistinguishable from one another in their fur hats and look-alike overcoats with red armbands, led the last group of official mourners. As the coffin reached the middle of the Red Square, it was taken out of the carriage and placed on a red-draped bier facing the Lenin Mausoleum, with its lid removed. After a series of speeches, delivered by military and political leaders from the balcony of the Lenin Mausoleum, Andropov's coffin was carried to the Kremlin Wall Necropolis just behind it. At exactly 12:45 p.m. Tuesday, Andropov's coffin was lowered into the ground as foghorns blared, joining with sirens, wheezing factory whistles and rolling gunfire in a mournful cacophony.
Andropov's legacy remains the subject of much debate in Russia and elsewhere, both among scholars and in the popular media. He remains the focus of television documentaries and popular non-fiction, particularly around important anniversaries. As KGB head, Andropov was ruthless against dissent, and author David Remnick, who covered the Soviet Union for the Washington Post in the 1980s, called Andropov "profoundly corrupt, a beast".[17]Alexander Yakovlev, later an advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev and the ideologist of perestroika, said "In a way I always thought Andropov was the most dangerous of all of them, simply because he was smarter than the rest."[17] However, it was Andropov himself who recalled Yakovlev back to high office in Moscow in 1983 after a ten year de facto exile as ambassador to Canada after attacking Russian chauvinism. Yakovlev was also a close colleague of Andropov associate KGB General Yevgeny Primakov, later Prime Minister of Russia.
"In the West, if Andropov is remembered at all, it is for his brutal suppression of political dissidence at home and for his role in planning the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. By contrast, the leaders of the former Warsaw Pact intelligence community, when I was one of them, looked up to Andropov as the man who substituted the KGB for the Communist party in governing the Soviet Union, and who was the godfather of Russia's new era of deception operations aimed at improving the badly damaged image of Soviet rulers in the West."[18]
Despite Andropov's hard-line stance in Hungary and the numerous banishments and intrigues for which he was responsible during his long tenure as head of the KGB, he has become widely regarded by many commentators as a humane reformer, especially in comparison with the stagnation and corruption during the later years of his predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev. Andropov, "a throwback to a tradition of Leninist asceticism",[17] was appalled by the corruption during Brezhnev's regime, and ordered investigations and arrests of the most flagrant abusers. The investigations were so frightening that several members of Brezhnev's circle "shot, gassed or otherwise did away with themselves."[17] He was certainly generally regarded as inclined to more gradual and constructive reform than was Gorbachev; most of the speculation centres around whether Andropov would have reformed the USSR in a manner which did not result in its eventual dissolution.
The Western media favored Andropov because of his supposed passion for Western music and scotch.[19] However, these were unproven rumours. It is also questionable whether Andropov spoke any English at all. *[1]
The short time he spent as leader, much of it in a state of extreme ill health, leaves debaters few concrete indications as to the nature of any hypothetical extended rule. As with the shortened rule of Lenin, speculators have much room to advocate their favourite theories and to develop the minor cult of personality which has formed around him.[20]
Andropov lived in 26 Kutuzovski prospekt, the same building that Suslov and Brezhnev also lived in. He was first married to Nina Ivanovna. She bore him a son who died in mysterious circumstances in the late 1970s. In 1983 she was diagnosed with cancer and underwent a successful operation. He met his second wife, Tatyana Filipovna, during WW2 in the Karelian Front when she was Komsomol secretary. She had suffered a nervous breakdown during the Hungarian revolution. Andropov's chief guard informed Tatyana about the death of her husband. She was too grief-stricken to join in the procession and during the funeral her relatives helped her to walk. Before the lid could be closed on Andropov's coffin, she bent to kiss him. She touched his hair and then kissed him again. In 1985, a respectful 75-minute film was broadcast in which Tatyana (not even seen in public until Andropov's funeral) reads love poems written by her husband. Tatyana became ill and died in November 1991. Andropov had also a son, Igor (died June 2006), and a daughter, Irina (born 1946).
Yuri Andropov: A Secret Passage into the Kremlin, Vladimir & Klepikova, Elena Solovyov, MacMillan Publishing Company, 1983, 302 pages, ISBN 0-02-612290-1.
The Andropov File: The Life and Ideas of Yuri V. Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Martin Ebon, McGraw-Hill Companies, 1983, 284 pages, ISBN 0-07-018861-0.
Cold War International History Project Bulletin, no. 5 (Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington, DC), Spring, 1995, pp. 22–23, 29-34.
John Edward Brownlee served as Attorney-General of the province of Alberta in western Canada from 1921 until 1926, in the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) government of Herbert Greenfield. As Brownlee was the only lawyer in a caucus formed almost entirely of farmers, his role extended beyond the traditional expectations of an attorney-general; he became the government's de facto leader in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Brownlee quickly became identified with the government's conservative faction. He opposed radical changes to the structure of government and urged thrift in public spending. As part of the government's attempts to balance its budget, Brownlee favoured selling its money-losing railways and concluding an agreement with the federal government to give Alberta control over its natural resources; he was unsuccessful at both while Attorney-General. UFA Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) began to see Brownlee as a better leader than the indecisive Greenfield. A group of them attempted to force Greenfield to resign in Brownlee's favour. Though Brownlee opposed these attempts, he was eventually persuaded to accept the premiership if Greenfield willingly relinquished it. Brownlee became premier on November 23, 1925. (more...)
The Sun Also Rises is a 1926 novel written by American author Ernest Hemingway about a group of American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early and enduring modernist novel, it received mixed reviews upon publication. The novel was published in the US in 1926 and in 1927 in England with the title of Fiesta. The basis for the novel was Hemingway's 1925 trip to Spain. The setting was unique and memorable, showing the seedy café life in Paris and the excitement of the Pamplona festival, with a middle section devoted to descriptions of a fishing trip in the Pyrenees. Also unique was Hemingway's spare writing style, combined with his restrained use of description to convey characterizations and action, which became known as the iceberg theory. The characters are based on real people (who are pictured) and the action is based on real events. (more...)
U.S. Route 491 is a north–south U.S. Highway serving the Four Corners region of the United States. One of the newest designations in the U.S. Highway System, it was created in 2003 as a renumbering of U.S. Route 666. With the 666 designation, this road was nicknamed Devil's Highway because of the common Christian belief that 666 is the Number of the Beast. This satanic connotation, combined with a high fatality rate along the New Mexico portion, convinced some people the highway was cursed. The problem was compounded with persistent sign theft. These factors led to two efforts to renumber the highway, by officials in Arizona and then in New Mexico. Since the renumbering, as a result of safety improvement projects, fatality rates have decreased. The highway runs through Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, as well as the tribal nations of the Navajo Nation and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. Features along the route include an extinct volcanic core named Shiprock, Mesa Verde National Park, and the self-proclaimed pinto-bean capital of the world, Dove Creek, Colorado. (more...)
The Battle of Osan was the first engagement between United States and North Korean forces during the Korean War, on July 5, 1950. A U.S. task force of 400 infantry supported by an artillery battery was moved to Osan, south of the South Korean capital Seoul, and ordered to fight as a rearguard to delay advancing North Korean forces while additional U.S. forces arrived in the country to form a defensive line. The task force lacked both anti-tank guns and effective infantry anti-tank weapons. Aside from a limited number of HEAT shells for the unit's 105-mmhowitzers, crew-served weapons capable of defeating the T-34 had not been distributed to U.S. Army forces in Korea at the time. In the first encounter, a North Korean tank column overran the task force and continued its advance south. After the column had successfully breached American lines, the task force opened fire on a force of some 5,000 North Korean infantry approaching its position, temporarily holding up the North Korean advance. Eventually, North Korean troops overwhelmed American positions, and the remnants of the task force retreated in disorder. (more...)
Primates are a mammalian order which includes humans. Most non-human primates live in tropical or subtropical regions of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Primates range in size from the Madame Berthe's mouse lemur, which weighs only 30 grams (1 oz), to the mountain gorilla, weighing 200 kilograms (440 lb). According to fossil evidence, the primitive ancestors of primates may have existed in the late Cretaceous period around 65 million years ago, and the oldest known primate is the Late PaleocenePlesiadapis, c. 55–58 million years ago. Primates are characterized by their large brains, and increased reliance on stereoscopic vision at the expense of smell. These features are most marked in monkeys and apes, and noticeably less so in lorises and lemurs. Three-color vision has developed in some primates. Most also have opposable thumbs and some have prehensile tails. (more...)
The River Parrett flows through the counties of Dorset and Somerset in South West England, from its source in the Thorney Mills springs in the hills around Chedington in Dorset. Flowing northwest through Somerset and the Somerset Levels to its mouth at Burnham-on-Sea, into the Bridgwater BayNature Reserve on the Bristol Channel, the Parrett drains about 50 per cent of Somerset's land area. The 37-mile (60 km) long river is tidal for 27 miles (43 km) up to Oath. Because the fall of the river between Langport and Bridgwater is only 1 foot per mile (0.2 m/km), it is prone to frequent flooding in winter and during high tides. During the Roman era the river was crossed by a ford, and in Anglo-Saxon times formed a boundary between Wessex and Dumnonia. From the medieval period the river served the Port of Bridgwater, enabling cargoes to be transported inland. The arrival of the railways led to a decline and commercial shipping now only docks at Dunball. The Parrett along with its connected waterways and network of drains supports an ecosystem that includes several rare species of flora and fauna. The River Parrett Trail has been established along the banks of the river. (more...)
"Doomsday" is the thirteenth and final episode in the second series of the Britishscience fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on 8 July 2006 and is the conclusion of a two-part story; the first part, "Army of Ghosts", was broadcast on 1 July 2006. The two-part story features the Daleks, presumed extinct after the events of the 2005 series' finale; and the Cybermen, who appeared in "Rise of the Cybermen" and "The Age of Steel". Both species unexpectedly arrived on Earth at the conclusion of "Army of Ghosts". The plot consists mostly of the Daleks and Cybermen waging a global war with humanity caught in the crossfire. The Doctor and his companions fight for their lives trying to revert the situation. The episode was filmed in December 2005 and January 2006. One of the most popular Doctor Who episodes since the show's revival, "Doomsday" is favoured by critics for both the Cybermen–Dalek conflict and the farewell scene between the Doctor and his companion, Rose Tyler. (more...)
Lactarius volemus is a species of fungus in the genus Lactarius. It is distributed in warm temperate regions and northern areas of the Northern Hemisphere, and has been collected in Europe, North America, Central America, and Asia. A mycorrhizal fungus, its fruit bodies grow on the ground at the base of various species of trees from summer to autumn, either individually or in groups. It is considered a choice edible mushroom, and is sold in markets in Asia. The colour of the L. volemus mushroom varies from apricot to tawny, and the cap may be up to 11 cm (4.3 in) wide. The pale golden yellow gills on the underside of the cap are closely spaced and sometimes forked. One of the mushroom's most distinctive features is the large amount of latex ("milk") that it exudes when the gills are damaged. It also has a distinctive fishy smell, which does not affect the taste. The mushroom also contains a natural rubber that has been chemically characterized. (more...)
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
The featured article for this day has not yet been chosen. The final selection is made by the featured article director (Raul654) or his delegate (Dabomb87).
This page is about Wikipedia's Village Pump. For the program VandalProof, see WP:VPRF.
Welcome to the Village Pump. This set of pages is used to discuss the technical issues, policies, and operations of Wikipedia, and is divided into five village pump sections. Please use the table below to find the most appropriate section to post in, or post in the miscellaneous section. You can view all village pump sections at once here. Please sign and date your post (by typing ~~~~ or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar).
Note that this page is not for discussions; Use the "Village pump sections" part below to navigate.
It can only be speculated that, like the modern office water cooler, the village pump must have been a gathering place to discuss ideas for the improvement of the locale in which its members dwelled. For those who are interested, the village stocks are situated nearby, just on the other side of the town square.
Archiving
Discussions older than seven days (the date of last made comment) are moved to a subpage of each section (called section name/Archive n). These discussions can then be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. To view these archives and the history before September 26, 2004, see Wikipedia:Village pump archive.
Featured articles are considered to be the best articles in Wikipedia, as determined by Wikipedia's editors. Before being listed here, articles are reviewed at featured article candidates for accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style according to our featured article criteria. There are 3,321 featured articles out of 3,676,698 articles on the English Wikipedia. Thus, about one in 1,100 articles is listed here. Articles that no longer meet the criteria can be proposed for improvement or removal at featured article review.
A small bronze star icon () on the top right corner of an article's page indicates that the article is featured, unless the appropriate user preference is set. Additionally, if the current article is featured in another language version, a star will appear next to the language page link, in the list on the left of the page (see also featured articles in other languages).
Hi, my name is Lise Broer. Currently I have 412 featured credits: 318 at English Wikipedia and 94 at Wikimedia Commons. Most of that represents digital restoration of archival material. Due to curatorial practices and copyright laws, the best sources tend to be American. A group of people are working to gain more diverse access to high resolution files from museums, libraries, and other archives globally. Many thanks especially to the Open Progress Foundation, WMF Netherlands, and the Tropenmuseum of Amsterdam for opening greater media access to the history of Suriname and Indonesia.
Overall I've contributed featured material at 5 of Wikipedia's 6 featured content types and have gotten 68 articles to Wikipedia's main page at Template:Did you know. A number of those involved creating and photographing examples of textile arts subjects such as smocking.
As of 15 February 2010 my most significant contributions have been:
288 featured pictures: 13.1% of Wikipedia's total 2,194 featured pictures
22 featured sounds: 17.2% of Wikipedia's total 128 featured sounds
There's plenty of historic media out there waiting to add value to this website. Wikipedia would be better off if more people joined in this undertaking. If you'd like to participate either by opening doors or learning restoration, please leave word on user talk.
One of the best things about media work is how readily it crosses international boundaries. One of my restorations was selected third place overall for the 2008 Commons Picture of the Year. And although I don't count other language projects toward my featured credit total, I happen to have 131 featured pictures on the Turkish Wikipedia--not all of which are featured here or on Commons.
Unrestored version: mislabeled scattered debris of camp in Library of Congress bibliographic notes.
Restored version: four human remains in foreground partially wrapped in blankets.
Detail from restored version: a face in profile, hand at right.
Library of Congress staff have updated the description. An excerpt of their reply follows:
Upon viewing the high-res TIFF file we made of the file, the human remains are quite visible, indeed. Thank you very much for contacting us regarding this image, and for your interest in our collections. You can imagine that among a collection of 14 million items here, there are a lot of secrets waiting to be uncovered!
Subsequent to this restoration, the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts ran an exhibit of historic photography and incorporated the updated Library of Congress bibliographic data into the museum's official program notes.
Other examples
In fall 2009 the Tropenmuseum of Amsterdam held an exhibit about the cultural history of Suriname in cooperation with the Dutch chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation. The show was national news in The Netherlands and received a visit from President Ronald Venetiaan of Suriname.
In March 2009 the German chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation announced that the University of Dresden had agreed to release a quarter million images to Wikimedia Commons. This restoration of prewar Dresden is a gesture of thanks for that generous donation.
The Hotel del Coronado is a National Historic Landmark in Coronado, California. This image by William Henry Jackson c.1900 was unknown to the hotel staff when it turned up, badly damaged, in Library of Congress archives. The restored version ran on Wikipedia's main page for the fiftieth anniversary of the film Some Like it Hot, for which the hotel was the principal location.
What is digital restoration and why does it matter?
Featured picture restorations at Wikipedia usually start from an uncompressed TIFF file of 10 MB or larger. Typical projects use material in the 25 MB to 100 MB range. Work is performed at a minimum 200% resolution without automated settings or plug-ins. All edits are carefully documented. The labor time depends on the project, generally five to fifteen hours for a fast worker.
High quality digital restorations promote free culture. Online access to free media is not yet on par with access to free texts. Premium restorations of historic material provide an incentive for cultural institutions to digitize their collections and share with the public. Great media leads to great articles: viewers engage with media content and want to provide context--media turns readers into editors.
The free culture movement assists cultural preservation. Large museums and libraries contain millions of items, some of which lack full documentation. Curators and librarians welcome assistance from the public to improve their records, such as the discovery that the Wounded Knee Massacre image contained human remains. Also, digital sharing is a layer of protection to prevent physical damage to cultural institutions from resulting in total loss. The recent Haitian earthquake caused severe damage to most of the government buildings in Haiti's capital. Problems can occur anywhere: last year the regional archives of Cologne, Germany suffered irreparable losses when the archive building suddenly collapsed.[1] That type of loss is minimized when high resolution digital copies remain in multiple locations.
We can't count on this situation to improve passively: currently no industry technical standard exists for digitizing media. Many institutions have traditionally depended upon income from reproduction sales to cover part of their operating budget. Win-win solutions exist. See the following links for more information.
Nadezhda Durova was the first female officer of the Russian army. She enlisted as a private during the Napoleonic Wars, was decorated in combat, and retired as a captain. More than two decades later she met Aleksandr Pushkin, who learned that she had kept a journal during her wartime service and encouraged her to publish her memoirs. In part because of her example, Russia and the USSR had the highest participation of female wartime combatants of any Allied nation during World War I and World War II.
Wikipedia's departure from the expert-driven style of encyclopedia building and the large presence of unacademic content has been noted several times. When Time magazine recognized You as its Person of the Year for 2006, acknowledging the accelerating success of online collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world, it cited Wikipedia as one of several examples of Web 2.0 services, along with YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook.[10] Some have noted the importance of Wikipedia not only as an encyclopedic reference but also as a frequently updated news resource because of how quickly articles about recent events appear.[11][12] Students have been assigned to write Wikipedia articles as an exercise in clearly and succinctly explaining difficult concepts to an uninitiated audience.[13]
Although the policies of Wikipedia strongly espouse verifiability and a neutral point of view, critics of Wikipedia accuse it of systemic bias and inconsistencies (including undue weight given to popular culture),[14] and allege that it favors consensus over credentials in its editorial processes.[15] Its reliability and accuracy are also targeted.[16] Other criticisms center on its susceptibility to vandalism and the addition of spurious or unverified information;[17] however, scholarly work suggests that vandalism is generally short-lived.[18][19] A 2005 investigation in Nature found that the science articles they compared came close to the level of accuracy of Encyclopædia Britannica and had a similar rate of "serious errors."[20]
Main Page of the English Wikipedia on October 20, 2010.
Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia.[22][23] While Wales is credited with defining the goal of making a publicly editable encyclopedia,[24][25] Sanger is usually credited with the strategy of using a wiki to reach that goal.[26] On January 10, 2001, Larry Sanger proposed on the Nupedia mailing list to create a wiki as a "feeder" project for Nupedia.[27] Wikipedia was formally launched on January 15, 2001, as a single English-language edition at www.wikipedia.com,[28] and announced by Sanger on the Nupedia mailing list.[24] Wikipedia's policy of "neutral point-of-view"[29] was codified in its initial months, and was similar to Nupedia's earlier "nonbiased" policy. Otherwise, there were relatively few rules initially and Wikipedia operated independently of Nupedia.[24]
Graph of the article count for the English Wikipedia, from January 10, 2001, to September 9, 2007 (the date of the two-millionth article).
Wikipedia gained early contributors from Nupedia, Slashdot postings, and web search engine indexing. It grew to approximately 20,000 articles and 18 language editions by the end of 2001. By late 2002, it had reached 26 language editions, 46 by the end of 2003, and 161 by the final days of 2004.[30] Nupedia and Wikipedia coexisted until the former's servers were taken down permanently in 2003, and its text was incorporated into Wikipedia. English Wikipedia passed the two million-article mark on September 9, 2007, making it the largest encyclopedia ever assembled, eclipsing even the Yongle Encyclopedia (1407), which had held the record for exactly 600 years.[31]
Citing fears of commercial advertising and lack of control in a perceived English-centric Wikipedia, users of the Spanish Wikipediaforked from Wikipedia to create the Enciclopedia Libre in February 2002.[32] Later that year, Wales announced that Wikipedia would not display advertisements, and its website was moved to wikipedia.org.[33] Various other wiki-encyclopedia projects have been started, largely under a different philosophy from the open and NPOV editorial model of Wikipedia. Wikinfo does not require a neutral point of view and allows original research. New Wikipedia-inspired projects – such as Citizendium, Scholarpedia, Conservapedia, and Google's Knol where the articles are a little more essayistic[34] – have been started to address perceived limitations of Wikipedia, such as its policies on peer review, original research, and commercial advertising.
Number of articles in the English Wikipedia plotted against Gompertz function trending to 4.4 million articles.
Though the English Wikipedia reached three million articles in August 2009, the growth of the edition, in terms of the numbers of articles and of contributors, appeared to have flattened off around early 2007.[35] In 2006, about 1,800 articles were added daily to the encyclopedia; by 2010 that average was roughly 1,000.[36] A team at the Palo Alto Research Center speculated that this is due to the increasing exclusiveness of the project.[37] New or occasional editors have significantly higher rates of their edits reverted (removed) than an elite group of regular editors, colloquially known as the "cabal." This could make it more difficult for the project to recruit and retain new contributors over the long term, resulting in stagnation in article creation. Others suggest that the growth is flattening naturally because the low-hanging fruit already exist.[38][39]
In November 2009, a Ph.D thesis written by Felipe Ortega, a researcher at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, found that the English Wikipedia had lost 49,000 editors during the first three months of 2009; in comparison, the project lost only 4,900 editors during the same period in 2008.[40][41]The Wall Street Journal reported that "unprecedented numbers of the millions of online volunteers who write, edit and police [Wikipedia] are quitting." The array of rules applied to editing and disputes related to such content are among the reasons for this trend that are cited in the article.[42] These claims were disputed by Jimmy Wales, who denied the decline and questioned the methodology of the study.[43]
In January 2007, Wikipedia initially entered the top ten list of the most popular websites in the United States, according to comScore Networks Inc. With 42.9 million unique visitors and rank #9, Wikipedia surpassed New York Times (#10) and Apple Inc. (#11). It is a significant increase as in January 2006 the rank was #33 with just 18.3 million unique visitors.[44] In April 2011 it was listed as the fifth most popular website by Google Inc.[45][46]
In a departure from the style of traditional encyclopedias, Wikipedia employs an open, "wiki" editing model. Except for a few particularly vandalism-prone pages, every article may be edited anonymously or with a user account. Different language editions modify this policy: only registered users may create a new article in the English edition. No article is owned by its creator or any other editor, or is vetted by any recognized authority; rather, the articles are agreed on by consensus.[48]
By default, any edit to an article becomes available immediately, prior to any review. This means that an article may contain errors, misguided contributions, advocacy, or even patent nonsense, until another editor corrects the problem. Different language editions, each under separate administrative control, are free to modify this policy. For example the German Wikipedia maintains a system of "stable versions" of articles,[49] to allow a reader to see versions of articles that have passed certain reviews. In June 2010, its administrators announced that the English Wikipedia would remove strict editing restrictions from "controversial" or vandalism-prone articles (such as George W. Bush, David Cameron or homework) by using reviews.[50][51] In place of an editing prohibition for new or unregistered users, there would be a "new system, called 'pending changes'" which, as Jimmy Wales told the BBC, would enable the English Wikipedia "to open up articles for general editing that have been protected or semi-protected for years." The "pending changes" system was introduced on June 15, 2010, shortly after 11 pm GMT. Edits to specified articles are now "subject to review from an established Wikipedia editor before publication." Wales opted against the German Wikipedia model of requiring editor review before edits to any article, describing it as "neither necessary nor desirable." He added that the administrators of the German Wikipedia were "going to be closely watching the English system, and I'm sure they'll at least consider switching if the results are good."[52]
Editors keep track of changes to articles by checking the difference between two revisions of a page, displayed here in red.
Contributors, registered or not, can take advantage of features available in the software that powers Wikipedia. The "History" page attached to each article records every single past revision of the article, though a revision with libelous content, criminal threats or copyright infringements may be removed afterwards.[53][54] This feature makes it easy to compare old and new versions, undo changes that an editor considers undesirable, or restore lost content. The "Discussion" pages associated with each article are used to coordinate work among multiple editors.[55] Regular contributors often maintain a "watchlist" of articles of interest to them, so that they can easily keep tabs on all recent changes to those articles. Computer programs called Internet bots have been used widely to remove vandalism as soon as it was made,[19] to correct common misspellings and stylistic issues, or to start articles such as geography entries in a standard format from statistical data.
The editing interface of Wikipedia.
Articles in Wikipedia are organized roughly in three ways according to: development status, subject matter and the access level required for editing. The most developed state of articles is called "featured article" status: articles labeled as such are the ones that will be featured in the main page of Wikipedia.[56][57] Researcher Giacomo Poderi found that articles tend to reach the FA status via the intensive work of few editors.[58] In 2007, in preparation for producing a print version, the English-language Wikipedia introduced an assessment scale against which the quality of articles is judged.[59]
A WikiProject is a place for a group of editors to coordinate work on a specific topic. The discussion pages attached to a project are often used to coordinate changes that take place across articles. Wikipedia also maintains a style guide called the Manual of Style or MoS for short, which stipulates, for example, that, in the first sentence of any given article, the title of the article and any alternative titles should appear in bold.
Rules and laws governing content
For legal reasons, content in Wikipedia is subject to the laws (in particular copyright law) of Florida, where Wikipedia servers are hosted. Beyond that, the Wikipedian editorial principles are embodied in the "five pillars", and numerous policies and guidelines are intended to shape the content appropriately. Even these rules are stored in wiki form, and Wikipedia editors as a community write and revise those policies and guidelines[60] and enforce them by deleting, annotating with tags, or modifying article materials failing to meet them. The rules on the non-English editions of Wikipedia branched off a translation of the rules on the English Wikipedia and have since diverged to some extent. While they still show broad-brush similarities, they differ in many details.
According to the rules on the English Wikipedia, each entry in Wikipedia to be worthy of inclusion must be about a topic that is encyclopedic and is not a dictionary entry or dictionary-like.[61] A topic should also meet Wikipedia's standards of "notability",[62] which usually means that it must have received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources such as mainstream media or major academic journals that are independent of the subject of the topic. Further, Wikipedia must expose knowledge that is already established and recognized.[63] In other words, it must not present, for instance, new information or original works. A claim that is likely to be challenged requires a reference to a reliable source. Among Wikipedia editors, this is often phrased as "verifiability, not truth" to express the idea that the readers, not the encyclopedia, are ultimately responsible for checking the truthfulness of the articles and making their own interpretations.[64] Finally, Wikipedia must not take a side.[65] All opinions and viewpoints, if attributable to external sources, must enjoy an appropriate share of coverage within an article.[66] This is known as neutral point of view, or NPOV.
Wikipedia has many methods of settling disputes. A "bold, revert, discuss" cycle sometimes occurs, in which a user makes an edit, another user reverts it, and the matter is discussed on the appropriate talk page. In order to gain a broader community consensus, issues can be raised at the Village Pump, or a Request for Comment can be made soliciting other users' input. "Wikiquette Alerts" is a non-binding noticeboard where users can report impolite, uncivil, or other difficult communications with other editors.
Specialized forums exist for centralizing discussion on specific decisions, such as whether or not an article should be deleted. Mediation is sometimes used, although it has been deemed by some Wikipedians to be unhelpful for resolving particularly contentious disputes. The Wikipedia Arbitration Committee settles disputes when other methods fail. The ArbCom generally does not rule on the factual correctness of article content, although it sometimes enforces the "Neutral Point of View" policy. Statistical analyses suggest that Wikipedia's dispute resolution ignores the content of user disputes and focuses on user conduct instead, functioning not so much to resolve disputes and make peace between conflicting users, but to weed out problematic users while weeding potentially productive users back in to participate. Its remedies include banning users from Wikipedia (used in 15.7% of cases), subject matter remedies (23.4%), article bans (43.3%) and cautions and probations (63.2%). Total bans from Wikipedia are largely limited to instances of impersonation and anti-social behavior. Warnings tend to be issued for editing conduct and conduct that is anti-consensus, rather than anti-social.[67]
Content licensing
All text in Wikipedia was covered by GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), a copyleft license permitting the redistribution, creation of derivative works, and commercial use of content while authors retain copyright of their work,[68] up until June 2009, when the site switched to Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-by-SA) 3.0.[69] Wikipedia had been working on the switch to Creative Commons licenses because the GFDL, initially designed for software manuals, was not considered suitable[clarification needed] for online reference works and because the two licenses were incompatible.[70] In response to the Wikimedia Foundation's request, in November 2008, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) released a new version of GFDL designed specifically to allow Wikipedia to relicense its content to CC-BY-SA by August 1, 2009. Wikipedia and its sister projects held a community-wide referendum to decide whether or not to make the license switch.[71] The referendum took place from April 9 to 30.[72] The results were 75.8% "Yes," 10.5% "No," and 13.7% "No opinion."[73] In consequence of the referendum, the Wikimedia Board of Trustees voted to change to the Creative Commons license, effective June 15, 2009.[73] The position that Wikipedia is merely a hosting service has been successfully used as a defense in court.[74][75]
The handling of media files (e.g., image files) varies across language editions. Some language editions, such as the English Wikipedia, include non-free image files under fair use doctrine, while the others have opted not to. This is in part because of the difference in copyright laws between countries; for example, the notion of fair use does not exist in Japanese copyright law. Media files covered by free content licenses (e.g., Creative Commons' cc-by-sa) are shared across language editions via Wikimedia Commons repository, a project operated by the Wikimedia Foundation.
Accessing Wikipedia's content
Because Wikipedia content is distributed under an open license, anyone can reuse, or re-distribute it at no charge. The content of Wikipedia has been published in many forms, both online and offline, outside of the Wikipedia website.
Web sites - Thousands of "mirror sites" exist that republish content from Wikipedia; two prominent ones, that also include content from other reference sources, are Reference.com and Answers.com. Another example is Wapedia, which began to display Wikipedia content in a mobile-device-friendly format before Wikipedia itself did.
Mobile devices - A variety of mobile apps provide access to Wikipedia on hand-held devices. This can be via apps for the Android or the Apple iOS devices (see Wikipedia iOS apps), or via a mobile web browser that accesses specially formatted pages (see MediaWiki Mobile).
Other wikis - Some wikis, most notably Enciclopedia Libre and Citizendium, began as forks of Wikipedia content. For example, the website DBpedia, begun in 2007, is a project that extracts data from the infoboxes and category declarations of the English-language Wikipedia and makes it available in a queriable semantic format, RDF. The possibility has also been raised to have Wikipedia export its data directly in a semantic format, possibly by using the Semantic MediaWiki extension. Such an export of data could also help Wikipedia reuse its own data, both between articles on the same language Wikipedia and between different language Wikipedias.[77]
Compact Discs, DVDs - Collections of Wikipedia articles have also been published on optical disks. An English version, 2006 Wikipedia CD Selection, contained about 2,000 articles.[78][79] The Polish-language version contains nearly 240,000 articles.[80] There are also German-language versions.[81] Also: "Wikipedia for Schools", the Wikipedia series of CDs/DVDs, produced by Wikipedians and SOS Children, is a free, hand-checked, non-commercial selection from Wikipedia targeted around the UK National Curriculum and intended to be useful for much of the English-speaking world.[82] The project is available online; an equivalent print encyclopedia would require roughly 20 volumes.
Books - There has also been an attempt to put a select subset of Wikipedia's articles into printed book form.[83][84] Since 2009, tens of thousands of print on demand books which reproduced English, German, Russian and French Wikipedia articles have been produced by the American company Books LLC and by three Mauritian subsidiaries of the German publisher VDM.[85]
Obtaining the full contents of Wikipedia for reuse presents challenges, since direct cloning via a web crawler is discouraged.[86] Wikipedia publishes "dumps" of its contents, but these are text-only; as of 2007 there is no dump available of Wikipedia's images.[87]
Defenses against undesirable edits
The open nature of the editing model has been central to most criticism of Wikipedia. For example, a reader of an article cannot be certain that it has not been compromised by the insertion of false information or the removal of essential information. Former Encyclopædia Britannica editor-in-chief Robert McHenry once described this by saying:[88]
The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him.[89]
John Seigenthaler has described Wikipedia as "a flawed and irresponsible research tool."[90]
However, obvious vandalism is easy to remove from wiki articles, since the previous versions of each article are kept. In practice, the median time to detect and fix vandalisms is very low, usually a few minutes,[18][19] but in one particularly well-publicized incident, false information was introduced into the biography of American political figure John Seigenthaler and remained undetected for four months.[90] John Seigenthaler, the founding editorial director of USA Today and founder of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, called Jimmy Wales and asked if Wales had any way of knowing who contributed the misinformation. Wales replied that he did not, but nevertheless the perpetrator was eventually traced.[91][92] This incident led to policy changes on the site, specifically targeted at tightening up the verifiability of all biographical articles of living people.
Wikipedia's open structure inherently makes it an easy target for Internet trolls, spamming, and those with an agenda to push.[53][93] The addition of political spin to articles by organizations including members of the U.S. House of Representatives and special interest groups[17] has been noted,[94] and organizations such as Microsoft have offered financial incentives to work on certain articles.[95] These issues have been parodied, notably by Stephen Colbert in The Colbert Report.[96]
For example, in August 2007, the website WikiScanner began to trace the sources of changes made to Wikipedia by anonymous editors without Wikipedia accounts. The program revealed that many such edits were made by corporations or government agencies changing the content of articles related to them, their personnel or their work.[97]
In practice, Wikipedia is defended from attack by multiple systems and techniques. These include users checking pages and edits (e.g. 'watchlist's and 'recent changes'), computer programs ('bots') that are carefully designed to try to detect attacks and fix them automatically (or semi-automatically), filters that warn users making undesirable edits,[98] blocks on the creation of links to particular websites, blocks on edits from particular accounts, IP addresses or address ranges.
For heavily attacked pages, particular articles can be semi-protected so that only well established accounts can edit them,[99] or for particularly contentious cases, locked so that only administrators are able to make changes.[100] Such locking is applied sparingly, usually for only short periods of time while attacks appear likely to continue.
Pie chart of Wikipedia content by subject as of January 2008.[101]
Wikipedia compresses information in a variety of topics, including earthquakes, for example. In the picture, is the article for the 2010 Pichilemu earthquake.
Wikipedia seeks to create a summary of all human knowledge in the form of an online encyclopedia, with each topic of knowledge covered encyclopedically in one article. Since it has virtually unlimited disk space, it can have far more topics than can be covered by any conventional print encyclopedias.[102] It also contains materials that some people may find objectionable, offensive, or pornographic.[103] It was made clear that this policy is not up for debate, and the policy has sometimes proved controversial. For instance, in 2008, Wikipedia rejected an online petition against the inclusion of Muhammad's depictions in its English edition, citing this policy. The presence of politically sensitive materials in Wikipedia had also led the People's Republic of China to block access to parts of the site.[104] (See also: IWF block of Wikipedia)
As of September 2009[update], Wikipedia articles cover about half a million places on Earth. However, research conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute has shown that the geographic distribution of articles is highly uneven. Most articles are written about North America, Europe, and East Asia, with very little coverage of large parts of the developing world, including most of Africa.[105]
A 2008 study conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Palo Alto Research Center gave a distribution of topics as well as growth (from July 2006 to January 2008) in each field:[101]
Culture and the arts: 30% (210%)
Biographies and persons: 15% (97%)
Geography and places: 14% (52%)
Society and social sciences: 12% (83%)
History and events: 11% (143%)
Natural and the physical sciences: 9% (213%)
Technology and the applied science: 4% (−6%)
Religions and belief systems: 2% (38%)
Health: 2% (42%)
Mathematics and logic: 1% (146%)
Thought and philosophy: 1% (160%)
However, it must be considered that these numbers relate only to articles; it is possible that one topic contains a lot of short articles and another one quite large ones.
Furthermore, the exact coverage of Wikipedia is under constant review by the editors, and disagreements are not uncommon (see also deletionism and inclusionism).[106][107]
Quality of writing
Because contributors usually rewrite small portions of an entry rather than making full-length revisions, high- and low-quality content may be intermingled within an entry. Critics sometimes argue that non-expert editing undermines quality. For example, Roy Rosenzweig had several criticisms of its prose and its failure to distinguish the genuinely important from the merely sensational. He said that Wikipedia is "surprisingly accurate in reporting names, dates, and events in U.S. history" (Rosenzweig's own field of study) and that most of the few factual errors that he found "were small and inconsequential" and that some of them "simply repeat widely held but inaccurate beliefs", which are also repeated in Encarta and the Britannica. However, he made one major criticism.
Good historical writing requires not just factual accuracy but also a command of the scholarly literature, persuasive analysis and interpretations, and clear and engaging prose. By those measures, American National Biography Online easily outdistances Wikipedia.[108]
Contrasting Wikipedia's treatment of Abraham Lincoln to that of Civil War historian James McPherson in American National Biography Online, he said that both were essentially accurate and covered the major episodes in Lincoln's life, but praised "McPherson's richer contextualization... his artful use of quotations to capture Lincoln's voice ... and ... his ability to convey a profound message in a handful of words." By contrast, he gives an example of Wikipedia's prose that he finds "both verbose and dull." Rosenzweig made a further criticism, contrasting "the skill and confident judgment of a seasoned historian" displayed by McPherson and others to the "antiquarianism" of Wikipedia (which he compares in this respect to American Heritage magazine), and said that while Wikipedia often provides extensive references, they are not the best ones.[108]
Rosenzweig also criticized the "waffling—encouraged by the npov policy—[which] means that it is hard to discern any overall interpretive stance in Wikipedia history." By example, he quoted the conclusion of Wikipedia's article on William Clarke Quantrill. While generally praising the article, he pointed out its "waffling" conclusion: "Some historians...remember him as an opportunistic, bloodthirsty outlaw, while others continue to view him as a daring soldier and local folk hero."[108]
Other critics have made similar charges that, even if Wikipedia articles are factually accurate, they are often written in a poor, almost unreadable style. Frequent Wikipedia critic Andrew Orlowski commented: "Even when a Wikipedia entry is 100 per cent factually correct, and those facts have been carefully chosen, it all too often reads as if it has been translated from one language to another then into to a third, passing an illiterate translator at each stage."[109] A study of cancer articles by Yaacov Lawrence of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University found that the entries were mostly accurate, but they were written at college reading level, as opposed to the ninth grade level seen in the Physician Data Query. He said that "Wikipedia's lack of readability may reflect its varied origins and haphazard editing."[110]The Economist noted that the quality of writing of Wikipedia articles can be a guide to the reader: "inelegant or ranting prose usually reflects muddled thoughts and incomplete information."[111] A 2005 study by the journal Nature compared Wikipedia's science content to that of Encyclopædia Britannica, stating that Wikipedia's accuracy was close to that of Britannica, but that the structure of Wikipedia's articles was often poor."[20]
The way Wikipedia crowdsources means that anyone can lie or vandalize, yet these risks are common knowledge. Moreover, anyone can correct suspect assertions or criticize openly, behaviors empowered by the system.
As a consequence of the open structure, Wikipedia "makes no guarantee of validity" of its content, since no one is ultimately responsible for any claims appearing in it.[112] Concerns have been raised regarding the lack of accountability that results from users' anonymity,[113] the insertion of spurious information,[114]vandalism, and similar problems.
Wikipedia has been accused of exhibiting systemic bias and inconsistency;[16] additionally, critics argue that Wikipedia's open nature and a lack of proper sources for much of the information makes it unreliable.[115] Some commentators suggest that Wikipedia is generally reliable, but that the reliability of any given article is not always clear.[15] Editors of traditional reference works such as the Encyclopædia Britannica have questioned the project's utility and status as an encyclopedia.[116] Many universitylecturers discourage students from citing any encyclopedia in academic work, preferring primary sources;[117] some specifically prohibit Wikipedia citations.[118] Co-founder Jimmy Wales stresses that encyclopedias of any type are not usually appropriate as primary sources, and should not be relied upon as authoritative.[119]
However, an investigation reported in the journal Nature in 2005 suggested that for scientific articles Wikipedia came close to the level of accuracy of Encyclopædia Britannica and had a similar rate of "serious errors."[20] These claims have been disputed by Encyclopædia Britannica.[120][121]
Economist Tyler Cowen writes, "If I had to guess whether Wikipedia or the median refereed journal article on economics was more likely to be true, after a not so long think I would opt for Wikipedia." He comments that many traditional sources of non-fiction suffer from systemic biases. Novel results are over-reported in journal articles, and relevant information is omitted from news reports. However, he also cautions that errors are frequently found on Internet sites, and that academics and experts must be vigilant in correcting them.[122]
In February 2007, an article in The Harvard Crimson newspaper reported that some of the professors at Harvard University include Wikipedia in their syllabi, but that there is a split in their perception of using Wikipedia.[123] In June 2007, former president of the American Library AssociationMichael Gorman condemned Wikipedia, along with Google,[124] stating that academics who endorse the use of Wikipedia are "the intellectual equivalent of a dietitian who recommends a steady diet of Big Macs with everything." He also said that "a generation of intellectual sluggards incapable of moving beyond the Internet" was being produced at universities. He complains that the web-based sources are discouraging students from learning from the more rare texts which are either found only on paper or are on subscription-only web sites. In the same article Jenny Fry (a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute) commented on academics who cite Wikipedia, saying that: "You cannot say children are intellectually lazy because they are using the Internet when academics are using search engines in their research. The difference is that they have more experience of being critical about what is retrieved and whether it is authoritative. Children need to be told how to use the Internet in a critical and appropriate way."[124]
Plagiarism concerns
The Wikipedia Watch criticism website in 2006 has listed dozens of examples of plagiarism by Wikipedia editors on the English version.[125]Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia co-founder,[126] has said in this respect: "We need to deal with such activities with absolute harshness, no mercy, because this kind of plagiarism is 100% at odds with all of our core principles."[125]
Sexual content
Wikipedia has been criticized for allowing graphic sexual content such as images and videos of masturbation and ejaculation as well as photos from hardcore pornographic films found on its articles. Child protection campaigners say graphic sexual content appears on many Wikipedia entries, displayed without any warning or age verification.[127]
The Wikipedia article Virgin Killer – a 1976 album from Germanheavy metalbandScorpions – features a picture of the album's original cover, which depicts a naked prepubescent girl. The original release cover caused controversy and was replaced in some countries. In December 2008, access to the Wikipedia article Virgin Killer was blocked for four days by most Internet service providers in the United Kingdom, after it was reported by a member of the public as child pornography.[128] The Internet Watch Foundation, a nonprofit, nongovernment-affiliated organization, criticized the inclusion of the picture as "distasteful."[129]
He is one of only four players (David Nalbandian, Andy Murray, and Rafael Nadal being the other three) to beat Roger Federer three times in one calendar year. He is also one of four players (Nalbandian, Murray and Nikolay Davydenko being the other) to beat Federer and Nadal in the same tournament twice, accomplishing that feat when he won the 2011 Indian Wells Masters 1000 event. He is also the youngest player in the Open Era to defeat the top three players in succession and he achieved this when he defeated world number three Andy Roddick, world number two Nadal, and World number one Federer in the 2007 Rogers Cup. He is one of only two players to have defeated Federer at the semifinal stage or later on more than one occasion in Grand Slam tournaments, and also at consecutive tournaments (the other being Nadal).
Djokovic was the runner-up at the 2007 and 2010 US Open tournaments (to Federer and Nadal, respectively), and a bronze medalist representing Serbia at the 2008 Olympic Games. In addition, Djokovic won the Tennis Masters Cup in 2008, and has won nine Masters Series tournaments. In 2010, he led Serbia to win the Davis Cup. Djokovic finished the ATP Tour as World No. three for four consecutive years between 2007 and 2010.
Novak Djokovic was born May 22, 1987, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to father Srđan and mother, Dijana. His two younger brothers, Marko and Djordje, are also tennis players with professional aspirations.[6] Since the end of 2005, Novak has been dating Jelena Ristić.[citation needed]
He started playing tennis at the age of four, and was spotted by Yugoslav tennis legend Jelena Genčić at the age of eight, who stated: "This is the greatest talent I have seen since Monica Seles."[7] At 12 years old, he spent three months at Nikola Pilić's tennis academy in Munich, Germany, and at age 14, his international career began, winning European championships in singles, doubles, and team competition.[7] He resides in Monte Carlo, Monaco and has been coached by a former Slovak tennis player, Marián Vajda; in August 2009, he began working with former US top-five player Todd Martin.[8]
Djokovic is known for his often humorous off-court impersonations of his fellow players, many of whom are his friends. This became evident to the tennis world after his 2007 US Open quarterfinal win over Carlos Moyà, where he entertained the audience with impersonations of Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova.[9] He also did an impression of American tennis great John McEnroe after his final preliminary game at the 2009 US Open, before playing a brief game with McEnroe, much to the delight of the audience. It is because of this jovial personality that he earned the nickname "Djoker", a portmanteau of his surname and the word joker.
Novak Djokovic is a member of the "Champions for Peace" club, a group of famous elite athletes committed to serving peace in the world through sport, created by Peace and Sport, a Monaco-based international organization.[10]
Similar to fellow pro Roger Federer, Djokovic is a self described fan of languages, speaking four himself: his native Serbian, English, German, and Italian.[11][12]
Tennis career
Early career
As a member of the FR Yugoslavia national team he reached the finals of 2001 Junior Davis Cup for players under 14, in which he lost his match in singles.[13]
In the beginning of his professional career, Djokovic mainly played in Futures and Challenger tournaments, winning three of each type from 2003 to 2005. His first tour level tournament was Umag in 2004, where he faced Filippo Volandri in the Round of 32, and lost 6–7, 1–6. He made his first Grand Slam appearance by qualifying for the 2005 Australian Open where he met Marat Safin, as his first round opponent which he lost 6–0, 6–2, 6–1. Safin went on to win the tournament.
2006
The possibility for their entire 5-person family to move from Serbia to live in Britain involved immense dedication.[14] All the rumours did not affect Djokovic's play. He soon reached the top 40 world ranking due to a quarterfinal appearance at the French Open, and a fourth round appearance at Wimbledon.
Three weeks after Wimbledon, he won his maiden title at the Dutch Open in Amersfoort without losing a set, defeating Nicolás Massú in the final. Djokovic won his second career title at the Open de Moselle in Metz, and moved into the top 20 for the first time in his career.
2007
Djokovic began the year by winning the tournament in Adelaide, defeating Australian Chris Guccione in the final, before losing in the fourth round of the Australian Open to eventual champion Roger Federer in straight sets. His performances at the Masters Series events in Indian Wells, California and Key Biscayne, Florida, where he was the runner-up and champion respectively, pushed him into the world's top ten. Djokovic lost the Indian Wells final to Rafael Nadal, but defeated Nadal in Key Biscayne in the quarterfinals before defeating Guillermo Cañas for the title in the finals.
Right after his first master series title he went back home to contribute for his country's attempt to get into the World Group of the Davis Cup competition. Serbia faced off the Republic of Georgia and Djokovic brought a point by defeating Georgia's George Chanturia. This was a tournament where he prepared for the later clay court season. Djokovic played in the Masters Series Monte Carlo Open, where he was defeated by David Ferrer in the third round, and in the Estoril Open, where he defeated Richard Gasquet in the final. Djokovic then reached the quarter-finals of both the Internazionali d'Italia in Rome and the Masters Series Hamburg but lost to Nadal and Carlos Moyà respectively. At the French Open, Djokovic reached his first Grand Slam semifinal, losing to eventual champion Nadal.
During Wimbledon, Djokovic won a five-hour quarterfinal against Marcos Baghdatis 7–6, 7–6, 6–7, 4–6, 7–5. In his semifinal match against Nadal, he was forced to retire with back and foot problems.
Djokovic went on to win the Masters Series Rogers Cup in Montreal. He defeated World No. 3 Andy Roddick in the quarterfinals, World No. 2 Nadal in the semifinals, and World No. 1 Federer in the final. This was the first time a player had defeated the top three ranked players in one tournament since Boris Becker in 1994.[citation needed] Djokovic was also only the second player, after Tomáš Berdych, to have defeated both Federer and Nadal since they became the top two players in the world. After this tournament, Björn Borg stated that Djokovic "is definitely a contender to win a Grand Slam (tournament)."[15] However, the following week at the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters in Cincinnati, Ohio, Djokovic lost in the second round to Moyà in straight sets. Djokovic nevertheless reached the final of the US Open. Djokovic had five set points in the first set and two in the second set but lost them all before losing the final to top-seeded Federer in straight sets.
During the 2007 tournament, Djokovic emerged as a fan favorite with his on-court impressions of other players including Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick, and Maria Sharapova.
Djokovic started the year by playing the Hopman Cup along with fellow Serbian World No. 3 Jelena Janković. He won all his round-robin matches and the team, seeded first, reached the final. They lost 2–1 to the second-seeded American team consisting of Serena Williams and Mardy Fish.
At the Australian Open, Djokovic reached the final without dropping a set, including a victory over two-time defending champion Roger Federer in the semifinals, to reach his second Grand Slam final in a row; by reaching the semifinals, Djokovic became the youngest player to have reached the semifinals in all four grand slams. In the final, Djokovic then defeated unseeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to earn his and Serbia's first ever Grand Slam singles title in four sets, 4–6, 6–4, 6–3, 7–6.[17] This marked the first time since the 2005 Australian Open that a Grand Slam singles title was not won by Federer or Nadal.
Djokovic won his tenth career singles title and fourth Master Series singles crown at the Internazionali d'Italia in Rome. The following week at the Hamburg Masters, Djokovic lost to Nadal in the semi-finals. At the French Open in Paris, Djokovic was the third-seeded player behind Federer and Nadal. Djokovic lost to Nadal in the semifinals in straight sets.
On grass, Djokovic once again played Nadal, this time in the Artois Championships final in Queen's Club, London, losing 7–6, 7–5. At Wimbledon, Djokovic was the third seeded player; however, he lost in the second round to Marat Safin; this ended a streak of five consecutive grand slams where he had reached at least the semifinals.
Winning the Masters Cup
Djokovic then failed to defend his 2007 singles title at the Masters Series Rogers Cup in Toronto. He was eliminated in the quarter-finals by eighth-seeded Andy Murray 6–3, 7–6. The following week at the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters in Cincinnati, Ohio, Djokovic advanced to the final beating Nadal. In the final, he again lost to Murray in straight sets.
His next tournament was the Beijing Olympics, his first Summer Olympics. He and Nenad Zimonjić, seeded second in men's doubles, were eliminated in the first round by the Czech pairing of Martin Damm and Pavel Vízner. Seeded third in singles, Djokovic lost in the semifinals to Nadal, 6–4, 1–6, 6–4. Djokovic then defeated James Blake, the loser of the other semi-final, in the bronze medal match 6–3, 7–6.
After the Olympics, Djokovic entered the US Open as the third seed. Djokovic took several injury breaks during matches in the tournament prompting a quip from Andy Roddick that the Serb has "16 injuries" including SARS, bird flu, and the common cold. He defeated Roddick in the quarterfinals, and in the post-match interview expressed disapproval with Roddick's comments, eliciting boos from the New York crowd. His run at the US Open ended in the semifinals when he lost to Federer 6–3, 5–7, 7–5, 6–2 in a rematch of the 2007 US Open final.
Djokovic played four tournaments after the US Open. In a rematch of the 2008 Australian Open final, he lost in the final of the Thailand Open to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in straight sets. In November, Djokovic was the second seed at the year-ending Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai due to Nadal being unable to participate. In his first round robin match, he defeated Argentine Juan Martín del Potro in straight sets. He then beat Nikolay Davydenko in three sets before losing his final round robin match against Tsonga 1–6, 7–5, 6–1. Djokovic qualified for the semi-finals, where he defeated Gilles Simon 4–6, 6–3, 7–5. In the final, Djokovic defeated Davydenko again to win his first ever Tennis Masters Cup title.
As defending champion at the Australian Open, Djokovic retired from his quarterfinal match with former World No. 1 Andy Roddick while he was trailing in the fourth set 6–7, 6–4, 6–2, 2–1, due to heat exhaustion, muscle cramps, and soreness.[18] His retirement drew criticism from several players remaining in the tournament, including Roger Federer.[19]
Djokovic reached the final of the next ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event, the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters on clay, losing to Rafael Nadal in the final. At the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome, another ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event, Djokovic was the defending champion, but again lost in the final after defeating Federer. This loss caused Djokovic's ranking to drop to World No. 4 on 11 May, ending 81 consecutive weeks at the number 3 ranking.[20]
Djokovic was the top seed at his hometown tournament, the Serbia Open in Belgrade. He defeated first-time finalist Łukasz Kubot to win his second title of the year.[21] As third seed at the Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open, Djokovic advanced to the semi-finals without dropping a set. There he faced Nadal for the third time in five weeks and, despite holding three match points, lost 3–6, 7–6(7–5), 7–6(11–9). The match, at 4 hours and 3 minutes, is the longest three-set singles match on the ATP World Tour in the Open Era.[22] At the French Open, he lost in the third round to German Philipp Kohlschreiber 6–4, 6–4, 6–4.
Djokovic began his grass court season at the Gerry Weber Open where, after the withdrawal of Federer, he competed as the top seed. He advanced to the final, where he lost to German Tommy Haas.[23] Djokovic also lost to Haas in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon 7–5, 7–6, 4–6, 6–3.[24]
Djokovic then took part at the China Open in Beijing. He defeated Victor Hănescu, Viktor Troicki, Fernando Verdasco and Robin Söderling en route to the final, where he defeated Marin Čilić in straight sets, 6–2, 7–6 to win his third title of the year.[27] Djokovic regained the World No. 3 ranking on 19 October, as a result of his performance at this tournament, and Andy Murray's withdrawal from the 2009 Shanghai Masters. At the inaugural Shanghai ATP Masters 1000, Djokovic lost in the semi-finals to sixth seed and eventual champion Nikolay Davydenko 6–4, 4–6, 6–7 in just over 3 hours.
At the Davidoff Swiss Indoors in Basel, Djokovic recorded his first career double bagel, defeating Jan Hernych 6–0, 6–0, to make it to the quarter-finals.[28] He then recovered from a set and break deficit to defeat Stanislas Wawrinka in the quarter-finals, 3–6, 7–6, 6–2. In the semi-finals, he saved three match points to defeat Radek Štěpánek 6–7, 7–5, 6–2. In the final, he defeated home favourite and three-time defending champion Roger Federer 6–4, 4–6, 6–2 to win his fourth title of the year.[29] With this win, Djokovic remained a perfect 15–0 at ATP World 500 tournaments in 2009.
At the last Masters 1000 event of the year at the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris, Djokovic finally won his first Masters 1000 title of the year. He defeated Rafael Nadal 6–2, 6–3, in the semi-finals in 77 minutes hitting 31 winners en route.[30] In the final, Djokovic held off several comebacks in the match from Gaël Monfils, eventually prevailing, 6–2, 5–7, 7–6.[31]
Coming into the year ending ATP World Tour Finals in London as the defending champion, Djokovic defeated Nikolay Davydenko in his first round robin match, 3–6, 6–4, 7–5, extending his winning streak to 11 matches.[32] His run was ended however in his second match, where a weary looking Djokovic lost to the first time in 6 career meetings to Robin Söderling 7–6, 6–1.[33] Despite victory over Rafael Nadal 7–6, 6–3, in his final match, Djokovic failed to make the semi-finals due to his percentage of sets won being inferior to that of Davydenko in a three way tie between Söderling, Davydenko and Djokovic (all three having finished the round robin stage with a 2–1 win-loss record).[34]
Djokovic ended the year as the World No. 3 for the third consecutive year. Djokovic played 97 matches throughout the year, the most of any player on the ATP World Tour, with a 78–19 win-loss record. In addition to leading the ATP World Tour in match wins, he reached a career best 10 finals, winning 5 titles.
2010
Djokovic started his year by playing in the Kooyong Classic, an exhibition event. In his first match, he defeated Tommy Haas but lost to Fernando Verdasco in his second.[35] Djokovic participated in an exhibition match against Australia's World No. 291 Bernard Tomic in which he lost.
At the Australian Open, Djokovic was eliminated in the quarter-finals by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in five sets, 6–7, 7–6, 6–1, 3–6, 1–6, struggling with illness both before the match and from the fourth set onwards.[36] Despite the loss, Djokovic attained a career-high ranking of World No. 2.
He reached the semis of the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam, losing to Mikhail Youzhny 6–7, 6–7, despite having set points in the second set tiebreak. At the Dubai Tennis Championships in U.A.E., Djokovic reached his second consecutive final at this event after beating all his opponents in 3 sets from the first round onwards. In the final, he defeated Russian Mikhail Youzhny winning, 7–5, 5–7, 6–3 to win his first title of the year. This was the first time in his career that Djokovic had defended a title.[37]
He then took part in Serbia's Davis Cup tie against the USA on clay in Belgrade. He helped Serbia reach their first quarter-final in the Davis Cup 3–2 victory, defeating Sam Querrey in four sets, and John Isner in five sets.
Djokovic then took part in the first Masters 1000 events of the year in North America. At the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, he lost in the fourth round to the eventual champion Ivan Ljubičić 5–7, 3–6. At the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, he suffered a shock loss, losing his opening match to Olivier Rochus 2–6, 7–6, 4–6. This was his first opening round defeat since losing to Fabrice Santoro at the 2007 BNP Paribas Masters. Djokovic then announced that he had ceased working with Todd Martin as his coach. He admitted that Martin had attempted to have him change his service motion, a tweaking of technique which caused him to routinely produce a high number of double faults in his matches and significantly reduced the threat on serve.[38]
In his first clay-court tournament of the year at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters, top seeded Djokovic reached the semi-finals with wins over Stanislas Wawrinka and in form David Nalbandian. There, he lost for the first time in his last five meetings to Fernando Verdasco, 2–6, 2–6. Djokovic again lost to Verdasco at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome, this time in the quarter-finals, 6–7, 6–3, 4–6. Djokovic later said that his recent form had been hindered by allergies for the last two months.[39]
As the defending champion at his hometown event, the Serbia Open in Belgrade, he withdrew in the quarter-finals while trailing 4–6 to the World No. 330, Filip Krajinović. He later announced his withdrawal from the Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open because of illness.[40]
Djokovic entered the 2010 French Open seeded third. He defeated Evgeny Korolev, Kei Nishikori, Victor Hănescu and Robby Ginepri en route to the quarterfinals, where he lost to Jürgen Melzer in five sets 3–6, 2–6, 6–2, 7–6, 6–4. With Melzer serving for the match at 5–4 in the fifth set, Djokovic hit a cross-court forehand that would have given him a love–30 lead on the point. A late call confirmed by umpire Carlos Bernardes ruled it out, a call which Djokovic contested with Bernardes. Djokovic lost the point and the match. Later Hawk-Eye examination showed that Djokovic had been correct and the ball had indeed been in; it was the first time that Djokovic had lost a Grand Slam singles match after winning the first two sets.[41]
As the third seed at the US Open, Djokovic was very close to losing in the opening round, rallying from being down two sets to one down, a break in the fourth set and several break points which would have put him down two breaks in the fourth set to beat countryman Viktor Troicki in the midst of extreme heat. Djokovic eventually won 6–3, 3–6, 2–6, 7–5, 6–3. He would then defeat Philipp Petzschner, Americans James Blake and Mardy Fish, and number 17 seed Gaël Monfils all in straight sets to reach the US Open semifinals for the fourth consecutive year. In the semifinals, he faced Roger Federer, to whom he had lost the 2007 final and 2008 and 2009 semifinals. Very close to losing, Djokovic rallied to win 5–7, 6–1, 5–7, 6–2, 7–5, saving two match points at 5–4 down on his serve in the final set. The win ended a streak of four consecutive losses in Grand Slam semifinals. It was also Djokovic's first victory over Federer at the US Open in four attempts, and his first victory over Federer in a Grand Slam since the 2008 Australian Open. It also made him one of only two players to hold more than one victory over Federer in Grand Slam tournaments since Federer first became World number one (the other being Nadal). Djokovic lost to Nadal 4–6, 7–5, 4–6, 2–6 in the final, a match that saw Nadal complete his career Grand Slam.
After helping Serbia defeat the Czech Republic 3–2 to make it to the Davis Cup final, Djokovic competed at the China Open as the top seed and defending champion. He won the title for the second successive year, after defeating Maoxin Gong, Mardy Fish (the American withdrew so this win is considered a "walkover"), Gilles Simon and John Isner en route to the final. Djokovic then defeated the eighth seeded Spaniard, David Ferrer in the final 6–2, 6–4.
At the Shanghai Masters, Djokovic made a semi-final appearance losing to Roger Federer 4–6, 5–7.
Djokovic played his final tournament of the year at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London. Djokovic was placed in Group A along with Rafael Nadal, Tomáš Berdych and Andy Roddick. Djokovic won his first round robin match against Berdych 6–3, 6–3. He next faced Nadal where he fell in straight sets 5–7, 2–6. Djokovic stated after the match he could barely see out of his right eye and at 4–4 in the first set Djokovic had to change his contact lenses. Throughout the match, Djokovic used three different types of contact lenses in the match to try to settle the problem. He defeated Roddick 6–2, 6–3 in his final round robin match and was safely through to the semi-finals, finishing second in the group to set up a mouth-watering clash with Roger Federer. He lost to eventual champion Federer 1–6, 4–6. Djokovic later went on win two of his singles rubbers in Serbia's Davis Cup finals victory over France; starting his unbeaten run that went on through 2011, and which was broken also by Federer on the French Open of the next year. Djokovic finished the year ranked World No. 3, his fourth successive finish at this position.
In 2011, Djokovic started in the Australian exhibition Hopman Cup, where he did not lose a match. Djokovic then moved on to the first Grand Slam of the year at the 2011 Australian Open, where he was seeded third behind Rafael Nadal and defending champion Roger Federer. He started off his Australian Open campaign by beating Marcel Granollers in the first round 6–1, 6–3, 6–1 and then moved on to play Ivan Dodig, defeating him in four sets 7–5, 6–7, 6–0, 6–2. His Davis Cup teammate and close friend Viktor Troicki retired in the third round due to injury, with Djokovic leading 6–2. In the fourth round he swiftly defeated Nicolas Almagro of Spain again winning in straight sets 6–3, 6–4, 6–0. In the quarter-finals, he avenged his loss to Tomáš Berdych at the Wimbledon by winning 6–1, 7–6, 6–1. He then beat defending champion Roger Federer in straight sets 7–6, 7–5, 6–4 to reach the final, where he defeated Andy Murray 6–4, 6–2, 6–3 for his second Australian Open championship and second grand slam.
Djokovic's next tournament was at the ATP World Tour 500 2011 Dubai Tennis Championships in UAE, where he was seeded second. He was the two-time defending champion and favourite for the title alongside the first seed Roger Federer. He dismissed Michaël Llodra in a lopsided first round encounter, winning 6–3, 6–3. He reached the final after then beating Lopez, Mayer and Berdych (who retired). In the final he beat Federer in two surprisingly lopsided sets 6–3, 6–3 to complete his hattrick of titles (in other words, winning the tournament three consecutive times) in Dubai.
Djokovic then played in 2011 BNP Paribas Open, the first ATP Masters of the season, as the third seed. He advanced to the final by beating Roger Federer in the semifinals 6–3, 3–6, 6–2 to set up a clash with World No. 1 Rafael Nadal in the final. Djokovic continued his fine winning form by claiming the Indian Wells title, beating Nadal 4–6, 6–3, 6–2 in the final and extending his winning streak since the ATP World Tour Finals to 20 consecutive matches.
By defeating Federer in the semi-finals, his ranking rose to World No. 2 on 21 March 2011. Consequently, he was seeded second in the second ATP Masters tournament of the year at the 2011 Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Miami. Djokovic then succeeded to reach his fourth consecutive final of the year, losing only eighteen games en route where he beat Denis Istomin 6–0, 6–1, James Blake 6–2, 6–0, Viktor Troicki 6–3, 6–2, Kevin Anderson 6–4, 6–2, and Mardy Fish 6–3, 6–1. In the final, Djokovic beat Nadal 4–6, 6–3, 7–6 in a match that lasted three hours and 21 minutes. By this victory, Djokovic extended his winning streak to 26 consecutive matches and has yet to lose a singles match in the season. He is also the first player to win the Australian Open, Indian Wells and Miami Masters triple, since Roger Federer succeeded in 2006.
Djokovic then withdrew from the 2011 Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters citing a knee injury. Consequently, he opened his clay court season on home soil at the 2011 Serbia Open in Belgrade. As the first seed, he receives a bye into the second round, where he defeated Adrian Ungur 6–2, 6–3 to open up his clay campaign. In the quarter-final, he defeated Blaž Kavčič 6–3, 6–2. With the withdrawal of Janko Tipsarević in the semi-finals, Djokovic reached his fifth consecutive final where he beat Feliciano Lopez 7–6, 6–2, in just over two hours. This brought his winning streak to 29 (and 27 from the beginning of this season).
His next tournament was the fourth ATP Masters of the year, the 2011 Mutua Madrileña Madrid Open. As the second seed, he received a bye into the second round where he defeated Kevin Anderson 6–3, 6–4. In the third round, he demolished Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6–1, 6–2 winning 100% of points on his first serve. In the quarter-finals, Djokovic toughed it out against World No. 6 David Ferrer of Spain by winning 6–4, 4–6, 6–3. This win allowed Djokovic to surpass Ivan Lendl's record of 29–0 from the beginning of the season. He then defeated an in-form Thomaz Bellucci 4–6, 6–4, 6–1 in the semifinals to set up a final clash with World No. 1 Rafael Nadal. He then beat Nadal in straight sets 7–5, 6–4, extending his win streak to 34 (and 32 from the beginning of the season).
In the French Open, Djokovic was seeded number two after Nadal. He defeated Thiemo de Bakker, Victor Hanescu, Juan Martin del Potro and Richard Gasquet dropping only one set to reach the quarterfinals. Djokovic was due to play against Fabio Fognini of Italy, but his opponent withdrew from the competition, giving Djokovic a walkover (not an official victory). Djokovic's winning streak ended in the semifinals at 43 matches (41 occurring in 2011), with a four set loss to Roger Federer, 6–7, 3–6, 6–3, 6–7.
At the 2011 Wimbledon Championships he defeated Jeremy Chardy, Kevin Anderson, Marcos Baghdatis, Michaël Llodra and Bernard Tomic to reach his fifth straight Grand Slam semifinal.[45] He defeated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in four sets to make his first appearance in the final. By reaching the final, Djokovic ensured that he would become world #1 for the first time in his career at the tournament's end, even if Nadal won the championship. Djokovic then defeated Nadal to win the championship, 6–4, 6–1, 1–6, 6–3.[46] It was Djokovic's fifth straight win over Nadal, all of them in finals, and it was his first victory over Nadal in a Grand Slam tournament at his sixth attempt.[47]
Davis Cup
In 2006, Djokovic got the decisive win on 9 April 2006, against Great Britain by defeating Greg Rusedski in four sets in the fourth match, giving his team a 3–1 lead in their best of 5 series, thus keeping Serbia and Montenegro in the Group One Euro/African Zone of Davis Cup. Following this match-up a lot of media buzz appeared about Djokovic's camp negotiating with the Lawn Tennis Association about changing his international loyalty by joining British tennis ranks.[14] Nineteen-year-old Djokovic, who was No.63 on the ATP list at the time, mostly dismissed the story at first by saying that the talks were not serious, describing them as "the British being very kind to us after the Davis Cup".[48] However, more than three years later, in October 2009, Djokovic confirmed that the talks between his family and the LTA throughout April and May 2006, were indeed serious:
“
Britain was offering me a lot of opportunities and they needed someone because Andy [Murray] was the only one, and still is. That had to be a disappointment for all the money they invest. But I didn't need the money as much as I had done. I had begun to make some for myself, enough to afford to travel with a coach, and I said, 'Why the heck?' I am Serbian, I am proud of being a Serbian, I didn't want to spoil that just because another country had better conditions. If I had played for Great Britain, of course I would have played exactly as I do for my country but deep inside, I would never have felt that I belonged. I was the one who took the decision.[49]
”
By winning all three of his matches, Djokovic played a key role in the 2007 play-off win over Australia, promoting Serbia to World Group in 2008. In Serbia's tie against Russia in early 2008, in Moscow, Djokovic was sidelined due to influenza and was forced to miss his first singles match. He returned to win his doubles match, teaming with Nenad Zimonjić, before being forced to retire during his singles match with Nikolay Davydenko. Djokovic also had a big role in promoting Serbia to the 2009 World Group. On 6–8 March 2010, he played the key role in bringing Serbia to World Group quarterfinals for the first time in its independent history, winning both singles matches in the home tie against United States (against Sam Querrey and John Isner). Later, Serbia progressed to the Davis Cup final, following the victories over Croatia (4–1) and Czech Republic (3–2). Serbia came from 1–2 down to defeat France in the final tie 3–2 in Belgrade to win the nation's first Davis Cup Championship. In the final, Djokovic scored two singles points for Serbia, defeating Gilles Simon and Gaël Monfils.[50] He was the backbone of the Serbian squad, going 7–0 in singles rubbers to lead the nation to the title, although the honour of winning the deciding rubber in the final went to compatriot Viktor Troicki.
Djokovic and Nadal have met 28 times with Nadal having a 16–12 advantage. Nadal leads on grass 2–1 and clay 9–2, but Djokovic leads on hard courts 9–5. This rivalry is listed as the third greatest rivalry in the last decade by ATPworldtour.com and is considered by many to be the emerging rivalry with Federer slowly in decline. Djokovic is the only player to have at least 10 match wins against Nadal and the only person to defeat Nadal 5 or more times consecutively and consecutively on clay. The two share the record for the longest match played in a best of three sets, at the 2009 Madrid Open. In their most recent encounter, the 2011 Wimbledon final, Djokovic won in 4 sets (6–4, 6–1, 1–6, 6–3), which was his first victory over Nadal in a Grand Slam in his sixth attempt.[51]
Djokovic-Federer rivalry
Djokovic and Federer have met 23 times, with Federer leading 14–9. Federer leads on all surfaces the two have played on (they have never met on grass). Djokovic gave Federer his first defeat in straight sets since he became number 1 in the semi-finals of the 2008 Australian Open (which Djokovic went on to win). Djokovic is also the only player other than Nadal who has defeated Federer in consecutive grand slam matches. Federer ended Djokovic's 41-match winning start to the 2011 season at the 2011 French Open semifinals.
Djokovic-Murray rivalry
Djokovic and Murray have met 9 times with Djokovic leading 6–3. Djokovic leads 2–0 on clay and 4–3 on hard courts. The two went to training camp together, and Murray won the first match they ever played as teenagers. Their most important match was the 2011 Australian Open final, in which Djokovic won comfortably in straight sets. Murray won his first ATP Masters 1000 title at Cincinnati by beating Djokovic in the finals.
Playing style, equipment and diet
Djokovic is an all-court player with emphasis on aggressive baseline play.[52] His groundstrokes from both wings are consistent, deep, and penetrating.[citation needed] His backhand is widely regarded as one of the best in today's game.[citation needed] His best weapon is his backhand hit down the line, with great pace and precision.[citation needed] He is also known as one of the greatest movers on the court with superior agility, court coverage and defensive ability.[citation needed] After great technical difficulties during the 2009 season, his serve is one of his major weapons again, winning him many free points; his first serve is typically hit flat, while he prefers to slice and kick his second serves wide.[52]Darren Cahill has stated that Djokovic, along with David Ferrer, is the best returner of serve in the men's game.[citation needed] Occasionally, Djokovic employs excessive ball-bouncing before serves – much to the chagrin of some of his opponents[citation needed] – as well as a well-disguised backhand underspin drop shot and sliced backhand.[citation needed] While his ball-bouncing habit has vastly decreased over the last year,Dr. John R. Drish House - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The large stuccoed brick mansion was built at the center of a 450-acre (1.8 km2) plantation on the edge of town for Dr. John R. Drish in 1837.[3] Drish, a native of Virginia, was among the earliest settlers of Tuscaloosa, settling there in 1822. A widower himself, he married a wealthy widow, Sarah Owen McKinney, in 1835. By that time he had a successful physician's practice and worked as a building contractor, with many skilled slaveartisans. These slaves executed much of the early plasterwork in Tuscaloosa.[4]
The Drish House in 1911, while still intact.
Built for Drish by his slave artisans, the first early incarnation of the house is usually credited to the influence of state architect William Nichols.[5][6] The exterior of the house, as completed in 1837, featured full width, monumental Doricporticoes to the front and rear, with two-story pilasters dividing each bay on all four sides.[6]
The house was extensively remodeled in the Italianate-style prior to the American Civil War, with a three-story brick tower being added, the front columns changed to the Ionic order, brackets being added to the eaves and overhangs, and two-story cast iron side porches to each side.[6] John Drish died in 1867, reportedly from a fall down a stairway, and Sarah Drish died in 1884.[5]
The mansion changed hands several times after the death of Sarah Drish; while it was still a residence the surrounding property was sold and subdivided to create Tuscaloosa's first major expansion. The structure eventually came to be owned by the Tuscaloosa Board of Education, who opened the Jemison School in the house in 1906. The house continued to be used as a school until 1925, after which it was purchased for use as a parts warehouse for Charles Turner's Tuscaloosa Wrecking Company. It was during its use as a parts warehouse that Walker Evans took his famous photograph of it in 1936, displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[3][5][1][7]
In 1940, it was purchased by the Southside Baptist Church, which added a sanctuary abutting the house on one side and a detached Sunday school building on the other. The church retained it for the rest of the 20th century. It was eventually threatened by proposed demolition in 1994, but was leased to the Heritage Commission of Tuscaloosa County instead by former church members when the church became defunct in 1995. The house was in a state of disrepair by 2006, when it was added to the "Places in Peril" listing by the Alabama Historical Commission and Alabama Trust For Historic Preservation. It was deeded to the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society in July 2007; the group has made efforts to stabilize the structure and hopes to raise enough funding for its eventual restoration. They had the church additions demolished in 2009.[3][5]
The house has been the site of purported hauntings since the early 20th century. It was featured in Kathryn Tucker Windham and Margaret Gillis Figh's 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, in the short story "Death Lights in the Tower." Alleged supernatural events over the years have included people reportedly seeing the third-story tower on fire, when no fire is present, and ghostly lights coming out of the house.[8][9]
^ abcGamble, Robert (1987). The Alabama Catalog: A Guide to the Early Architecture of the State. University, AL: University of Alabama Press. pp. 78, 79, 353. ISBN0817301488.
Please understand that this is NOT an actual embassy and we cannot provide assistance with visas, passports, travel questions, or immigration issues. Please do not inquire about these issues here. Although not an actual embassy either, you may find unofficial assistance at the reference desk.
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स्वागत है आपका अंग्रेजी भाषा के विकिपीडिया के दूतावास में! यह पृष्ठ विकिपीडिया से संबंधित बहुभाषी तालमेल के लिए है. अगर आपको कोई घोषणा करनी हो या अंतरराष्ट्रीय मुद्दों या अंग्रेजी विकिपीडिया पर आधारित प्रश्न पूछने हो, तो आप उन्हें यहाँ या इस लेख के 'टॉक पृष्ठ' पर लिखने के लिए आमंत्रित हैं.
مرحبا بكم في سفارة ويكيبيديا الإنجليزية. إذا كان عندك إعلانات أو أسئلة في ما يتصل بالمسائل العالمية أو بويكيبيديا الإنجليزية، يمكنك أن تكتبها هنا أو في صفحة نقاش هذه المقالة.
ברוכים הבאים לשגרירות של ויקיפדיה האנגלית! אם יש לכם שאלות או הודעות לגבי הויקיפדיה האנגלית או בעיות בינלאומיות, אתם מוזמנים להעלות אותן פה או בעמוד הדיון של ערך זה. תודה!
February 24 – In Gloucester, local police begin excavations at 25 Cromwell Street, the home of Fred West, a suspect in multiple murders. On February 28, he and his wife are arrested.
February 27 – Australian Federal Sports & Environment Minister Ros Kelly resigns over "The Sports Rorts Affair", where it was alleged that she apportioned money for community sporting projects in a pork barreling fashion.
March 14 – Apple Computer, Inc. releases the first Macintosh computers to use the new PowerPC Microprocessors. This is considered to be a major leap in personal computer, as well as Macintosh history.
Kurt Cobain, songwriter and frontman for the band Nirvana, is found dead at his Lake Washington home, apparently of a single self-inflicted gunshot wound.
May 6 – The Channel Tunnel, which took 15,000 workers over 7 years to complete, opens between England and France, enabling passengers to travel between the 2 countries in 35 minutes.
May 17 – Malawi holds its first multiparty elections.
May 20 – After a funeral in Cluny Parish Church, Edinburgh attended by 900 people and after which 3,000 people lined the streets, John Smith is buried in a private family funeral on the island of Iona, at the sacred burial ground of Reilig Odhráin, which contains the graves of several Scottish kings as well as monarchs of Ireland, Norway and France.[1]
June 6–June 8 – Ceasefire negotiations for the Yugoslav War begin in Geneva; they agree to a 1-month cessation of hostilities (which does not last more than a few days).
June 30 – An Airbus A330 crashes during a test flight near Toulouse, France, where Airbus is based, killing the seven-person crew. The test was meant to simulate an engine failure at low speed with maximum angle of climb.
August 5 – Groups of protesters spread from Havana, Cuba's Castillo de la Punta ("Point Castle"), creating the first protests against Fidel Castro's government since 1959.
August 23 – Eugene Bullard is posthumously commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force, 33 years after his death, and 77 years to the day after his rejection for U.S. military service in 1917.
September–October – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq threatens to stop cooperating with UNSCOM inspectors and begins to once again deploy troops near its border with Kuwait. In response, the U.S. begins to deploy troops to Kuwait.
October 5 – UNESCO inaugurates World Teachers' Day to celebrate and commemorate the signing of the Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers on October 5, 1966.
October 12 – NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as the probe descends into the thick atmosphere of Venus (the spacecraft presumably burned up in the atmosphere either October 13 or October 14).
A French magazine publishes photo of President François Mitterrand's secret daughter.
The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 is enacted in the UK. The whole of Part V, which covers collective trespass and nuisance on land, includes sections against raves, including the "succession of repetitive beats" definition.
San Francisco: The first conference devoted entirely to the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web opens. Featured speakers include Marc Andreessen of Netscape, Mark Graham of Pandora Systems, and Ken McCarthy of E-Media.
Sydney's third runway opens, ensuring protests about noise levels.
Fred West, 53, a builder living in Gloucester, is remanded in custody, charged with murdering 12 people (including two of his own daughters) whose bodies are mostly found buried at his house in Cromwell Street. His wife Rose West, 41, is charged with 10 murders. Police believe that the murders took place between 1967 and 1987, and suspect that they may have killed up to 30 people.
A Learjet piloted by Richard Anderson and Brad Sexton misses an elementary school and crashes into an apartment complex in Fresno, California, killing both pilots and injuring several apartment residents.
Tropical Storms Alberto & Gordon cause very damaging floods, intense winds and extensive problems directly over the Southeastern United States and the Caribbean Islands. The death tolls are unusually severe and damages are extreme in both tropical storms.
The modern rupee is theoretically subdivided into 100 paise (singular paisa) though this division is purely symbolic; as of 30 June 2011, 50 paise will be the minimum coin accepted in the markets as all denominations below it will cease to be legal currency.[2][3] Bank notes are available in nominal values of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 rupees. Coins of the rupee have nominal values of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 25 and 50 paise as well as 1, 2, 5 and 10 rupees. The Indian rupee symbol is derived from the Devanagari consonant "र" (Ra) with an added horizontal bar. It is also derived from the Latin consonant "R" without the vertical line, with added two horizontal bars, (similar in comparison with Yen and Euro symbols)
The word Rupee is derived from the Sanskrit word रौप्य (raupya) meaning "silver" or "made of silver".[4] Many Indian languages use this root. For examples:
However, in Assam Valley, West Bengal, Tripura, Mizoram and Orissa, the Indian rupee is officially known by names derived from the word टङ्क (Tanka) which means money.[5] Thus, the rupee is called টকা (tôka) in Assamese, টাকা (Taka) in Bengali and ଟଙ୍କା (Tanka) in Oriya. The amount and the word "rupee" is accordingly written on Indian banknotes in several Indian languages.[6]
On March 5, 2009 the Indian government announced a contest to create a symbol for the rupee.[7][8] During the year 2010's Union Budget, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee mentioned that the proposed symbol would reflect and capture the Indian ethos and culture.[9] Five symbols were shortlisted,[10] and the Cabinet selected the definitive symbol created by son of DMK leaderUdaya Kumar.[11][12] on July 15, 2010.[11] The symbol is derived from the Devanagari letter ‘र’ with an additional horizontal line. The parallel lines at the top (with white space between them) make an allusion to the tricolor and also depict an equality sign which symbolizes the nation's desire to reduce economic disparity.[13] The Indian government will try to adopt the symbol within six months in the country and globally within 18 to 24 months.[11][14] Before the adoption of the symbol, the most commonly used symbols for the rupee were Rs, Re or if the text was in an Indian language, then an appropriate abbreviation in that language. The official rupee sign is included in Unicode from version 6.0, which was released on October 11, 2010.[15] The content ( ₹ <-- rupee symbol) inside the braces would only be visible if your computer have the updated version of Unicode Installed. Ubuntu 10.10 was the first operating system to include this version of Unicode.[16]
The selection process has been challenged under the Right to Information Act in the Delhi High Court. The petitioner, Rakesh Kumar, was a participant on the competition, described the process as "full of discrepancies" and "flawed", and named the Finance Ministry and the chairman of Indian Rupee Symbol Selection Committee as respondents.[17]
On March 31, 2011 Hon'ble Chief Justice and Hon'ble Mr. Justice Sanjiv Khanna of Delhi High Court in their judgment court allows RTI activist Mr. Rakesh Kumar Singh to file PIL against “Indian Rupee symbol selection process”.
In Indian English, values greater than or equal to hundred thousand Indian rupees are counted in terms of lakhs (one lakh = hundred thousand), and crores (one crore = ten million). For example, the amount 3,25,84,729.25 is read as three crores, twenty-five lakhs, eighty-four thousand, seven hundred and twenty-nine rupees and twenty-five paise. The use of million or billion, as is standard in American or British English, is not very common.
India was one of the earliest issuers of coins (circa 6th century BCE). The first "rupee" is believed to have been introduced by Sher Shah Suri (1486–1545), based on a ratio of 40 copper pieces (paisa) per rupee.[18] Among the earliest issues of paper rupees were those by the Bank of Hindustan (1770–1832), the General Bank of Bengal and Bihar (1773–75, established by Warren Hastings) and the Bengal Bank (1784–91), amongst others. Until 1815, the Madras Presidency also issued a currency based on the panam, with 12 panams equal to the rupee.
Historically, the rupee, derived from the Sanskrit word raupya, which means silver, was a silver coin. This had severe consequences in the nineteenth century, when the strongest economies in the world were on the gold standard. The discovery of vast quantities of silver in the U.S. and various European colonies resulted in a decline in the relative value of silver to gold. Suddenly the standard currency of India could not buy as much from the outside world. This event was known as "the fall of the rupee".
India was not affected by the imperial order-in-council of 1825 that attempted to introduce the British sterling coinage to the British colonies. British India at that time was controlled by the British East India Company. The silver rupee continued as the currency of India throughout the entire period of the British Raj and beyond. In 1835, British India set itself firmly upon a mono-metallic silver standard based on the rupee. His decision was influenced by a letter, written in the year 1805, by Lord Liverpool that extolled the virtues of mono-metallism.
Following the Indian Mutiny in 1857, the British government took direct control of British India. Since 1851, gold sovereigns were being produced in large numbers at the Royal Mint branch in Sydney, New South Wales. In the year 1864 in an attempt to make the British gold sovereign become the 'imperial coin', the treasuries in Bombay and Calcutta were instructed to receive gold sovereigns. These gold sovereigns however never left the vaults. As was realized in the previous decade in Canada and the next year in Hong Kong, existing habits are hard to replace. Just as the British government had finally given up any hopes of replacing the rupee in India with the pound sterling, it simultaneously realized, and for the same reasons, that they could not easily replace the silver dollar in the Straits Settlements with the Indian rupee, as had been the desire of the British East India Company.
Since the great silver crisis of 1873, a growing number of nations had been adopting the gold standard, however the Indian currency system maintained its silver-standard tradition, which remained until it was replaced by a basket of commodities and currencies in the late twentieth century.
The Indian rupee replaced the Danish Indian rupee in 1845, the French Indian rupee in 1954 and the Portuguese Indian escudo in 1961. Following independence in 1947, the Indian rupee replaced all the currencies of the previously autonomous states. Some of these states had issued rupees equal to those issued by the British (such as the Travancore rupee). Other currencies included the Hyderabad rupee and the Kutch kori. Nominal value during British rule, and the first decade of independence:
1 damidi(pie) = 0.520833 paise (1/12 Anna)
1 kani(pice) = 1.5625 paise (1/4 Anna)
1 paraka = 3.125 paise (1/2 Anna)
1 anna = 6.25 paise (1 Anna)
1 beda = 12.5 paise (2 Anna)
1 pavala = 25 paise (4 Anna)
1 artharupee = 50 paise (8 Anna)
1 rupee = 100 paise (16 Anna)
In 1957, decimalisation occurred and the rupee was divided into 100 naye paise (Hindi for "new paise"). In 1964, the initial "naye" was dropped. Many still refer to 25, 50 and 75 paise as 4, 8 and 12 annas respectively, not unlike the usage of "bit" in American English for ⅛ dollar.
The One Rupee Banknote, now not in use.
The two-rupee banknote
French Indian 1 rupee (1938)
One rupee —Obverse
[edit]The rupee on the East African coast and South Arabia
In East Africa, Arabia, and Mesopotamia the Rupee and its subsidiary coinage was current at various times. The usage of the Rupee in East Africa extended from Somalia in the north, to as far south as Natal. In Mozambique the British India rupees were overstamped, and in Kenya the British East Africa Company minted the rupee and its fractions as well as pice. The rise in the price of silver immediately after the First World War caused the rupee to rise in value to two shillings sterling. In 1920 in British East Africa, the opportunity was then taken to introduce a new florin coin, hence bringing the currency into line with sterling. Shortly after that, the Florin was split into two East African shillings. This assimilation to sterling did not however happen in British India itself. In Somalia the Italian colonial authority minted 'rupia' to exactly the same standard, and called the pice 'besa'.
The Straits Settlements were originally an outlier of the British East India Company. The Spanish dollar had already taken hold in the Straits Settlements by the time the British arrived in the nineteenth century, however, the East India Company tried to introduce the rupee in its place. These attempts were resisted by the locals, and by 1867 when the British government took over direct control of the Straits Settlements from the East India Company, attempts to introduce the rupee were finally abandoned.
The Indian government introduced the Gulf rupee, also known as the Persian Gulf rupee (XPGR), as a replacement for the Indian rupee for circulation exclusively outside the country with the Reserve Bank of India [Amendment] Act, 1 May 1959. This creation of a separate currency was an attempt to reduce the strain put on India's foreign reserves by gold smuggling. After India devalued the rupee on 6 June 1966, those countries still using it – Oman, Qatar, and the Trucial States (which became the United Arab Emirates in 1971) – replaced the Gulf rupee with their own currencies. Kuwait and Bahrain had already done so in 1961 and 1965 respectively.
The Bhutanese ngultrum is pegged at par with the Indian rupee, and both currencies are accepted in Bhutan. The Indian rupee is also accepted in towns in Nepal which lie near the border with India. However, Indian Rupee denominations of 500 and 1000 are banned in Nepal.[citation needed] Rupee is the currency of Sri Lanka also.
The three Presidencies established by the British East India Company (Bengal, Bombay and Madras) each issued their own coinages up to 1835. All three issued rupees together with fractions down to ⅛ and 1⁄16 rupee in silver. Madras also issued 2 rupees coins.
Copper denominations were more varied. Bengal issued 1 pie, ½, 1 and 2 paise. Bombay issued 1 pie, ¼, ½, 1, 1½, 2 and 4 paise. In Madras, there were copper coins for 2, 4 pies, 1, 2 and 4 paisa, with the first two denominated as ½ and 1 dub or 1⁄96 and 1⁄48 rupee. Note that Madras also issued the Madras fanam until 1815.
All three Presidencies issued gold mohurs and fractions of mohurs, including 1⁄16, ⅛, ¼ and ½ in Bengal, 1⁄15 (a gold rupee) and ⅓ (pancia) in Bombay and ¼, ⅓ and ½ in Madras.
In 1835, a single coinage for the EIC was introduced. It consisted of copper 1⁄12, ¼ and ½ anna, silver ¼, ½ and 1 rupee and gold 1 and 2 mohurs. In 1841, silver 2 annas were added, followed by copper ½ pice in 1853. The coinage of the EIC continued to be issued until 1862, even after the Company had been taken over by the Crown.
In 1862, coins were introduced which are referred to as Regal issues. They bore the portrait of Queen Victoria and the designation "India". Denominations were 1⁄12 anna, ½ pice, ¼ and ½ anna (all in copper), 2 annas, ¼, ½ and 1 rupee (silver) and 5 and 10 rupees and 1 mohur (gold). The gold denominations ceased production in 1891 while no ½ anna coins were issued dated later than 1877.
In 1906, bronze replaced copper for the lowest three denominations and in 1907, a cupro-nickel 1 anna was introduced. In 1918 and 1919, cupro-nickel 2, 4 and 8 annas were introduced, although the 4 and 8 annas coins were only issued until 1921 and did not replace their silver equivalents. Also in 1918, the Bombay mint struck gold sovereigns and 15 rupee coins identical in size to the sovereigns as an emergency measure due to the First World War.
In the early 1940s, several changes were implemented. The 1⁄12 anna and ½ pice ceased production, the ¼ anna was changed to a bronze, holed coin, cupro-nickel and nickel-brass ½ anna coins were introduced, nickel-brass was used to produce some 1 and 2 annas coins, and the composition of the silver coins was reduced from 91.7% to 50%. The last of the regal issues were cupro-nickel ¼, ½ and 1 rupee pieces minted in 1946 and 1947.
India's first coins after independence were issued in 1950. They were 1 pice, ½, 1 and 2 annas, ¼, ½ and 1 rupee denominations. The sizes and compositions were the same as the final Regal issues, except for the 1 pice, which was bronze but not holed.
The first decimal issues of India consisted of 1, 2, 5, 10, 25 & 50 naye paise, as well as 1 rupee. The 1 naya paisa was bronze, the 2, 5 & 10 naye paise were cupro-nickel & the 25 & 50 naye paise & 1 rupee were nickel. In 1964, the word naya(e) was removed from all the coins. Between 1964 & 1967, aluminum 1, 2, 3, 5 & 10 paise were introduced. In 1968, nickel-brass 20 paise were introduced, replaced by aluminum coins in 1982. Between 1972 & 1975, cupro-nickel replaced nickel in the 25 & 50 paise as well as the 1 rupee. In 1982, cupro-nickel 2 rupees coins were introduced. In 1988, stainless steel 10, 25 & 50 paise were introduced, followed by 1 & 5 rupee coins in 1992. Recently 5 Rupee coins made from Brass are being minted by RBI
Between 2005 & 2008, new, lighter 50 paise, 1, 2 & 5 rupee coins were introduced, all struck in ferritic stainless steel. The move was prompted by the melting down of older coins whose face value was less than their scrap value.
The coins commonly in circulation are 1, 2, 5 & 10 rupees. Although they remain valid, paise coins have become increasingly rare in regular usage.
The Indian Government has decided to phase out all paise coins.
The coins are minted at the four locations of the India Government Mint. Note the 1, 2 & 5 rupee coins have been minted since independence. Coins minted with the "Hand Picture" are 2005 onwards.
In 1861, the Government of India introduced its first paper money, 10 rupee in 1864, 5 rupees in 1872, 10,000 rupees in 1899, 100 rupees in 1900, 50 rupees in 1905, 500 rupees in 1907 and 1000 rupees in 1909. In 1917, 1 and 2½ rupees notes were introduced. The Reserve Bank of India began note production in 1938, issuing 2, 5, 10, 50, 100, 1000 and 10000 rupee notes, while the Government continued to issue 1 rupee notes.
After independence, new designs were introduced to remove the portrait of the King. The government continued to issue the 1 rupee note, while the Reserve Bank issued other denominations, including the 5000 and 10,000 rupee notes introduced in 1949. In the 1970s, 20 and 50 rupee notes were introduced but denominations higher than 100 rupees were demonetized in 1978. In 1987, the 500 rupee note was introduced, followed by the 1000 rupees in 2000. 1 Rupee and 2 rupees notes were discontinued in 1995. 5 Rupees note will be discontinued shortly. Conisation of notes till Rs. 20 is being planned.
In September 2009, the Reserve Bank of India decided to introduce polymer notes (polymer banknote) on a trial basis. Initially, 100 crore (1 billion) pieces of 10 denomination notes will be introduced.[20] According to the Reserve Bank officials, the polymer notes will have an average lifespan of 5 years (4 times the regular Indian bank notes) and will be difficult to counterfeit. They would also be cleaner than the regular notes.
The design of banknotes is approved by the Central Government on the recommendations of the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India.[1] Currency notes are printed at the Currency Note Press, Nashik, Bank Note Press, Dewas, Bharatiya Note Mudra Nigam (P) Limited presses at Salboni and Mysore and at the Watermark Paper Manufacturing Mill, Hoshangabad.
The current series of banknotes, which began in 1996, is called the Mahatma Gandhi series. At present, banknotes are issued in the denominations of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000. Printing of 5 notes which had stopped earlier restarted in 2009. ATMs usually give out 100, 500, and 1000 notes. The Zero rupee note is not an official government issue but a symbol of protest and it is printed and distributed by an NGO in India.
The main security features of the current banknotes are listed below:
Watermark - White side panel of notes has Mahatma Gandhi watermark.
Security thread - All notes have a silver security band with inscriptions visible when held against light which reads Bharat in Hindi and RBI in English.
Latent image - On notes with denominations of 20 and upwards, a vertical band on the right side of the Mahatma Gandhi’s portrait contains a latent image showing the respective denominational value in numeral which is visible only when the note is held horizontally at eye level.
Microlettering - Numeral denominational value is visible under magnifying glass between security thread and latent image.
Intaglio - On notes with denominations of 10 and upwards, the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi, the Reserve Bank seal, guarantee and promise clause, Ashoka Pillar Emblem on the left, RBI Governor's signature are printed in intaglio i.e. in raised prints.
Identification Mark - On the left of the watermark window different shapes are printed in Intaglio for various denominations (20 - Vertical Rectangle, 50 - Square, 100 - Triangle, 500 - Circle, 1000 - Diamond). This also helps the visually impaired to identify the denomination.
Fluorescence - Number panels glow under ultra-violet light.
Optically variable ink - Notes of 500 and 1000 have their numerals printed in optically variable ink. Number appears green when note is held flat but changes to blue when viewed at angle.
See through Register - Floral design printed on the front and the back of the note coincides and perfectly overlap each other when viewed against light.
EURion constellation - A pattern of symbols found on the banknote helps software detect the presence of a banknote in a digital image so that it can prevent its reproduction with devices such as color photocopiers.
Officially, the Indian rupee has a market determined exchange rate. However, the RBI trades actively in the USD/INR currency market to impact effective exchange rates. Thus, the currency regime in place for the Indian rupee with respect to the US dollar is a de facto controlled exchange rate. This is sometimes called a "managed float". Other rates such as the EUR/INR and INR/JPY have volatilities that are typical of floating exchange rates.[22] It should be noted, however, that unlike China, successive administrations (through RBI, the central bank) have not followed a policy of pegging the INR to a specific foreign currency at a particular exchange rate. RBI intervention in currency markets is solely to deliver low volatility in the exchange rates, and not to take a view on the rate or direction of the Indian rupee in relation to other currencies.[23]
Also affecting convertibility is a series of customs regulations restricting the import and export of rupees. Legally, foreign nationals are forbidden from importing or exporting rupees, while Indian nationals can import and export only up to 5000 rupees at a time, and the possession of 500 and 1000 rupee notes in Nepal is prohibited.
RBI also exercises a system of capital controls in addition to the intervention (through active trading) in the currency markets. On the current account, there are no currency conversion restrictions hindering buying or selling foreign exchange (though trade barriers do exist). On the capital account, foreign institutional investors have convertibility to bring money in and out of the country and buy securities (subject to certain quantitative restrictions). Local firms are able to take capital out of the country in order to expand globally. But local households are restricted in their ability to do global diversification. However, owing to an enormous expansion of the current account and the capital account, India is increasingly moving towards de facto full convertibility.
There is some confusion regarding the interchange of the currency with gold, but the system that India follows is that money cannot be exchanged for gold, in any circumstances or any situation. Money cannot be changed into gold by the RBI. This is because it will become difficult to handle it. India follows the same principle as Great Britain and America.
Chronology
1991 - India began to lift restrictions on its currency. A series of reforms remove restrictions on current account transactions including trade, interest payments & remittances and on some capital assets-based transactions. Liberalized Exchange Rate Management System (LERMS), a dual exchange rate system, introduced a partial convertibility of the Rupee in March 1992.[24]
1997 - A panel set up to explore capital account convertibility recommended India move towards full convertibility by 2000, but timetable abandoned in the wake of the 1997-98 East Asian financial crisis.
Four French cities (Annecy, Grenoble, Nice and Pelvoux) expressed interest in hosting the 2018 games. On 24 September 2008, the Olympic Committee announced it had granted these wishes and would bid in 2011.[2] Annecy was elected as the official candidate city by the French NOC on 18 March 2009.[3] The CNOSF acknowledges its tough competition, but France had learned from the failure of Paris' bid for the 2012 Summer Games, with French sports minister mentioning that "we were too proud and too sure that we were going to win."[4][5] The supervisory board's chairman Christian Monteil said that "of course it's very hard, we've never really been the favorite" but that they want to win and won't give up the bid.[6] Annecy has currently the smallest budget ($29 million) compared to its two competitors, with French sports minister Chantal Jouanno saying that Annecy needs a bigger budget if it is to make a successful bid.[5]
In June 2010, the IOC criticized Annecy’s bid stating that the competition venues were excessively dispersed. The IOC report was highly critical over the original venue plan, saying it would "present major operational and financial challenges" that would "affect the Games experience for all client groups, particularly athletes." On 4 October 2010 Annecy’s leaders unveiled a new "ultra-compact" venue concept in response to the IOC concerns. Under the reworked venue plans, all ice and snow events would take place within a 21 mile radius at two main bases, Annecy and Chamonix, which are less than an hour apart and linked by motorway and the “Games Train.” All alpine skiing will take place in Chamonix, which will also host ice hockey. All freestyle skiing and snowboard are now centered on Annecy. Curling has been relocated to Annecy, the hub of most ice sports, meaning that the Olympic Village will be a little bigger than previously, to accommodate 2,500 athletes and officials. The bid has moved the second Olympic Village (1,500 beds) from the Mont Blanc valley into the center of Chamonix.[7]
However, the resignation of the bid's CEO, Edgar Grospiron on 12 December 2010 over a budget dispute raises questions about the bid's chances of success.[8] On 10 January 2011, Charles Beigbeder was named as the new CEO for the Annecy bid. In addition, Olympic champions Jean-Pierre Vidal and Pernilla Wiberg were appointed as Vice Presidents of the bid. Beigbeder says he will seek more financial support for the bid from the private sector. Also announced with Beigbeder’s appointment was the selection of Pierre Mirabaud as Director General of the bid. Mirabaud has been a regional government prefect, experience which Beigbeder says is needed by the bid.[9]
On 12 February 2011, the IOC evaluation commission completed its four-day inspection of the Annecy bid. During a brief press conference, commission chair Gunilla Lindberg was cautious in her praise of Annecy. On a positive note, she told reporters: "We have during our visit witnessed very strong governmental support which the bid enjoys and this was highlighted by the presence of the President Sarkozy and many members of his cabinet throughout the visit. I think the bid committee of Annecy has listened to the comments made by the IOC [criticism of the spread-out venues in June] and there has been a big improvement, especially not having so many competition venues as was proposed." But there was no glowing assessment of the Annecy bid from Lindberg. The Swedish IOC member also gave no clue about any concerns that had arisen during the inspection team’s four-day stay in the French Alpine town.[10]
French President Nicolas Sarkozy also travelled to Annecy to meet with the IOC Evaluation Commission inspecting the city's bid for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. "The government will do everything possible, you can be sure, so that Annecy, applicant for the 2018 Winter Olympics, will be chosen," Sarkozy said. "Annecy’s victory will be the victory of the entire nation, standing behind you."[11] While pledging his support for the bid he said "you are trying hard. It's difficult. Your opponents are extremely powerful but I'm with you. If we win the Games it will be fantastic. And if we don't win, all we did will be useful for your cities and your region."[12]
On 28 March 2011, the CAO (Annecy Anti-Olympic Committee) stated that it wants to tell people about what "not only the excesses of the Olympics, the sport business, the financial stakes of multinationals and unacceptable demands of the IOC, but also on adverse impacts on the environment and on uncontrolled public spending with long-term debt for the Olympic city." The group says it has collected 13,140 names for its petition opposing plans to bring the Winter Olympics to Annecy. In a press release issued on the 28th, the opposition group cited information reported exclusively by media outlet Around the Rings that an IOC poll shows only 51 percent of the local population supports the Annecy candidacy.[13]
Annecy's logo features the French Alps, specifically Mt. Blanc, as well as suggesting the letter "A" for Annecy.
Munich hosted the 1972 Summer Olympics, and if selected would have been the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Games.[14] Berlin and Hamburg were considering a summer games bid for 2024 or 2028, but the German Olympic Committee put the Munich bid first.[15] After Salzburg, Austria's failure to capture the 2014 bid,[16] Germany felt it had a better chance and would prefer the Olympics sooner rather than later.[17] Munich has a strong ally with IOC vice president Thomas Bach, who could have swung the vote to Munich, even though the 2014 Games will have been held in Europe as well. Nevertheless, Munich was already considering a bid for 2022 if this bid failed.[15]
Munich stressed an environmental approach[18] and will use existing venues in Munich (some from the 1972 Games) and in the Bavarian mountain resorts of Garmisch-Partenkirchen (location of the 1936 Winter Olympics) and Schönau am Königssee. However, on 20 November 2010 the German Green Party rejected the 2018 Munich bid. Delegates at the party national convention voted in favor of an anti-Olympic resolution: 289 yes, 244 no and 70 abstentions. The resolution was put forward by a delegate from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the mountain village south of Munich that would host the ski events. The anti-Games resolution challenges the transparency of the bid and the environmental impact the Games would have, points disputed by Munich 2018.[19] January 2011 polls indicate 75% approval countrywide.[20]
On 22 February 2011, land owners in Garmisch-Partenkirchen supporting the 'Nolympia' initiative began collecting signatures under efforts to force a vote to decide whether the town will back the bid. "The Olympic Winter Games are too big for Garmisch-Partenkirchen. With more than fifty events in the snow cluster there are almost five times as many events as the world ski championships," said Nolympia backer Axel Doering. "Our goal is to win a referendum, so that the contracts be reviewed. Another goal is to finally show that the alleged "huge majority" [of support] for the Olympic Winter Games is a myth," he added. Munich's bid plans call for the leasing of land from private land owners for the Games.[21] German Olympic committee President Thomas Bach says complaints by landowners in Garmisch-Partenkirchen are not a problem for the bid. "It’s not a problem at all because for the field of play, it’s one piece of land with 800 square meters. The piece of land was there for the alpine world championships six weeks before," says Bach. He added ,"we have seen this at the world championships they were all going down on this very slope and they will go down in 2018, hopefully."[22]
On 28 February 2011 the IOC evaluation commission traveled to Munich and to the other cities, in which competitions would be held. The 1936 Olympic Stadium in Garmisch-Partenkirchen was the high point of the IOC's tour. Under the Munich 2018 bid, it was slated as the site for ski jumping, Nordic combined and the aerials competition, with slalom events to be held on the adjacent ski slope. That venue also hosted slalom events at the FIS Alpine World Championships. The IOC's venue tour also took in visits to Hausberg, the snowboard and freestyle skiing venue, the Kandahar ski resort that also staged the skiing world champs and the biathlon and cross country venue.[23] IOC Evaluation Commission chair Gunilla Lindberg says her inspection team has "absolutely felt the atmosphere and passion" for the Olympics at the end of its four-day inspection of the Munich bid. "The general impression is that it is a strong bid with strong governmental support. It is a good team on the bid committee and Germany is a big winter sports country used to organizing competitions." IOC vice president Thomas Bach insisted that 2018 was a good time for the IOC and Olympic Movement to bring the Games to the traditional winter sports city of Munich to "recharge the batteries after having been to new regions, with 2014 to Sochi and 2016 to Rio."[24] German chancellor Angela Merkel said Munich had a "very good chance" of winning the race to host the 2018 Winter Olympics. She added: "The world can look forward to Germany hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games 2018."[25]
The slogan of the game is Die freundlichen Spiele (Games of Friendship). Its logo is a stylized M, reminiscent of the Bavarian mountain silhouettes and the awnings in Munich's Olympic Park.[26] After skier and ski wear producer Willy Bogner withdrew from the bidding committee due to health reasons, figure skating superstar Katarina Witt became the lead promotor.[4] If the bid had been successful it would have been the first time Germany has hosted the games since reunification.
After narrowly losing the bids for the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics, Gangwon Province Gov. Jin-sun Kim announced in September 2007 that Pyeongchang would definitely bid a third time. He cited increased knowledge of the bidding process and the still-high enthusiasm of residents as reasons to keep trying.[27][28] According to a survey by The Chosun Ilbo on 23 December 2009, 91.4% of Koreans, 93.4% of Pyeongchang and Jeongseon residents, and 93% of Gangwon residents support the 2018 Winter Olympics bid.[29] South Korea's figure skating superstar and 2010 Olympic championKim Yuna and IOC member and Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee are currently promoting the bid.[30][31] The Samsung Chairman and principal owner Lee Kun-hee, given a 3-year suspended sentence for tax evasion and illegal bond dealing, was reportedly pardoned by the South Korean president Lee Myung-bak with the hope that his connections and financial support will help to boost the chances of Pyeongchang.[32]
On Feb. 16, 2011 the IOC Evaluation Commission arrived in Korea for inspection of Pyeongchang’s bid. "We have seen great progress in the bid from the two previous bids," commission chairwoman Gunilla Lindberg said. "We have also seen progress in Korean winter sports during the last four years." Speaking at the IOC news conference following the inspection of Pyeongchang and venues in Gangwon Province, Lindberg said "I must also mention the passionate support of Gangwon residents. During our site visits it has been wonderful to see so many people to show their support to bring the Olympic Movement to Korea."[33]
Seven venues have been built since the previous bids, including ski jumping slopes, and biathlon and cross country skiing courses.[34][35] Pyeongchang would be a compact Olympic Games,[36] with less than 30 minutes from the main accommodation in Alpensia resort to the venues and 10 minutes between venues.[37]
German reporter Dietmar Gessner from Sport Bild said that "in Asia including Korea you can create more customers. You can make lots of money for winter sports. But in Europe, this is not the case anymore. There are world-class facilities (in Pyeongchang) that can meet the demands of a growing market. This is a very strong point for Pyeongchang. Because I think within the IOC they are encouraging Pyeongchang to bid again and again. I think Pyeongchang has done very good work on its reputation inside the Olympic family. (I think) Everyone is very impressed the way of bid with professionalism."[38]
Pyeongchang’s slogan is “New Horizons.” The bid's logo suggests the winter scenery of Pyeongchang with snow on the mountains. The curve implies the strong will to win and symbolizes a snowboard and slope of winter sports.[39]
Located on the A38, adjacent to Junction 23 of the M5 motorway, it hosts a wharf on the River Parrett, created in 1844 by Bridgwater coal merchants,[1] which is the only part of the Port of Bridgwater still in commercial use today. Dunball also has a small industrial estate, built on the site of the Royal Ordnance Factory's hostel blocks; and a hotel.
Hotel at Dunball with its 21st century additions (the left and right bays and side wings). It was originally known as the Greenhill Arms, after the Greenhill family who were Lords of the Manor of Puriton until 1920. In the 1980s and 1990s it became the Henry Fielding, adopting its present name in the early 2000s after extensive rebuilding
The wharf was formerly linked to the Bristol and Exeter Railway by a rail track which crossed the A38, on the right hand side of the hotel. The link was built in 1876 by coal merchants, and was originally operated as a horse-drawn tramway. It was removed during the Beeching Axe and Dunball also lost its railway station on 5 October 1964, which had opened in 1873. The wharf was used during World War II to bring Welsh coal to the nearby Royal Ordnance Factory, ROF Bridgwater. The wharf is now used for landing stone products, mainly marine sand and gravels dredged in the Bristol Channel.
The King's Sedgemoor Drain drains into the River Parrett at Dunball, adjacent to the wharf, via a clyse. The clyse has been moved from its original location and it now obstructs the entrance to a small harbour adjacent to the wharf.
River silt was dredged from the river in this locality in order to make Bath bricks, an early cleaning material.
Under an 1845 Act of Parliament the Port of Bridgwater extends from Brean Down to Hinkley Point in Bridgwater Bay, and parts of the rivers Parrett (to Bridgwater), River Brue and River Axe. Although no ships now dock in the town of Bridgwater; in 2001 103,613 (metric) tonnes of cargo were handled within the area of the Port Authority (compared to more than 200,000 tons (approximately equivalent to metric tonnes) in 1878), most of which were stone products through the wharf at Dunball.
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Geography is the study of the location, extent, distribution, frequency and interaction of all significant elements of the human and physical environment on or near the Earth's surface, particularly its features and of the distribution of life on the earth, including human life and the effects of human activity. The word geography derives from the Greekγη (ge) or γαια (gaia) ("Earth") and γραφειν (graphein) ("to inscribe"). Physical geography focuses on the physical, meteorological and ecological patterns and processes on Earth. Human geography focuses on economic, political and cultural processes and features in their spatial dimensions. In addition to studying human and natural features of Earth, Geographers also study Earth's place in the Solar System and the Universe and how this affects the Earth features (e.g. climate, sea currents and tides), as well as physical processes on other planets.
... that the Upper Harz Water Regale(pictured), a network of dams, lakes, ditches, and tunnels built between 1536 and 1866 to supply water to the mines of the Harz mountains in Germany, is the largest of its kind in Europe?
A society is a group of people that are controlled by the bounds of cultural identity, social solidarity, and functional interdependence. Thus, the meaning of society is closely relating to what is considered to be social. Implicit in the meaning of society is that its members may share some mutual concern or interest or hobby, a common objective or common characteristics. Social sciences, such as sociology, study human society and human networking.
A fairy tale is a fictional story that may feature folkloric characters such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants, and talking animals, and usually enchantments, often involving a far-fetched sequence of events that usually ended in tragedy, in today's child fairy tales are made so they won't frighten a child or have such tragic endings. In modern-day parlance, the term is also used to describe something blessed with princesses, as in "fairy tale ending" (a happy ending) or "fairy tale romance", though not all fairy tales end happily. Colloquially, a "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any far-fetched story. Fairy tales commonly attract young children since they easily understand the archetypal characters in the story.
In cultures where demons and witches are perceived as real, fairy tales may merge into legendary narratives, where the context is perceived by teller and hearers as having historical actuality. However, unlike legends and epics they usually do not contain more than superficial references to religion and actual places, persons, and events; they take place once upon a time rather than in actual times.
Fairy tales are found in oral folktales and in literary form. The history of the fairy tale is particularly difficult to trace, because only the literary forms can survive. Still, the evidence of literary works at least indicates that fairy tales have existed for thousands of years, although not perhaps recognized as a genre; the name "fairy tale" was first ascribed to them by Madame d'Aulnoy. Literary fairy tales are found over the centuries all over the world, and when they collected them, folklorists found fairy tales in every culture. Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today.
The Pheu Thai Party[1] (PTP) (Thai: พรรคเพื่อไทย; RTGS: Phak Phuea Thai; For Thais Party) is the third iteration of a Thai political party originally founded by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The Pheu Thai Party was founded on 20 September 2008, as an anticipated replacement for the People's Power Party (PPP), which Constitutional Court of Thailand dissolved less than three months later after finding party members guilty of electoral fraud. The People's Power Party was itself a replacement for Thaksin's original Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party which the Constitutional Court dissolved in May 2007 for violation of electoral laws.[2][3]
The PPP was dissolved by the Constitutional Court of Thailand on 2 December 2008. On 3 December 2008, the majority of the former PPP MPs defected to the Pheu Thai Party. In a PTP general assembly, the first executive commission was elected on 7 December 2008.[4] The candidates for the party's leader were: Yongyuth Wichaidit, Apiwan Wiriyachai, former Vice President of the House of Representatives, former health minister Chalerm Ubumrung and former industry minister Mingkwan Saengsuwan.[4] Yongyuth Wichaidit was elected as the party's leader.[4][5]
In a December 2008 parliamentary session MPs of five PPP coalition parties decided to endorse Abhisit Vejjajiva as the next prime minister and themselves forming a Democrat-led coalition. The PTP campaigned for their endorsement by the PPP-coalition parties. However, Abhisit had gained their support for the premiership.[6][7] After that, the party called for a national unity government in which all parties would be involved, with Sanoh Thienthong of the Royalist People's Party as the new premier. This proposal was rejected by the defecting coalition parties and the Democrat Party.[8] On 11 December, Worrawat Eua-apinyakul, then MP for Phrae from PTP, suggested that the party should push for a house dissolution and general elections, with the hope of depriving the prospective coalition of a parliamentary majority. However, The President of the House of Representatives; Chai Chidchob spoke against the plan.[9]
On 15 December 2008, the party elected Pracha Promnok as the party's candidate for prime minister and has since been in opposition to prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's coalition government. As an opposition, the party received a rating of 3.75 out of 10 by a majority of respondents in a nationwide survey conducted on 24 and 25 December 2010, by Bangkok University.[10]
In early May Jarupong Ruangsuwan was named new Secretary general of the party.[11]
In 2011 general elction, Pheu Thai Party contested for the first time since its foundation. On 16 May Thaksin's youngest sister Yingluck Shinawatra was nominated head of PTP's party-list proportional representation and contender of prime minister Abhisit. One of her main issues in campaign was national reconciliation.[12] The election was expected to be a neck-and-neck between Pheu Thai and the ruling Democrats. Unexpectedly, the party won 265 of 500 seats in the House of Representatives on 3 July. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva acknowledged Pheu Thai's success in the election, and congratulated Yingluck Shinawatra as Thailand's first female prime minister.[13] Despite its absolute majority, the winning party announced to form a coalition government with four minor parties.
MG Michael S. Linnington, Commanding General, Military District of Washington
Colonel David P. Anders , Garrison Commander, Fort Myer Military Community
Military District of Washington Distinctive Unit insignia
The military reservation was established in 1791 on about 28 acres (110,000 m2) at the tip of Greenleaf Point. Maj. Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant included it in his plans for Washington, the Federal City, as a major site for the defense of the capital.[1]
An arsenal first occupied the site and defenses were built in 1794. The fortifications did not halt the invading British in 1814. Soldiers at the arsenal evacuated north with as much gun powder as they could carry, hiding the rest in a well as the Redcoats came up the Potomac from burning the capitol. About 47 British soldiers found the powder magazines they'd come to destroy empty. Someone threw a match into the well and "a tremendous explosion ensued," a doctor at the scene reported, "whereby the officers and about 30 of the men were killed and the rest most shockingly mangled." The remaining soldiers destroyed the arsenal buildings, but the facilities were rebuilt after the war. Land was purchased north of the arsenal in 1826 for the first federal penitentiary. The conspirators accused of assassinating President Abraham Lincoln were imprisoned there and, after being found guilty, four were hanged and the rest received prison sentences. Among those hanged was Mary Surratt, the first woman ever executed under federal orders. A hospital was built next to the penitentiary in 1857, and Civil War wounded were treated at what then was called the Washington Arsenal. The arsenal was closed in 1881, and the post transferred to the Quartermaster Corps.
A general hospital, predecessor to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, was located at the post from 1898 until 1909. Maj. Walter Reed found the area's marshlands an excellent site for his research on malaria. Reed's work contributed to the discovery of the cause of yellow fever. The major died of peritonitis after an appendectomy at the post in 1902. The post dispensary and the visiting officers' quarters now occupy the buildings where Reed worked and died.
About 90 percent of the present buildings on the post's 100 acres (0.40 km2) were built, reconstructed or remodeled by 1908. In 1901, with the birth of the Army War College, the post, now called Washington Barracks, became the Army's center for the education and training of senior officers to lead and direct large numbers of troops. Its first classes were conducted in 1904. The Army Industrial College was founded at McNair in 1924 to prepare officers for high level posts in Army supply organizations, and to study industrial mobilization. It evolved into the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. The Army War College was reorganized as the Army-Navy Staff College in 1943, and became the National War College in 1946. The two colleges became the National Defense University in 1976.
The post was renamed in 1948 to honor Lt. Gen.Lesley J. McNair, commander of Army ground forces during World War II, who was headquartered at the post and was killed during Operation Cobra near Saint-Lô, France, July 25, 1944 in the infamous friendly fire incident. Fort McNair has been the headquarters of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington since 1966.
The National Defense University represents a significant concentration of the defense community's intellectual resources. Originally established in 1976, the university includes the National War College and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at Fort McNair, and the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va. These and other schools are separate entities, but their close affiliation enhances the exchange of faculty expertise and educational resources, promotes interaction among students and faculty, and reduces administrative costs. The National War College and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces concentrate on preparing civilian and military professionals in areas of national security strategy, decision-making, joint and combined warfare and the resource component of national strategy. The Armed Forces Staff College, established under the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1946, prepares selected officers for joint and combined duty.
In 1990, the Information Resources Management College was formed as the capstone institution for Defense Information Resource Management education. As such, it provides graduate-level courses in information resources management.
The National Defense University also features a first-rate research capability through the Institute for National Strategic Studies. This institute, established in 1984, conducts independent policy analyses and develops policy and strategy alternatives. It also includes a War Gaming and Simulation Center and the NDU Press.
The university has several other educational programs. These include the Capstone program, for general and flag officer selectees; the International Fellows program, which brings NDU almost 100 participants from 50 different countries; and the Reserve Components National Security Course, which offers military education to senior officers of the armed forces.
The Inter-American Defense College is an advanced-studies institute for senior officers of the 25-member nations of the Inter-American Defense Board. Up to three students of the rank of colonel or the equivalent may be sent to the college by each member nation. The students' backgrounds must qualify them to participate in the solution of hemispheric-defense problems.
The officers study world alliances and the international situation; the inter-American system and its role; strategic concepts of war; and engage in a planning exercise for hemispheric defense. The college has been at Fort McNair since 1962.
[edit]United States Army Center of Military History
In September 1998, the United States Army Center of Military History moved from rented offices in Washington, D.C., to Fort McNair in historically preserved quarters remodeled from its previous use as a commissary and before that as Fort McNair's stables. The center dates from the creation of the Army General Staff historical branch in July 1943 and the gathering of a team of professional historians, translators, editors and cartographers to record the history of World War II. That effort led to a monumental 79-volume series known as the "Green Books."
Today, the center operates through four divisions, the histories division being the one most involved in writing the histories and providing historical research support to the Army staff. The field program and historical services guides work done at various posts and installations, as well as the work done by deployed historical detachments for Army operations, ensures historical information is comprehensive and factual.
Another division is responsible for overseeing the Army museum system and preservation of artifacts and artwork that are the Army's historical treasure. One such museum, The Old Guard Museum, is located at Fort Myer. The center's publishing division generates finished publications and assures access to the center's work through such media as CD-ROM and the World Wide Web.
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded, and continuously published in New York City, since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization.[3] Its website is the most popular American online newspaper website, receiving more than 30 million unique visitors per month.[4]
Although the print version of the paper remains both the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States, as well the third largest newspaper overall, behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, its weekday circulation has fallen since 1990 (not unlike other newspapers) to fewer than one million copies daily, for the first time since the 1980s.[5] Nicknamed "the Gray Lady",[6] and long regarded within the industry as a national "newspaper of record", The New York Times is owned by The New York Times Company, which also publishes 18 other newspapers including the International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe. The company's chairman is Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., whose family has controlled the paper since 1896.[7]
The paper's motto, printed in the upper left-hand corner of the front page, is "All the News That's Fit to Print." It is organized into sections: News, Opinions, Business, Arts, Science, Sports, Style, Home, and Features. The New York Times stayed with the eight-column format for several years after most papers switched to six columns, and it was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography.
Access to the newspaper's online content is through a metered paywall. Frequent users (over 20 articles per month) have to purchase digital subscriptions, but access remains free for light users.[8] There are apps to access content for various mobile devices, such as the iPhone and Android devices.
The New York Times was founded on September 18, 1851, by journalist and politician Henry Jarvis Raymond, who was then a Whig and who would later be the second chairman of the Republican National Committee, and former banker George Jones as the New-York Daily Times. Sold at an original price of one cent per copy, the inaugural edition attempted to address the various speculations on its purpose and positions that preceded its release:[9]
We shall be Conservative, in all cases where we think Conservatism essential to the public good;—and we shall be Radical in everything which may seem to us to require radical treatment and radical reform. We do not believe that everything in Society is either exactly right or exactly wrong;—what is good we desire to preserve and improve;—what is evil, to exterminate, or reform.
The paper changed its name to The New York Times in 1857. The newspaper was originally published every day except Sunday, but on April 21, 1861, due to the demand for daily coverage of the Civil War, The New York Times, along with other major dailies, started publishing Sunday issues. One of the earliest public controversies in which the paper was involved was the Mortara Affair, an affair that was the object of 20 editorials in The New York Times alone.[10]
The paper's influence grew during 1870–71, when it published a series of exposés of Boss Tweed that led to the end of the Tweed Ring's domination of New York's City Hall.[11] In the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned from supporting Republican candidates to becoming politically independent; in 1884, the paper supported DemocratGrover Cleveland in his first presidential election. While this move hurt The New York Times' readership, the paper regained most of its lost ground within a few years.[12]The New York Times was acquired by Adolph Ochs, publisher of the Chattanooga Times, in 1896. The following year, he coined the paper's slogan, "All The News That's Fit To Print";[12] this was a jab at competing papers such as Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal which were known for lurid yellow journalism. Under his guidance, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, and reputation. In 1904, The New York Times received the first on-the-spot wireless transmission from a naval battle, a report of the destruction of the Russian fleet at the Battle of Port Arthur in the Yellow Sea from the press-boat Haimun during the Russo-Japanese war. In 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began.[12]The New York Times' first trans-Atlantic delivery to London occurred in 1919. In 1920, a "4 A.M. Airplane Edition" was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening.[13]
In the 1940s, the paper extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the fashion section in 1946. The New York Times began an international edition in 1946. The international edition stopped publishing in 1967, when The New York Times joined the owners of the New York Herald Tribune and The Washington Post to publish the International Herald Tribune in Paris. The paper bought a classical radio station (WQXR) in 1946.[14] In addition to owning WQXR, the newspaper also formerly owned its AM sister, WQEW (1560 AM).[15] The classical musicradio format was simulcast on both frequencies until the early 1990s, when the big-band and standards music format of WNEW-AM (now WBBR) moved from 1130 AM to 1560. The AM radio station changed its call letters from WQXR to WQEW.[16] By the beginning of the 21st century, The New York Times was leasing WQEW to ABC Radio for its Radio Disney format, which continues on 1560 AM. Disney became the owner of WQEW in 2007.[15] On July 14, 2009 it was announced that WQXR was to be sold to WNYC, who on October 8, 2009 moved the station to 105.9 FM and began to operate the station as a non-commercial.[17]
The New York Times newsroom, 1942
A speech in the newsroom after announcement of Pulitzer Prize winners, 2009
The New York Times is third in national circulation, after USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. The newspaper is owned by The New York Times Company, in which descendants of Adolph Ochs, principally the Sulzberger family, maintain a dominant role. In March 2009, the paper reported a circulation of 1,039,031 copies on weekdays and 1,451,233 copies on Sundays.[18] According to a 2009 The New York Times article circulation has dropped 7.3 percent to about 928,000; this is the first time since the 1980s that it has fallen under one million.[5] In the New York City metropolitan area, the paper costs $2 Monday through Saturday and $5 on Sunday. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper.[19][20]
In 2009, The New York Times began production of local inserts in regions outside of the New York area. Beginning October 16, 2009, a two-page "Bay Area" insert was added to copies of the Northern California edition on Fridays and Sundays. The New York Times commenced production of a similar Friday and Sunday insert to the Chicago edition on November 20, 2009. The inserts consist of local news, policy, sports, and culture pieces, usually supported by local advertisements.
In addition to its New York City headquarters, The New York Times has 16 news bureaus in New York State, 11 national news bureaus and 26 foreign news bureaus.[21]The New York Times reduced its page width to 12 inches (300 mm) from 13.5 inches (340 mm) on August 6, 2007, adopting the width that has become the U.S. newspaper industry standard.[22]
Because of its steadily declining sales in recent[when?] decades, The New York Times has been going through a downsizing for several years, offering buyouts to workers and cutting expenses,[23] in common with a general trend among print newsmedia.
The newspaper's first building was located at 113 Nassau Street in New York City. In 1854, it moved to 138 Nassau Street, and in 1858 it moved to 41 Park Row, making it the first newspaper in New York City housed in a building built specifically for its use.[24] The paper moved its headquarters to 1475 Broadway in 1904, in an area called Long Acre Square, that was renamed to Times Square. The top of the building is the site of the New Year's Eve tradition of lowering a lighted ball, that was started by the paper. The building is also notable for its electronic news ticker, where headlines crawled around the outside of the building. It is still in use,[when?] but is not operated by The New York Times. After nine years in Times Square, an Annex was built at 229 West 43rd Street. After several expansions, it became the company's headquarters in 1913, and the building on Broadway was sold in 1961. Until June 2007, The New York Times, from which Times Square gets its name, was published at offices at West 43rd Street. It stopped printing papers there on June 15, 1997.[25]
In 1971, the Pentagon Papers, a secret United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in the Vietnam War from 1945 to 1971, were given ("leaked") to Neil Sheehan of The New York Times by former State Department official Daniel Ellsberg, with his friend Anthony Russo assisting in copying them. The New York Times began publishing excerpts as a series of articles on June 13. Controversy and lawsuits followed. The papers revealed, among other things, that the government had deliberately expanded its role in the war by conducting air strikes over Laos, raids along the coast of North Vietnam, and offensive actions taken by U.S. Marines well before the public was told about the actions, and while President Lyndon B. Johnson had been promising not to expand the war. The document increased the credibility gap for the U.S. government, and hurt efforts by the Nixon administration to fight the on-going war.[29]
When The New York Times began publishing its series, President Richard Nixon became incensed. His words to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger included "people have gotta be put to the torch for this sort of thing..." and "let's get the son-of-a-bitch in jail."[30] After failing to get The New York Times to stop publishing, Attorney GeneralJohn Mitchell and President Nixon obtained a federal court injunction that The New York Times cease publication of excerpts. The newspaper appealed and the case began working through the court system. On June 18, 1971, The Washington Post began publishing its own series. Ben Bagdikian, a Post editor, had obtained portions of the papers from Ellsberg. That day the Post received a call from the Assistant Attorney General, William Rehnquist, asking them to stop publishing. When the Post refused, the U.S. Justice Department sought another injunction. The U.S. District court judge refused, and the government appealed. On June 26, 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take both cases, merging them into New York Times Co. v. United States 403 US 713. On June 30, 1971, the Supreme Court held in a 6–3 decision that the injunctions were unconstitutional prior restraints and that the government had not met the burden of proof required. The justices wrote nine separate opinions, disagreeing on significant substantive issues. While it was generally seen as a victory for those who claim the First Amendment enshrines an absolute right to free speech, many felt it a lukewarm victory, offering little protection for future publishers when claims of national security were at stake.[29]
Discriminatory practices restricting women in editorial positions were part of the history, correlating with effects on the journalism published at the time. The newspaper's first general woman reporter was Jane Grant, who described her experience afterwards. She wrote, "In the beginning I was charged not to reveal the fact that a female had been hired". Other reporters nicknamed her Fluff and she was subjected to considerable hazing. Because of her gender, promotions were out of the question, according to the then-managing editor. She was there for fifteen years, interrupted by World War I.[31]
In 1935, Anne McCormick wrote to Arthur Hays Sulzberger, "I hope you won't expect me to revert to 'woman's-point-of-view' stuff."[32] Later, she interviewed major political leaders and appears to have had easier access than her colleagues did. "Even those who witnessed her in action were unable to explain how she got the interviews she did."[33] Said Clifton Daniel, "[After World War II,] I'm sure [chancellor of West Germany Konrad] Adenauer called her up and invited her to lunch. She never had to grovel for an appointment."[34] Covering world leaders' speeches after World War II at the National Press Club was limited to men, by a Club rule. When women were eventually allowed in to hear the speeches, they still were not allowed to ask the speakers questions, although men were allowed and did ask, even though some of the women had won Pulitzer Prizes for prior work.[35]Times reporter Maggie Hunter refused to return to the Club after covering one speech on assignment.[36]Nan Robertson's article on the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, was read aloud as anonymous by a professor, who then said, "'It will come as a surprise to you, perhaps, that the reporter is a girl,' he began... [G]asps; amazement in the ranks. 'She had used all her senses, not just her eyes, to convey the smell and feel of the stockyards. She chose a difficult subject, an offensive subject. Her imagery was strong enough to revolt you.'"[37]The New York Times hired Kathleen McLaughlin after ten years at the Chicago Tribune, where "[s]he did a series on maids, going out herself to apply for housekeeping jobs."[38]
The Ochs-Sulzberger family, one of the United States' newspaper dynasties, has owned The New York Times since 1896.[12] After the publisher went public in the 1960s, the family continued to exert control through its ownership of the vast majority of Class B voting shares. Class A shareholders are permitted restrictive voting rights while Class B shareholders are allowed open voting rights. Dual-class structures caught on in the mid-20th century as families such as the Grahams of The Washington Post Company sought to gain access to public capital without losing control. Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, had a similar structure and was controlled by the Bancroft family; the company was later bought by the News Corporation in 2007.[39]
The Ochs-Sulzberger family trust controls roughly 88 percent of the company's class B shares. Any alteration to the dual-class structure must be ratified by six of eight directors who sit on the board of the Ochs-Sulzberger family trust. The Trust board members are Daniel H. Cohen, James M. Cohen, Lynn G. Dolnick, Susan W. Dryfoos, Michael Golden, Eric M. A. Lax, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. and Cathy J. Sulzberger.[40]
Turner Catledge, the top editor at The New York Times for almost two decades, wanted to hide the ownership influence. Sulzberger routinely wrote memos to his editor, each containing suggestions, instructions, complaints, and orders. When Catledge would receive these memos he would erase the publisher's identity before passing them to his subordinates. Catledge thought that if he removed the publisher's name from the memos it would protect reporters from feeling pressured by the owner.[41]
The newspaper is organized in three sections, including the magazine.
News: Includes International, National, Washington, Business, Technology, Science, Health, Sports, The Metro Section, Education, Weather, and Obituaries.
Some sections, such as Metro, are only found in the editions of the paper distributed in the New York–New Jersey–Connecticut Tri-State Area and not in the national or Washington, D.C. editions. Aside from a weekly roundup of reprints of editorial cartoons from other newspapers, The New York Times does not have its own staff editorial cartoonist, nor does it feature a comics page or Sunday comics section. In September 2008, The New York Times announced that it would be combining certain sections effective October 6, 2008, in editions printed in the New York metropolitan area. The changes folded the Metro Section into the main International / National news section and combined Sports and Business (except Saturday through Monday, when Sports is still printed as a standalone section). This change also included having the name of the Metro section be called New York outside of the Tri-State Area. The presses used by The New York Times allow four sections to be printed simultaneously; as the paper had included more than four sections all days except Saturday, the sections had to be printed separately in an early press run and collated together. The changes will allow The New York Times to print in four sections Monday through Wednesday, in addition to Saturday. The New York Times' announcement stated that the number of news pages and employee positions will remain unchanged, with the paper realizing cost savings by cutting overtime expenses.[42] According to Russ Stanton, editor of the Los Angeles Times, a competitor, the newsroom of The New York Times is twice the size of the Los Angeles Times, which currently has a newsroom of 600.[43]
When referring to people, The New York Times generally uses honorifics, rather than unadorned last names (except in the sports pages, Book Review and Magazine). It stayed with an eight-column format until September 1976, years after other papers had switched to six,[44] and it was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography, with the first color photograph on the front page appearing on October 16, 1997.[45] In the absence of a major headline, the day's most important story generally appears in the top-right hand column, on the main page. The typefaces used for the headlines are custom variations of Cheltenham. The running text is set at 8.7 pointImperial.[46]
Joining a roster of other major American newspapers in recent[when?] years, including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, The New York Times announced on July 18, 2006, that it would be narrowing the size of its paper by one and a half inches. In an era of dwindling circulation and significant advertising revenue losses for most print versions of American newspapers, the move, which was also announced would result in a 5 percent reduction in news coverage, would have a target savings of $12 million a year for the paper.[47] The change from the traditional 54-inches broadsheet style to a more compact 48-inch web width was addressed by both Executive Editor Bill Keller and The New York Times President Scott Heekin-Canedy in memos to the staff. Keller defended the "more reader-friendly" move indicating that in cutting out the "flabby or redundant prose in longer pieces" the reduction would make for a better paper. Similarly, Keller confronted the challenges of covering news with "less room" by proposing more "rigorous editing" and promised an ongoing commitment to "hard-hitting, ground-breaking journalism".[48] The official change went into effect on August 6, 2007.[49]
The New York Times printed a display advertisement on its first page on January 6, 2009, breaking tradition at the paper.[50] The advertisement for CBS was in color and was the entire width of the page.[51] The newspaper promised it would place first-page advertisements on only the lower half of the page.[50]
It maintains bureaus across a large platform of politically and socially important locations. The New York Times has established links regionally with 16 bureaus in New York State, nationally, with 11 bureaus within the United States, and globally, with 26 foreign news bureaus.
The recipient of 104 Pulitzer Prizes, The New York Times won three awards in the 2010 version of the proceedings. Sheri Fink was awarded the best investigative report; given for her piece on the reaction and dedication of a hospital after Hurricane Katrina. Michael Moss was recognised for his contribution to explanatory reporting and ensuing policy, given for his coverage of the trials experienced a young salmonella victim paralysed by E. coli. His article led to significant changes in federal regulation on the matter. Matt Richtel was also credited for his article on the dangerous effects of using a cellphone while driving.
The New York Times has had a strong presence on the Web since 1996, and has been ranked one of the top Web sites. Accessing some articles requires registration, though this could be bypassed in some cases through TimesRSS feeds.[52] The website had 555 million pageviews in March 2005.[53] The domain nytimes.com attracted at least 146 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com study. The New York Times Web site ranks 59th by number of unique visitors, with over 20 million unique visitors in March 2009 making it the most visited newspaper site with more than twice the number of unique visitors as the next most popular site.[54] Also, as of May 2009[update], nytimes.com produced 22 of the 50 most popular newspaper blogs.[55]
In September 2005, the paper decided to begin subscription-based service for daily columns in a program known as TimesSelect, which encompassed many previously free columns. Until being discontinued two years later, TimesSelect cost $7.95 per month or $49.95 per year,[56] though it was free for print copy subscribers and university students and faculty.[57][58] To work around this, bloggers often reposted TimesSelect material,[59] and at least one site once compiled links of reprinted material.[60] On September 17, 2007, The New York Times announced that it would stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight the following day, reflecting a growing view in the industry that subscription fees cannot outweigh the potential ad revenue from increased traffic on a free site.[61] In addition to opening almost the entire site to all readers, The New York Times news archives from 1987 to the present are available at no charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain.[62][63] Access to the Premium Crosswords section continues to require either home delivery or a subscription for $6.95 per month or $39.95 per year. Times columnists including Nicholas Kristof and Thomas Friedman had criticized TimesSelect,[64][65] with Friedman going so far as to say "I hate it. It pains me enormously because it's cut me off from a lot, a lot of people, especially because I have a lot of people reading me overseas, like in India ... I feel totally cut off from my audience."[66]
The newspaper's publisher announced on March 17, 2011, that starting on March 28, 2011 (March 17, 2011 for Canada), it would charge frequent readers for access to its online content.[8] "Visitors can enjoy 20 free articles (including blog posts, slide shows, video and other multimedia features) each calendar month on NYTimes.com, as well as unrestricted access to browse the home page, section fronts, blog fronts and classifieds."[67] The paywall and digital subscriptions started globally on March 28, 2011 (Canada on March 17), and cost from $15 to $35 per four weeks depending on the package selected.[68] Home delivery subscribers to the print edition of The New York Times or The International Herald Tribune receive full and free access to online content without any added charge.[69]
The New York Times was made available on the iPhone and iPod Touch in 2008,[70] and on the iPad mobile devices in 2010.[71]
The New York Times is also the first newspaper to offer a video game as part of its editorial content, Food Import Folly by Persuasive Games.[72]
reCAPTCHA is currently helping to digitize old editions of The New York Times.[73]
The Times Reader is a digital version of The New York Times. It was created via a collaboration between the newspaper and Microsoft. Times Reader takes the principles of print journalism and applies them to the technique of online reporting. Times Reader uses a series of technologies developed by Microsoft and their Windows Presentation Foundation team. It was announced in Seattle in April 2006 by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., Bill Gates, and Tom Bodkin. In 2009 the Times Reader 2.0 was rewritten in Adobe Air.[74]
In 2008, The New York Times created an app for the iPhone and iPod touch which allowed users to download articles to their mobile device enabling them to read the paper even when they were unable to receive a signal. In April 2010, The New York Times announced it will begin publishing daily content through an iPad app.[75] As of October 2010[update], The New York Times iPad app is ad-supported and available for free without a paid subscription, but will transition to a subscription-based model in 2011.[71]
In 2010, the New York Times also launched an App for Android smartphones.
Communication with its Russian readers is a special project of The New York Times launched in February 2008, guided by Clifford J. Levy. Some Times articles covering the broad spectrum of political and social topics in Russia are being translated into Russian and offered for the attention of Russia's bloggers in The New York Times community blog.[76] After that, selected responses of Russian bloggers are being translated into English and published at The New York Times site among comments from English readers.[77][78]
The newspaper's publisher announced on March 17, 2011, that starting on March 28, 2011 (March 17, 2011 for Canada), it would charge frequent readers for access to its online content.[8] Readers would be able to access up to 20 articles each month without charge. However any reader that wanted to access more would have to pay for a digital subscription. This plan would allow free access for occasional readers, but produce revenue from heavy readers. Depending on the package selected, digital subscriptions rates for four weeks range from $15 to $35. Subscribers to the print edition of the newspaper would get full access without any additional fee. Some content, such as the front page and the section fronts will remain free, as well as the Top News page on mobile apps.[79]
The NYTimes.com paywall, which reportedly required millions of dollars to design, was dismissed by some sources as "plain vanilla" and easily circumvented. Soon after it was announced, a Canadian developer announced the creation of a bookmarklet, NYTClean, featuring four lines of code that would allow unlimited access to the website. Subsequently, the New York Times threatened legal action on the grounds that the bookmarklet's name was a trademark violation.[80]
Due to strikes, the regular edition of The New York Times was not printed during the following periods:[81]
December 9, 1962 to March 31, 1963. Only a western edition was printed.
September 17, 1965 to October 10, 1965. An international edition was printed, and a weekend edition replaced the Saturday and Sunday papers.
August 10, 1978 to November 5, 1978. A multi-union strike shut down the three major New York City newspapers. No editions of The New York Times were printed. Two months into the strike, a parody of The New York Times called Not The New York Times was given out in New York, with contributors such as Carl Bernstein, Christopher Cerf, Tony Hendra and George Plimpton.
No editions were printed on January 2 of 1852–1853 and of 1862–1867. No editions were printed on July 5 of 1861–1865.
The New York Times has been variously described as having a liberal bias or described as being a liberal newspaper.[82][83]
According to a 2007 survey by Rasmussen Reports of public perceptions of major media outlets, 40% believe The New York Times has a liberal slant and 11% believe it has a conservative slant.[84] In December 2004 a University of California, Los Angeles study gave The New York Times a score of 73.7 on a 100 point scale, with 0 being most conservative and 100 being most liberal.[85] The validity of the study has been questioned by various organizations, including the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America.[86] In mid-2004, the newspaper's then public editor (ombudsman), Daniel Okrent, wrote a piece in which he concluded that The New York Times did have a liberal bias in coverage of certain social issues such as gay marriage. He stated that this bias reflected the paper's cosmopolitanism, which arose naturally from its roots as a hometown paper of New York City. Okrent did not comment at length on the issue of bias in coverage of "hard news", such as fiscal policy, foreign policy, or civil liberties, but did state that the paper's coverage of the Iraq war was insufficiently critical of the George W. Bush administration.[87]
Reporter Judith Miller retired after criticisms that her reporting of the lead-up to the Iraq War was factually inaccurate and overtly favorable to the Bush administration's position, for which The New York Times was forced to apologize.[88][89] One of Miller's prime sources was Ahmed Chalabi, who after the U.S. occupation became the interim oil minister of Iraq and is now head of the Iraqi Services Committee.[90] However, reporter Michael R. Gordon, who shared byline credit with Miller on some of the early Iraq stories, continues to report on military affairs for The New York Times[91]
The New York Times' public editor Clark Hoyt concluded in his January 10, 2009, column, "Though the most vociferous supporters of Israel and the Palestinians do not agree, I think The New York Times, largely barred from the battlefield and reporting amid the chaos of war, has tried its best to do a fair, balanced and complete job — and has largely succeeded." [96]
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a progressive media criticism organization, has accused The New York Times of following the "Reagan administration's PR strategy" in the 1980s by "emphasizing repressive measures in Nicaragua [by the leftist Sandinista government] and downplaying or ignoring more serious human rights abuses elsewhere in Central America" (namely in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, countries with governments backed by the Reagan administration).[97]
On November 14, 2001, in The New York Times' 150th anniversary issue, former executive editor Max Frankel wrote that before and during World War II, the Times had maintained a consistent policy to minimize reports on the Holocaust in their news pages.[98]Laurel Leff, associate professor of journalism at Northeastern University, concluded that the newspaper had downplayed the Third Reich targeting of Jews for genocide. Her 2005 book "Buried by the Times" documents the NYT's tendency before, during and after World War II to place deep inside its daily editions the news stories about the ongoing persecution and extermination of Jews, while obscuring in those stories the special impact of the Nazis' crimes on Jews in particular. Professor Leff attributes this dearth in part to the complex personal and political views of the newspaper's Jewish publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, concerning jewishness, anti-semitism, and zionism.[99]
In May 2003, Times reporter Jayson Blair was forced to resign from the newspaper after he was caught plagiarizing and fabricating elements of his stories. Some critics contended that Blair's race was a major factor in The New York Times' initial reluctance to fire him.[104]
Suzanne Smalley of Newsweek criticized The Times for its "credulous"[105] coverage of the charges of rape against Duke lacrosse players. Stuart Taylor, Jr. and KC Johnson, in their book Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, write: "at the head of the guilt-presuming pack, The New York Times vied in a race to the journalistic bottom with trash-TV talk shows."[106]
In the mid to late 1950s, "fashion writer[s]... were required to come up every month with articles whose total column-inches reflected the relative advertising strength of every ["department" or "specialty"] store ["assigned" to a writer]... The monitor of all this was... the advertising director [of the Times]... " However, within this requirement, story ideas may have been the reporters' and editors' own.[107]
In February 2009, a Village Voice music blogger accused the newspaper of using "chintzy, ad-hominem allegations" in an article on British Tamil music artist M.I.A. concerning her activism against the Sinhala-Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka.[108][109] M.I.A. criticized the paper in January 2010 after a travel piece rated post-conflict Sri Lanka the "#1 place to go in 2010".[110][111] In June 2010, The New York Times Magazine published a correction on its cover article of M.I.A., acknowledging that the interview conducted by current W editor and then Times Magazine contributor Lynn Hirschberg contained a recontextualization of two quotes.[112][113] In response to the piece, M.I.A. broadcasted Hirschberg's phone number and secret audio recordings from the interview via her Twitter and website.[114][115]
Wikipedia is written collaboratively by largely anonymous Internet volunteers who write without pay. Anyone with Internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles (except in certain cases where editing is restricted to prevent disruption or vandalism). Users can contribute anonymously, under a pseudonym, or with their real identity, if they choose.
The fundamental principles by which Wikipedia operates are the Five pillars. The Wikipedia community has developed many policies and guidelines to improve the encyclopedia; however, it is not a formal requirement to be familiar with them before contributing.
Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference websites, attracting 400 million unique visitors monthly as of March 2011 according to ComScore[1]. There are more than 82,000 active contributors working on more than 17,000,000 articles in more than 270 languages. As of today, there are 3,676,678 articles in English. Every day, hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world collectively make tens of thousands of edits and create thousands of new articles to augment the knowledge held by the Wikipedia encyclopedia (see also Wikipedia:Statistics.)
People of all ages, cultures and backgrounds can add or edit article prose, references, images and other media here. What is contributed is more important than the expertise or qualifications of the contributor. What will remain depends upon whether it fits within Wikipedia's policies, including being verifiable against a published reliable source, so excluding editors' opinions and beliefs and unreviewed research, and is free of copyright restrictions and contentious material about living people. Contributions cannot damage Wikipedia because the software allows easy reversal of mistakes and many experienced editors are watching to help and ensure that edits are cumulative improvements. Begin by simply clicking the editlink at the top of any editable page!
Wikipedia is a live collaboration differing from paper-based reference sources in important ways. Unlike printed encyclopedias, Wikipedia is continually created and updated, with articles on historic events appearing within minutes, rather than months or years. Older articles tend to grow more comprehensive and balanced; newer articles may contain misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism. Awareness of this aids obtaining valid information and avoiding recently added misinformation (see Researching with Wikipedia).
The wikipedia.org website, Wikipedia's homepage for all languages
Wikipedia was founded as an offshoot of Nupedia, a now-abandoned project to produce a free encyclopedia. Nupedia had an elaborate system of peer review and required highly qualified contributors, but the writing of articles was slow. During 2000, Jimmy Wales, founder of Nupedia, and Larry Sanger, whom Wales had employed to work on the project, discussed ways of supplementing Nupedia with a more open, complementary project. Multiple sources suggested the idea that a wiki might allow members of the public to contribute material, and Nupedia's first wiki went online on January 10, 2001.
There was considerable resistance on the part of Nupedia's editors and reviewers to the idea of associating Nupedia with a website in the wiki format, so the new project was given the name "Wikipedia" and launched on its own domain, wikipedia.com, on January 15 (now called "Wikipedia Day" by some users). The bandwidth and server (in San Diego) were donated by Wales. Other current and past Bomis employees who have worked on the project include Tim Shell, one of the cofounders of Bomis and its current CEO, and programmer Jason Richey. The domain was eventually changed to the present wikipedia.org when the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation was launched as its new parent organization, prompting the use of a ".org" domain to denote its non-commercial nature.
Most of Wikipedia's text and many of its images are dual-licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA) and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts). Some text has been imported only under CC-BY-SA and CC-BY-SA-compatible license and cannot be reused under GFDL; such text will be identified either on the page footer, in the page history or on the discussion page of the article that utilizes the text. Every image has a description page which indicates the license under which it is released or, if it is non-free, the rationale under which it is used.
Contributions remain the property of their creators, while the CC-BY-SA and GFDL licenses ensure the content is freely distributable and reproducible. (See the copyright notice and the content disclaimer for more information.)
Anyone with Web access can edit Wikipedia, and this openness encourages inclusion of a tremendous amount of content. About 91,000 editors—from expert scholars to casual readers—regularly edit Wikipedia, and these experienced editors often help to create a consistent style throughout the encyclopedia, following our Manual of Style.
Several mechanisms are in place to help Wikipedia members carry out the important work of crafting a high-quality resource while maintaining civility. Editors are able to watch pages and techies can write editing programs to keep track of or rectify bad edits. Where there are disagreements on how to present facts, editors work together to arrive at an article that fairly represents current expert opinion on the subject.
Although the Wikimedia Foundation owns the site, it is largely uninvolved in writing and daily operations.
Credits
Text on Wikipedia is a collaborative work, and the efforts of individual contributors to a page are recorded in that page's history, which is publicly viewable. See Help:Page history. Information on the authorship of images and other media, such as sound files, can be found by clicking on the image itself or the nearby information icon. The file page for the image or media will be displayed and it includes the author and source, where appropriate, along with other information. See Help:File page.
Many visitors come to Wikipedia to acquire knowledge, others to share knowledge. At this very instant, dozens of articles are being improved, and new articles are also being created. Changes can be viewed at the Recent changes page and a random page at random articles. Over 2,000 articles have been designated by the Wikipedia community as featured articles, exemplifying the best articles in the encyclopedia. Another 7,000 articles are designated as good articles. Some information on Wikipedia is organized into lists; the best of these are designated as featured lists. Wikipedia also has portals, which organize content around topic areas; our best portals are selected as featured portals. Articles can be found using the search box on the top-right side of the screen.
Wikipedia is available in languages other than English. Wikipedia has more than two hundred languages (see other language versions), including a Simple English version, and related projects include a dictionary, quotations, books, manuals, and scientific reference sources, and a news service (see sister projects). All of these are maintained, updated, and managed by separate communities, and often include information and articles that can be hard to find through other common sources.
Wikipedia articles are all linked, or cross-referenced. When highlighted text like this is seen, it means there is a link to some relevant article or Wikipedia page with further in-depth information elsewhere. Holding the mouse over the link will often show to where the link will lead. The reader is always one click away from more information on any point that has a link attached. There are other links towards the ends of most articles, for other articles of interest, relevant external websites and pages, reference material, and organized categories of knowledge which can be searched and traversed in a loose hierarchy for more information. Some articles may also have links to dictionary definitions, audio-book readings, quotations, the same article in other languages, and further information available on our sister projects. Further links can be added if a relevant link is missing, and this is one way to contribute.
As wiki documents, articles are never considered complete and may be continually edited and improved. Over time, this generally results in an upward trend of quality and a growing consensus over a neutral representation of information.
Users should be aware that not all articles are of encyclopedic quality from the start: they may contain false or debatable information. Indeed, many articles start their lives as displaying a single viewpoint; and, after a long process of discussion, debate, and argument, they gradually take on a neutral point of view reached through consensus. Others may, for a while, become caught up in a heavily unbalanced viewpoint which can take some time—months perhaps—to achieve better balanced coverage of their subject. In part, this is because editors often contribute content in which they have a particular interest and do not attempt to make each article that they edit comprehensive. However, eventually, additional editors expand and contribute to articles and strive to achieve balance and comprehensive coverage. In addition, Wikipedia operates a number of internal resolution processes that can assist when editors disagree on content and approach. Usually, editors eventually reach a consensus on ways to improve the article.
The ideal Wikipedia article is well-written, balanced, neutral, and encyclopedic, containing comprehensive, notable, verifiable knowledge. An increasing number of articles reach this standard over time, and many already have. Our best articles are called Featured Articles (and display a small star in the upper right corner of the article), and our second best tier of articles are designated Good Articles. However, this is a process and can take months or years to be achieved, as each user adds their contribution in turn. Some articles contain statements which have not yet been fully cited. Others will later be augmented with new sections. Some information will be considered by later contributors to be insufficiently founded and, therefore, may be removed or expunged.
While the overall trend is toward improvement, it is important to use Wikipedia carefully if it is intended to be used as a research source, since individual articles will, by their nature, vary in quality and maturity. Guidelines and information pages are available to help users and researchers do this effectively, as is an article that summarizes third-party studies and assessments of the reliability of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia has advantages over traditional paper encyclopedias. Wikipedia has a very low "publishing" cost for adding or expanding entries and a low environmental impact in some respects, since it never needs to be printed, although computers have their own environmental cost. In addition, Wikipedia has wikilinks instead of in-line explanations and it incorporates overview summaries (article introductions) with the extensive detail of full articles. Additionally, the editorial cycle is short. A paper encyclopedia stays the same until the next edition, whereas editors can update Wikipedia at any instant, around the clock, to help ensure that articles stay abreast of the most recent events and scholarship.
Strengths, weaknesses, and article quality in Wikipedia
Wikipedia's greatest strengths, weaknesses, and differences all arise because it is open to anyone, it has a large contributor base, and its articles are written by consensus, according to editorial guidelines and policies.
Wikipedia is open to a large contributor base, drawing a large number of editors from diverse backgrounds. This allows Wikipedia to significantly reduce regional and cultural bias found in many other publications, and makes it very difficult for any group to censor and impose bias. A large, diverse editor base also provides access and breadth on subject matter that is otherwise inaccessible or little documented. A large number of editors contributing at any moment also means that Wikipedia can produce encyclopedic articles and resources covering newsworthy events within hours or days of their occurrence. It also means that like any publication, Wikipedia may reflect the cultural, age, socio-economic, and other biases of its contributors. There is no systematic process to make sure that "obviously important" topics are written about, so Wikipedia may contain unexpected oversights and omissions. While most articles may be altered by anyone, in practice editing will be performed by a certain demographic (younger rather than older, male rather than female, rich enough to afford a computer rather than poor, et cetera) and may, therefore, show some bias. Some topics may not be covered well, while others may be covered in great depth.
Allowing anyone to edit Wikipedia means that it is more easily vandalized or susceptible to unchecked information, which requires removal. See Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. While blatant vandalism is usually easily spotted and rapidly corrected, Wikipedia is more subject to subtle viewpoint promotion than a typical reference work. However, bias that would be unchallenged in a traditional reference work is likely to be ultimately challenged or considered on Wikipedia. While Wikipedia articles generally attain a good standard after editing, it is important to note that fledgling articles and those monitored less well may be susceptible to vandalism and insertion of false information. Wikipedia's radical openness also means that any given article may be, at any given moment, in a bad state, such as in the middle of a large edit, or a controversial rewrite. Many contributors do not yet comply fully with key policies, or may add information without citable sources. Wikipedia's open approach tremendously increases the chances that any particular factual error or misleading statement will be relatively promptly corrected. Numerous editors at any given time are monitoring recent changes and edits to articles on their watchlist.
Wikipedia is written by open and transparent consensus—an approach that has its pros and cons. Censorship or imposing "official" points of view is extremely difficult to achieve and usually fails after a time. Eventually for most articles, all notable views become fairly described and a neutral point of view reached. In reality, the process of reaching consensus may be long and drawn-out, with articles fluid or changeable for a long time while they find their "neutral approach" that all sides can agree on. Reaching neutrality is occasionally made harder by extreme-viewpoint contributors. Wikipedia operates a full editorial dispute resolution process, one that allows time for discussion and resolution in depth, but one that also permits disagreements to last for months before poor-quality or biased edits are removed. A common conclusion is that Wikipedia is a valuable resource and provides a good reference point on its subjects.
That said, articles and subject areas sometimes suffer from significant omissions, and while misinformation and vandalism are usually corrected quickly, this does not always happen. (See for example this incident in which a person inserted a fake biography linking a prominent journalist to the Kennedy assassinations and Soviet Russia as a joke on a co-worker which went undetected for four months, saying afterwards he "didn’t know Wikipedia was used as a serious reference tool.")
Wikipedia is written largely by amateurs. Those with expert credentials are given no additional weight. Some experts contend that expert credentials are given less weight than contributions by amateurs. Wikipedia is also not subject to any peer review for scientific or medical or engineering articles. One advantage to having amateurs write in Wikipedia is that they have more free time on their hands so that they can make rapid changes in response to current events. The wider the general public interest in a topic, the more likely it is to attract contributions from non-specialists.
The MediaWiki software that runs Wikipedia retains a history of all edits and changes, thus information added to Wikipedia never "vanishes". Discussion pages are an important resource on contentious topics. Therefore, serious researchers can often find a wide range of vigorously or thoughtfully advocated viewpoints not present in the consensus article. As with any source, information should be checked. A 2005 editorial by a BBCtechnology writer comments that these debates are probably symptomatic of cultural changes that are happening across all sources of information (including search engines and the media), and may lead to "a better sense of how to evaluate information sources."[4]
Wikipedia disclaimers apply to all pages on Wikipedia. However, the consensus in Wikipedia is to put all disclaimers only as links and at the bottom of each article. Proposals to have a warning box at the top have been rejected. Some do not like the way it looks or that it calls attention to possible errors in Wikipedia.
Wikipedia, in common with many websites, has a disclaimer that, at times, has led to commentators citing these in order to support a view that Wikipedia is unreliable. A selection of similar disclaimers from places which are often regarded as reliable (including sources such as Encyclopædia Britannica, Associated Press, and the Oxford English Dictionary) can be read and compared at Non-Wikipedia disclaimers. Wikipedia content advisories can also be found here.
Anyone can contribute to Wikipedia by clicking on the Edit this page tab in an article. Before beginning to contribute, however, read some handy helping tools such as the tutorial and the policies and guidelines, as well as our welcome page. It is important to realize that in contributing to Wikipedia, users are expected to be civil and neutral, respecting all points of view, and only add verifiable and factual information rather than personal views and opinions. "The five pillars of Wikipedia" cover this approach and are recommended reading before editing. (Vandals are reported via the Administrator Notice Board and may be temporarily blocked from editing Wikipedia.)
Most articles start as stubs, but after many contributions, they can become featured articles. Once the contributor has decided a topic of interest, they may want to request that the article be written (or they could research the issue and write it themselves). Wikipedia has on-going projects, focused on specific topic areas or tasks, which help coordinate editing.
The ease of editing Wikipedia results in many people editing. That makes the updating of the encyclopedia very quick, almost as fast as news websites.
Wikipedia uses a simple yet powerful page layout to allow editors to concentrate on adding material rather than page design. These include automatic sections and subsections, automatic references and cross-references, image and table inclusion, indented and listed text, links, ISBNs, and math, as well as usual formatting elements and most world alphabets and common symbols. Most of these have simple formats that are deliberately very easy and intuitive.
The page layout consists of tabs along the top of the window. These are:
Article. Shows the main Wikipedia article.
Discussion. Shows a user discussion about the article's topic and possible revisions, controversies, etc.
Edit. This tab allows users to edit the article. Depending on the page’s susceptibility to vandalism, according to its visibility or the degree of controversy surrounding the topic, this tab may not be shown for all users. (For example, any user who is not an administrator will not be able to edit the Main Page).
View history. This tab allows readers to view the editors of the article and the changes that have been made.
Star. ("Watch") If you are logged in to your account, clicking on the star icon will cause any changes made to the article to be displayed on the watchlist. (Note: when this icon is clicked, it changes to a filled-in star.)
Wikipedia has robust version and reversion controls. This means that poor-quality edits or vandalism can quickly and easily be reversed or brought up to an appropriate standard by any other editor, so inexperienced editors cannot accidentally do permanent harm if they make a mistake in their editing. As there are many more editors intent on improving articles than not, error-ridden articles are usually corrected promptly.
Wikipedia:No original research, which prohibits the use of Wikipedia to publish personal views and original research of editors and defines Wikipedia's role as an encyclopedia of existing recognized knowledge;
Wikipedia:Verifiability, which explains that it must be possible for readers to verify all content against credible external sources (following the guidance in the Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer that is linked-to at the bottom of every article);
Wikipedia:Citing sources, which describes the manner of citing sources so that readers can verify content for themselves; and
Wikipedia:Manual of Style, which offers a style guide—in general editors tend to acquire knowledge of appropriate writing styles and detailed formatting over time.
The Wikipedia community is largely self-organising, so that anyone may build a reputation as a competent editor and become involved in any role he/she may choose, subject to peer approval. Individuals often will choose to become involved in specialised tasks, such as reviewing articles at others' request, watching current edits for vandalism, watching newly created articles for quality control purposes, or similar roles. Editors who believe they can serve the community better by taking on additional administrative responsibility may ask their peers for agreement to undertake such responsibilities. This structure enforces meritocracy and communal standards of editorship and conduct. At present a minimum approval of 75–80% from the community is required to take on these additional tools and responsibilities. This standard tends to ensure a high level of experience, trust, and familiarity across a broad front of aspects within Wikipedia.
A variety of software-assisted systems and automated programs help editors and administrators to watch for problematic edits and editors. Theoretically all editors and users are treated equally with no "power structure". There is, however a hierarchy of permissions and positions, some of which are listed below:
Anyone can edit most of the articles here. Some articles are protected due to vandalism or edit-warring, and can only be edited by certain editors.
Anyone with an account that has been registered for four days or longer and made ten edits becomes Autoconfirmed, and gains the technical ability to do three things that non-autoconfirmed editors cannot:
Move articles.
Edit semi-protected articles.
Vote in certain elections (minimum edit count to receive suffrage varies depending on the election).
Many editors with accounts obtain access to certain tools that make editing easier and faster. Few editors learn about most of those tools, but one common privilege granted to editors in good standing is "rollback", which is the ability to undo edits more easily.
Administrators ("admins" or "sysops") have been approved by the community, and have access to some significant administrative tools. They can delete articles, block accounts or IP addresses, and edit fully protected articles.
Bureaucrats are chosen in a process similar to that for selecting administrators. There are not very many bureaucrats. They have the technical ability to add or remove admin rights, approve or revoke "bot" privileges, and rename user accounts.
The Arbitration Committee is kind of like Wikipedia's supreme court. They deal with disputes that remain unresolved after other attempts at dispute resolution have failed. Members of this Committee are elected by the community and tend to be selected from among the pool of experienced admins.
Stewards are the top echelon of technical permissions, other than the Wikimedia Board of Directors. Stewards can do a few technical things, and one almost never hears much about them since they normally only act when a local admin or bureaucrat is not available, and hence almost never on the English Wikipedia. There are very few stewards.
Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, has several special roles and privileges. In most instances however, he does not expect to be treated differently than any other editor or administrator.
Unresolved disputes between editors, whether based upon behavior, editorial approach, or validity of content, can be addressed through the talk page of an article, through requesting comments from other editors or through Wikipedia's comprehensive dispute resolution process.
Abuse of user accounts, such as the creation of "Internet sock puppets" or solicitation of friends and other parties to enforce a non-neutral viewpoint or inappropriate consensus within a discussion, or to disrupt other Wikipedia processes in an annoying manner, are addressed through the sock puppet policy.
In addition, brand new users (until they have established themselves a bit) may at the start find that their votes are given less weight by editors in some informal polls, in order to prevent abuse of single-purpose accounts.
Editorial quality review
As well as systems to catch and control substandard and vandalistic edits, Wikipedia also has a full style and content manual and a variety of positive systems for continual article review and improvement. Examples of the processes include peer review, good article assessment, and the featured article process, a rigorous review of articles that are intended to meet the highest standards and showcase Wikipedia's capability to produce high-quality work.
In addition, specific types of article or fields often have their own specialized and comprehensive projects, assessment processes (such as biographical article assessment), and expert reviewers within specific subjects. Nominated articles are also frequently the subject of specific focus under projects such as the Neutrality Project or are covered under editorial drives by groups such as the Cleanup Taskforce.
Technical attributes
Wikipedia uses MediaWiki software, the open-source program used not only on Wikimedia projects but also on many other third-party websites. The hardware supporting the Wikimedia projects is based on several hundred servers in various hosting centers around the world. Full descriptions of these servers and their roles are available on this meta page. For technical information about Wikipedia, check Technical FAQs. Wikipedia publishes various types of metadata; and, across its pages, are many thousands of microformats.
Wikipedia does not place cookies or other tracking software on users' computers[5] except for cookies associated with logging into a Wikimedia account, including for the English Wikipedia.[6]
Feedback and questions
Wikipedia is run as a communal effort. It is a community project whose result is an encyclopedia. Feedback about content should, in the first instance, be raised on the discussion pages of those articles. Be bold and edit the pages to add information or correct mistakes.
Because of the nature of Wikipedia, it is encouraged that people looking for information should try to find it themselves in the first instance. If, however, information is found to be missing from Wikipedia, be bold and add it so others can gain.
Community discussion
For specific discussion not related to article content or editor conduct, see the Village pump, which covers such subjects as announcements, policy and technical discussion, and information on other specialized portals such as the help, reference and peer review desks. The Community Portal is a centralized place to find things to do, collaborations, and general editing help information, and find out what is happening.
Contacting individual Wikipedia editors
For more information, the first place to go is the Help:Contents. To contact individual contributors, leave a message on their talk page. Standard places to ask policy and project-related questions are the Village Pump, online, and the Wikipedia mailing lists, over e-mail. Reach other Wikipedians via IRC and e-mail.
In addition, the Wikimedia Foundation meta-wiki, a site for coordinating the various Wikipedia projects and sister projects (and abstract discussions of policy and direction). Also available are places for submitting bug reports and feature requests.
This Wikipedia is written in English. Started in 2001 (2001), it currently contains 3,676,678 articles. Many other Wikipedias are available; some of the largest are listed below.
Please note that while other sites may also use MediaWiki software and therefore look similar to Wikipedia, or may have a name that includes 'Wiki-' or '-pedia', or a similar domain name, the only projects which are part of the Wikimedia Foundation are those listed above and Wikipedia, even if other projects claim to be part of it.
^ Angwin, Julia, The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets: What They Know (a Wall St. J. Investigation) (1st in ser.), in The Wall Street Journal., § Weekend Journal, Jul. 31–Aug. 1, 2010 (4-star ed.), p. W1, col. 2 (test of popular websites including Wikipedia found no tracking software was installed by Wikipedia).
Science, in the broadest sense of the term, refers to any system of knowledge attained by verifiable means. In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on empiricism, experimentation, and methodological naturalism, as well as to the organized body of knowledge humans have gained by such qualified research.
Scientists maintain that scientific investigation must adhere to the scientific method, a rigorous process for properly developing and evaluating natural explanations for observable phenomena based on reliable empirical evidence and neutral, unbiased independent verification, and not on arguments from authority or popular preferences. Science therefore bypasses supernatural explanations; it instead only considers natural explanations that may be falsifiable.
Fields of science are distinguished as pure science or applied science. Pure science is principally involved with the discovery of new truths with little or no regard to their practical applications. Applied science is principally involved with the application of existing knowledge in new ways, including advances in technology.
Plate tectonics (from Greek τέκτων, tektōn "builder" or "mason") is a theory of geology which was developed to explain the observed evidence for large scale motions within the Earth's crust. The theory encompassed and superseded the older theory of continental drift from the first half of the 20th century and the concept of sea floor spreading developed during the 1960s.
The outermost part of the Earth's interior is made up of two layers: above is the lithosphere, comprising the crust and the rigid uppermost part of the mantle. Below the lithosphere lies the asthenosphere, which is a more viscous zone of the mantle. Although solid, the asthenosphere has very low shear strength and can flow like a liquid on geological time scales. The deeper mantle below the asthenosphere is more rigid again.
Wake turbulence, also known as "jetwash", is turbulence that forms behind an aircraft as it passes through the air. This turbulence can be especially hazardous during the landing and take off phases of flight, where an aircraft's proximity to the ground makes a timely recovery from turbulence-induced problems unlikely. Wingtip vortices make up the primary and most dangerous component of wake turbulence, but normal wake effects are also an important part. A method of reducing wingtip vortices employs the use of winglets.
Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italianphysicist, astronomer, and philosopher who is closely associated with the scientific revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope, a variety of astronomical observations, the first and second laws of motion, and effective support for Copernicanism. According to Stephen Hawking, Galileo has probably contributed more to the creation of the modern natural sciences than anybody else. He has been referred to as the "father of modern astronomy," as the "father of modern physics," and as the "father of science." The work of Galileo is considered to be a significant break from that of Aristotle.
...that in recent years Mediterranean alcoholic beverages (pictured) have been subject of intense scientific study?
...that the supermassive black hole at the center of the quasar OJ287 has been measured as weighing 18 billion times the mass of the Sun, six times heavier than the previous record holder?
...that for a pure wave motion in fluid dynamics, the Stokes drift velocity is the average velocity when following a specific fluid parcel as it travels with the fluid flow?
Otto von Habsburg[1] (Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xavier Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius von Habsburg;[2] 20 November 1912 – 4 July 2011[3][4]), also known by his royal name as Archduke Otto of Austria, was the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary from 1916 until the dissolution of the empire in 1918, a realm which comprised modern-day Austria, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, and parts of Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine. He remained the Crown Prince of Hungary until 1921. He was the head of the House of Habsburg between 1922 and 2011, and at the same time, the Habsburg pretender to the former thrones.
The eldest son of Charles I, the last Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, and his wife, Zita of Bourbon-Parma, Otto was born as third in line to the thrones, as His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke and Prince Imperial Otto of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia. With his father's ascent to the thrones in 1916, he was himself likely to become the Emperor. As his father never abdicated, Otto was considered by himself, his family and Austro-Hungarian legitimists to be the rightful Emperor-King from 1922.[5]
Otto was active on the Austrian and European political stage from the 1930s, both by promoting the cause of Habsburg restoration as well as an early proponent of European integration and a fierce opponent of Nazism and communism.[3][6] He continued to enjoy considerable public support in many countries of the former Austria-Hungary; from 1931 to 1938, 1,603 Austrian municipalities named Otto an honorary citizen. He was Vice President (1957–1973) and President (1973–2004) of the International Paneuropean Union, and served as a Member of the European Parliament for the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU) 1979–1999. In 1961, Francisco Franco offered him the crown of Spain, but he declined on account of the Habsburg dynasty's long absence from the Spanish throne, and recommended Juan Carlos.[7] Otto von Habsburg played a central role in the revolutions of 1989, as a co-initiator of the Pan-European Picnic.
Otto was exiled in 1918 and grew up mostly in Spain. His devout Catholic mother raised him according to the old curriculum of Austria-Hungary, preparing him to become a Catholicmonarch. During his life in exile, he lived in Switzerland, Madeira, Spain, Belgium, France, the United States, and from 1954 until his death, finally in Bavaria (Germany), in the residence Villa Austria. At the time of his death, he was a citizen of Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Croatia, having earlier been statelessde jure and de facto and possessed passports of Monaco, the Order of Malta, and Spain.
In November 1916, Otto became Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia when his father, Archduke Charles, ascended to the throne. However, in 1918, at the end of the First World War, the monarchies were abolished, the Republics of Austria and Hungary founded instead, and the family was forced into exile. Hungary did become a kingdom again, but Charles was never to reascend the throne. Instead, Miklós Horthy ruled as regent until 1944, in a kingdom without a king.
He spoke German, Hungarian, Croatian, English, Spanish, French, and Latin fluently. In later life, he would write books in German, Hungarian, French, and Spanish.[9] His mother made him learn many languages because she believed he one day might rule over many lands.[10]
Otto's family spent the subsequent years in Switzerland, on the Portuguese island of Madeira, where Charles died prematurely in 1922, leaving the 9-year-old Otto pretender to the throne. On his father's deathbed, his mother told the 9-year old, "your father is now sleeping the eternal sleep—you are now Emperor and King".[11] The family eventually relocated to the Basque town of Lekeitio, where 40 Spanish grandees bought them a villa. Meanwhile, the Austrian parliament had officially expelled the Habsburg dynasty and confiscated all the official property (Habsburg Law of 3 April 1919).
Otto von Habsburg (left) and Count von Degenfeld in 1933.
In 1935, he graduated with a doctorate from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, having studied social and political sciences.[12] From his father's death throughout the remainder of his time in exile, Otto considered himself the rightful emperor of Austria and stated this on many occasions. In 1937 he wrote,[13]
“I know very well that the overwhelming majority of the Austrian population would like me to assume the heritage of the peace emperor, my beloved father, rather earlier than later. (...) The [Austrian] people have never cast a vote in favor of the republic. They have remained silent as long as they were exhausted from the long fight, and taken by surprise by the audacity of the revolutionaries of 1918 and 1919. They shook off their resignation when they realized that the revolution had raped their right to life and freedom. (...) Such trust places a heavy burden on me. I accept it readily. God willing, the hour of reunion between the Duke and the people will arrive soon.”
Otto strongly opposed the Anschluss of Austria to Nazi Germany. In 1938 he requested Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg to resist the Nazis and supported an international intervention,[6] and offered to return from exile to take over the reins of government in order to repel Hitler.[14] According to Gerald Warner, "Austrian Jews were among the strongest supporters of a Habsburg restoration, since they believed the dynasty would give the nation sufficient resolve to stand up to the Third Reich".[15]
Following the German annexation of Austria, Otto was sentenced to death by the Nazis.[2] As ordered by Adolf Hitler, his personal property and that of the House of Habsburg were confiscated and not given back after the war.[16][17] The leaders of the Austrian legitimist movement, i.e. supporters of Otto, were arrested by the Nazis and largely executed.[16] Between 1938 and 1942, around 4,000–4,500 Austrian monarchists were arrested and around 1,000 murdered by the Nazis.[16] Otto's cousins Max, Duke of Hohenberg, and Prince Ernst of Hohenberg were arrested in Vienna by the Gestapo and sent to Dachau concentration camp where they remained throughout the Nazi rule. Otto was involved in helping around 15,000 Austrians,[18] including thousands of Austrian Jews, flee the country at the beginning of the Second World War.[12]
Rudolf Hess ordered that Otto was to be executed immediately if caught.[16] After the German invasion of France the family left the French capital and fled to Portugal with a visa issued by Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux. From 1940 to 1944 he lived in Washington, D.C. In his war-time exile in the United States, he worked to stop or limit the bombing campaign against Austria.[18] In the United States, he initiated the Austrian Day and was able to get Austria included in a postage stamp series on "Occupied Nations". He obtained the support of Winston Churchill for a conservative "Danube Federation", in effect a restoration of Austria-Hungary, but Stalin put an end to these plans.[14]
In 1941, Adolf Hitler personally revoked the citizenship of Otto, his mother, and his siblings, and the imperial-royal family found themselves stateless.[19]
At the end of the war, Otto returned to Europe and lived for some years in France and Spain.
In 1949, he ennobled several people, granting them Austrian noble titles, although not recognized by the Austrian republic. As he did not possess a passport and was effectively stateless, he was given a passport of the Principality of Monaco, thanks to the intervention of Charles de Gaulle in 1946. As a Knight of Malta, the Order also issued him a passport. Later, he was given a Spanish diplomatic passport, which he used for travels.
Only in 1965, Otto was recognized as an Austrian citizen by the Lower Austrian state government—and Adolf Hitler's revocation of his citizenship was finally revoked. Otto was given an Austrian passport that was "valid in all countries except Austria".[16]
On multiple occasions, and as late as the 1960s, the Austrian police would be looking for Otto, suspecting that the "enemy of the republic" had entered the country.
In a declaration dated 31 May 1961, Otto renounced all claims to the Austrian throne and proclaimed himself "a loyal citizen of the republic", a move that he made only after much hesitation and certainly "for purely practical reasons".[20] In a 2007 interview on the occasion of his approaching 95th birthday, Otto stated:
"This was such an infamy, I'd rather never have signed it. They demanded that I abstain from politics. I would not have dreamed of complying. Once you have tasted the opium of politics, you never get rid of it."[21]
The Habsburg Law of 1918 stated that Charles' descendants could only return to Austria if they renounced their royal claims and accepted the status of private citizens. The Austrian administrative court found on 24 May 1963 that Otto's statement was sufficient to meet this requirement. However, several elements in the country, particularly the Socialists, were ill-disposed to welcoming back the heir of the deposed dynasty. This touched off political infighting and civil unrest that almost precipitated a crisis of state, and later became known as the "Habsburg Crisis." It was only on 1 June 1966—after the People's Party won an outright majority in the national election—that Otto was issued an Austrian passport, and was finally able to visit his home country again on 31 October 1966 for the first time in 48 years.[22]
An early advocate of a unified Europe, Otto was president of the International Paneuropean Union from 1973 to 2004.[23] He served from 1979 till 1999 as a Member of the European Parliament for the conservative BavarianCSU party, becoming the senior member of the supranational body. He was also a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.[24] He was a major supporter of the expansion of the European Union from the beginning and especially of the acceptance of Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia. During his time in parliament, he was involved in a fracas initiated by fellow MEPIan Paisley[25]. Pope John Paul II had given a speech to the European Parliament in 1988, and Protestant Paisley shouted at the Pope, "I denounce you as the Antichrist!", holding a poster reading "Pope John Paul II Antichrist". Otto snatched Paisley’s banner and, along with other MEPs, helped eject Paisley from the chamber.[26][27])
Otto was one of the men instrumental in organising the so called Pan-European Picnic, at the Hungary-Austria border on 19 August 1989.[3] This event is considered a milestone in the collapse of communist dictatorships in Europe.[28]
In December 2006, he observed that, "The catastrophe of 11 September 2001 struck the United States more profoundly than any of us, whence a certain mutual incomprehension. Until then, the United States felt itself secure, persuaded of its power to bombard any enemy, without anyone being able to strike back. That sentiment vanished in an instant... Americans understand 'viscerally' for the first time the risks they face."[29]
After the death of his wife, Regina in 2010, Otto stopped appearing in public. He died at the age of 98 on Monday, 4 July 2011, at his home in Pöcking, Germany. His spokeswoman reported that he died "peacefully and without pain in his sleep". He was survived by his younger brother, Felix, as well as 7 children, 22 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.[3][5]
On 5 July, his body was laid in repose in the Church of St. Ulrich near his home in Pöcking, Bavaria, and a massive 13-day period of mourning started in several countries formerly part of Austria-Hungary.[32] The Habsburg imperial flag in black–yellow and decorated with the imperial–royal coats of arms of Austria and Hungary in addition to the Habsburg family coat of arms was laid over his body. His remains will be transferred to the Catholic pilgrimage town of Mariazell on 12 July,[32] before he will be transferred to Vienna, where his funeral is scheduled to take place on 16 July.[33] In line with the Habsburg family tradition, Otto von Habsburg is scheduled to be buried in the family's crypt in Vienna, while his heart will be buried in a monastery in Pannonhalma, Hungary.[5]
Amid tributes from around Europe, Austrian president Heinz Fischer labeled Otto a "loyal citizen of the republic of Austria". Despite the fact that his family was forbidden to enter Austria until Otto formally renounced his claim to the throne, the president noted that his relationship with the republican government "had developed well in the last decades".[5]
European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said, "With Otto von Habsburg, a great European has left us who gave an important impetus to the European project throughout his rich life. ... [His] commitment to Europe should set a political example for all of us, especially in difficult times." In his statement, Barroso pointed out that Otto had "made a central contribution to the opening of the Iron Curtain and the peaceful reunification of our continent that had been divided for too long".[34]
4-year old Crown Prince Otto of Hungary in Budapest in 1916, attending his parents' coronation as King and Queen of Hungary, painted by Gyula Éder.
He was married to Princess Regina of Saxe-Meiningen from 1951 until her death in 2010. They had seven children, 23 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren:
Andrea von Habsburg (born 1953). Married Hereditary Count Karl Eugen von Neipperg. They have three sons, two daughters and two grandchildren.
Monika von Habsburg (born 1954). Married Luis María Gonzaga Gonzaga de Casanova-Cárdenas y Barón, Duke of Santangelo, Marquess of Elche, Count of Lodosa and Grandee of Spain, who is a descendant of Infanta Luisa Teresa of Spain, Duchess of Sessa and sister of Francis, King-Consort of Spain. They have four sons.
Michaela von Habsburg, born on 13 September 1954 (1954-09-13)(age 56). Monika's twin sister. Married firstly Eric Alba Teran d'Antin, and secondly Count Hubertus of Kageneck. She has two sons and a daughter from her first marriage. Twice divorced.
Gabriela von Habsburg, born on 14 October 1956 (1956-10-14)(age 54)
∞Christian Meister in 1978, divorced in 1997.
Severin Meister
Lioba Meister
Alena Meister
Walburga von Habsburg, born on 5 October 1958 (1958-10-05)(age 52)
∞Count Archibald Douglas
Count Moritz Douglas, born on 30 March 1994 (1994-03-30)(age 17)
20 November 1912 – 21 November 1916: His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke and Prince Imperial Otto of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia
21 November 1916 – 12 November 1918: His Imperial and Royal Highness The Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia
12 November 1918 – 4 July 2011: His Imperial and Royal Highness Crown Prince Otto of Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia
20 November 1912 – 21 November 1916: His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke and Prince Imperial Otto of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia
21 November 1916 – 12 November 1918: His Imperial and Royal Highness The Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia
12 November 1918–1919: Otto Kaiserlicher Prinz, Erzherzog von Österreich, Königlicher Prinz von Ungarn
1919–1957: Herr Otto Habsburg-Lothringen
1957 – 4 July 2011: Doktor Otto Habsburg-Lothringen
Official in Germany
12 November 1918 – 4 July 2011: Otto Kaiserlicher Prinz, Erzherzog von Österreich, Königlicher Prinz von Ungarn
In addition to the rivers, Parrett, Brue and Washford several of the man-made drainage ditches, including the River Huntspill, from the Somerset Levels, including the "Pawlett Hams", also drain into the bay.
Mud danger signs on Bridgwater Bay near the mouth of the River Parrett are necessary because fast, high-amplitude tides here have led to drownings on the extensive mud flats.
The Bay occupies the sweeping arc of coastline between the wave-cut platform of JurassicBlue Lias at the northern tip of the Quantock Hills and the cliffs of CarboniferousDolomites and Limestone at Brean Down which project into the Severn Estuary and provide some degree of protection from the erosive tidal currents. Strong prevailing westerly winds have thrown up sand dunes at Berrow and a shingle ridge and Steart. On the beach near Stogursey are the remains of a submerged forest dated to 2500 B.C.[4] - 6500 BC.[5]
At low tide large parts of the bay become mud flats, 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) wide, due to the tidal range of 15 metres (49 ft),[10] second only to Bay of Fundy in Eastern Canada.[11][12] The intertidal mud flats are, as a result, potentially dangerous and it is not uncommon for the emergency services to mount rescue operations. Following the death of Lelaina Hall off Berrow in 2002, a local fund raising campaign succeeded in purchasing a Swedish-built BBV6 rescue hovercraft. The hovercraft is operated by BARB in Burnham-on-Sea. Much of the coastline within the western part of the reserve is accessible via a waymarked public footpath,[13] and the South West Coast Path begins at Minehead at the western end of the bay.
Man made sea defenses include a sea wall at Burnham-on-Sea and a 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) section south from Brean Down. There is also an isolated fossil aeolian sand dune belt fronted by a salt marsh deliberately planted in 1928.[15] There are some concerns that the proposed Severn Barrage could leave some sites high and dry, and others permanently under water.[16] The Steart Peninsula has flooded many times during the last millennium. The most severe recent floods occurred in 1981. By 1997, a combination of coastal erosion, sea level rise and wave action had made some of the defences distinctly fragile and at risk from failure. As a result in 2002 The Environment Agency produced the Stolford to Combwich Coastal Defence Strategy Study to examine options for the future.[17]
The foreshore at Watchet, which lies at the mouth of the Washford River, and on the edge of Exmoor National Park, is rocky, but has a small harbour. The cliffs between Watchet and Blue Anchor show a distinct pale, greenish blue colour, resulting from the coloured alabaster found there. The name "Watchet" or "Watchet Blue" was used in the 16th century to denote this colour.[18][19]
East Quantoxhead used to have a small harbour which brought in limestone for local limekilns and exported alabaster. It is thought that it was also used for smuggling.[20]
At Kilve are the remains of a red brick retort, built in 1924, when it was discovered that the shale found in the cliffs was rich in oil. The beach is part of the Blue Anchor to Lilstock Coast SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest). Along this coast the cliffs are layered with compressed strata of oil-bearing shale and blue, yellow and brown lias embedded with fossils. In 1924 Dr Forbes-Leslie founded the Shaline Company to exploit them. This retort house is thought to be the first structure erected here for the conversion of shale to oil but the company was unable to raise sufficient capital and this is now all that remains of the anticipated Somerset oil boom.[21]
The intertidal mud flats of the bay have a long history of use for fishing, with structures on Stert Flats being dated by dendrochronological analysis to between 932 and 966.[5] It is the last site in England used for 'mudhorse fishing' in which a wooden sledge is propelled across the mudflats to collect fish from nets.[16] Catches include: grey mullet, plaice, dogfish, cuttlefish, skate, shrimp, prawns, sea bass, and sole.[22]
Watchet Boat Museum displays the unusual local flatner boats which were used in the bay and associated artefacts.[23]
At low tide extensive areas of mudflats (the Steart and the Berrow Flats) are exposed, providing important feeding and over-wintering grounds for waders (shorebirds). The ditches and ponds contain a diverse invertebrate fauna including six nationally rare species and eighteen nationally scarce species.[1] Consequently Bridgwater Bay is a National Nature Reserve, and is managed by Natural England.[24]
Common Cord-grass (Spartina anglica) dominates much of the seaward edge of the marsh, having vigorously invaded and consolidated the fronting mudflats, following plantings in the early 1900s.[26] The spartina is generally shorter in the bay than at other sites due to the high tides and the turbidity of the water, reaching around 30 centimetres (11.8 in) as opposed to 150 centimetres (59.1 in) elsewhere.[27] On higher ground Common Saltmarsh-grass (Puccinellia maritima) increases in abundance with Sea Aster (Aster tripolium). Where the land is ungrazed, Common Reed (Phragmites australis) ofetn forms a zone above this. Where the upper marsh is grazed Red Fescue (Festuca rubra) and Creeping Bent (Argostis stolonifera) are found. Sea Couch (Elymus pycnanthus) and Sea Club-rush (Scirpus maritimus) occur at the landward edge of the marsh.[1]
High level sheep-grazed marshes carry populations of the nationally scarce Bulbous Foxtail (Alopecurus bulbosus), Slender Hare's-ear (Bupleurum tenuissimum) and Sea Barley (Hordeum marinum) while Stert Island is known to support the nationally rare Compact Brome (Bromus madritensis) and nationally scarce Ray's Knotgrass (Polygonum oxyspermum).[1]
A wide variety of aquatic and bankside plant species occur in the ditches including the nationally restricted Rootless Duckweed (Wolffia arrhiza), together with uncommon species such as Frogbit (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae) and Water Fern (Azolla filiculoides). The slightly brackish nature of the water is indicated by the presence of plants such as the nationally restricted Brackish Water-crowfoot (Ranunculus baudotii) and Sea Clubrush (Scirpus maritimus).[1]
White Rock-rose (Helianthemum appenninum) on the south cliff of Brean Down
Five Red Data Book invertebrate species have been recorded: the Great Silver Water Beetle (Hydrophilus piceus), the water beetleHydrovatus clypealis, the hover fly (Lejops vittata) and the soldier fliesOdontomyia ornata and Stratiomys singularior. Nationally scarce species include the aquatic snail Cyraulus laevis, the Hairy DragonflyBrachytron pratense and a ladybirdCoccidula scutellata.[1]
Bridgwater Bay is a critical feeding ground for passage and over-wintering waders and wildfowl, with approximately 190 species recorded on the reserve.[2] It supports internationally important numbers of Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus) and Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa limosa) and nationally important numbers of Dunlin (Calidris alpina) and Wigeon (Anas penelope).[1] In early winter the Wigeon select Puccinellia maritima in preference to Agrostis stolonifera and Festuca rubra.[30]Avocets have become regular autumn and winter visitors to the area in recent years, favouring the lower reaches of the River Parrett.
^Morley, J.V. (July 1973). "Tidal Immersion of Spartina Marsh at Bridgwater Bay, Somerset". The Journal of Ecology61 (2): 383–386. doi:10.2307/2259033. JSTOR2259033.
^ Twist, Colin, Rare Plants in Great Britain - a site guide
^ Green, Ian, Peter Green and Geraldine Crouch The Atlas Flora of Somerset
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London's transport forms the hub of the road, rail and air networks in the United Kingdom. It has its own dense and extensive internal private and public transport networks, as well as providing a focal point for the national road and railway networks. London also has a number of international airports including one of the world's busiest, Heathrow, and a seaport.
In May 2010, the Mayor issued his transport strategy,[1] which he described it as being "a key part of a strategic policy framework to support and shape London's social and economic development". That framework also includes the London Plan, the Mayor's spatial planning strategy.
Transport for london operates two railway systems which are not part of the national railway network. The larger is the London Underground and the smaller is the automated Docklands Light Railway operating in central, east and southeast London. Transportation for London also has the Tramlink system, centred on Croydon. Like the road network, a flaw in London's under- and over-ground railways is that they radiate out to the suburbs from the centre. Whilst obviously necessary given the huge volume of commuters, it means that travelling between parts of London which are not on the same commuter-route can be slow. This problem would be reduced by the introduction of Tramlink and other proposed railway projects.
Colloquially known as the Tube, London Underground is the oldest metro system in the world, having begun operations in 1863. More than 3 million passengers travel on the Underground every day, amounting to over 1 billion passenger journeys per year for the first time in 2006.[2] The Underground has 11 lines, most of which connect the suburbs to Central London and provide a distribution role around the city centre, particularly from major railway terminals.
The Underground serves London North London much more extensively than South London. This is the result of a combination of unfavourable geology, historical competition from surface railways and the historical geography of London which was focused to the north of the Thames. South London is served primarily by surface railways (although it should be noted that the majority of London Underground's route length is actually on the surface rather than in tunnel).
The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is an automated light rail system serving the Docklands area of east London. It complements the Underground, largely sharing its fares system and having a number of interchanges with it. It is focused on the Canary Wharf business district, although this was not its initial objective upon its opening in 1987.
Partly thanks to the success of Canary Wharf, the system has expanded several times and now has five main branches connecting the Isle of Dogs and Royal Docks to each other and to the City of London, Stratford and Lewisham south of the river. It also serves London City Airport and the newly opened Woolwich station. A further extension to Stratford International is under construction.
The tram system in London was the oldest in the world dating back to early Victorian time and still remains the largest tram network at its peak[citation needed]. However, the highly extensive tram lines disappeared from the streets of London by the mid-20th century, but a new tram system was opened in 2000 to serve the large employment centre of Croydon on the southern edge of London. Named Tramlink, it connects Croydon and its surface railway stations to surrounding suburbs and to the town centre of Wimbledon to the north-west. An extension to Crystal Palace is being planned. Two other tram schemes in London were proposed: the West London Tram along the busy Uxbridge Road bus corridor in west London (postponed indefinitely on 2 August 2007), and the Cross River Tram through central London between Camden in the north and Brixton and Peckham in the south (cancelled in November 2008 due to funding problems). The London Passenger Transport Board was formed in 1933, taking over the London County Council trams. It was decided soon after to replace all trams in London by "more modern vehicles." The abandonment programme began in 1935 with trams in South-West, West, North-West, North and East London mostly being replaced by trolleybuses. The replacement programme proceeded swiftly until 1940 when the last "pre-war" conversion occurred, leaving only the "South London" trams and the "Kingsway Routes" 31, 33 and 35, the only tram routes left operating into North London to survive the war. Prototype "Kingsway Trolleybus" no. 1379, with exits on both sides of the vehicle, was constructed for feasibility tests through the Subway, but these were unsuccessful as trolleybuses would have had to run on battery power through the subway, headroom restrictions making it impossible to use overhead current collection. In 1946 it was decided to replace all London's remaining trams "as soon as possible", this time by diesel buses. The first Kingsway subway route to be withdrawn was Route 31 on 1 October 1950 with the remaining two routes, 33 and 35, being withdrawn after service on Saturday 5 April 1952, the last public services being 'specials' shortly after midnight on the Sunday. During the early hours of the next morning the remaining vehicles still north of the subway were run through to the depots south of the Thames. The Kingsway tramway subway is the only remaining evidence of the old tram system, an underground route along Kingsway.
London is the focal point of the British railway network, with 14 terminus stations providing a combination of commuter, intercity, airport and international services. Most areas of the city not served by the Underground or DLR are served by commuter heavy rail services into one of these terminals. These suburban rail services are not part of Transport for London (apart from London Overground) but are owned and operated by a number of private rail firms.
London is the centre of an extensive radial commuter railway network which, along with Paris, is the busiest and largest in Europe, serving the surrounding metropolitan area. Each terminus is associated with commuter services from a particular segment of this area. The majority of commuters to central London (about 80% of 1.1 million) arrive by either the Underground (400,000 daily) or by surface railway into these termini (860,000 daily).[3]
Although the majority of services serve the termini, there are a few notable exceptions. London Bridge has several through lines to the more central termini at Cannon Street and Charing Cross, and trains to the latter also call at Waterloo East, linked to Waterloo by a footbridge. London Bridge's through platforms are also used by the Thameslink services of First Capital Connect, which cross the city centre, calling at Blackfriars (another terminus with through platforms), City Thameslink, Farringdon and St Pancras (via dedicated subterranean platforms, replacing King's Cross Thameslink). These services run between the northern and southern suburbs, and between the more distant towns of Brighton on the south coast and Bedford in the north.
In addition to its radial lines, there are also several orbital lines connecting parts of the inner city to each other. The West London Line crosses inner west London and allows services to run from the northwest suburbs to Croydon, Brighton and Gatwick Airport. The North London Line arcs across North London from Richmond in the west to Stratford in the east, and the Gospel Oak to Barking Line links inner North London to the northeastern suburbs.
In November 2007, TfL took control of these orbital routes from the DfT and the inner-suburban Watford DC Line services from Euston, manages them under the London Overground brand, with train services run under private contract.
Work is also underway for extensions of the Underground's East London Line, converting it into a heavy rail commuter line and linking its northern end to the North London line, while extending its southern end across south London. These extensions will eventually create a full circle through the inner suburbs, to be run on the London Overground network brand.
Constantly increasing pressure on the commuter rail systems and on the Underground to disperse passengers from the busy terminals has led to the multi-billion pound Crossrail scheme. Superficially similar to the RER lines of Paris, Crossrail would link services into Paddington in the west with Docklands and services out of Liverpool Street in the east, by constructing twin 16-km tunnels underneath the city centre. New stations would be provided at key city centre locations, linking to the Underground.
The growing overcrowding on commuter rail services has led to new ticket restrictions on leisure travellers using cheaper tickets. Although morning peak restrictions for these travellers have been commonplace for many years, evening peak restrictions are also now coming into place. For example, First Capital Connect no longer allows cheaper tickets to be used on services departing London for destinations to the north outside London in the evening peak (4.30 pm – 7.30 pm), and holders of cheaper tickets are barred from some express First Great Western services from Paddington in the evening.
Long-distance intercity services do not depart from all termini, but each terminus provides trains to a particular part of the country. The major intercity termini are:
Some intercity services carry significant volumes of commuters between their stops nearest to London and the termini. For example, long-distance commuting has been evident from Swindon to Paddington since the introduction of High Speed Trains.[4]
Heathrow Airport is also exclusively serviced by National Express' Shuttle Bus Service Dot2Dot, a door-to-door airport transfer service. Prices start at £17.50 per passenger – a cheaper alternative to London's taxi fares, however, if there are between 3 to 5 passengers then a Licensed London Taxi will most probably be cheaper and also provide a door to door service that's specific to your needs.
International services are provided by Eurostar from St. Pancras to Paris and Brussels via the Channel Tunnel, with intermediate stops at Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International in Kent. This new link, brought into service on 14 November 2007 cuts journey times by some 20–25 minutes compared with services previously routed to Waterloo Station, putting Paris 2 hours 15 minutes from London and Brussels 1 hour 51 minutes away.[5]
As well as the Eurostar's international services, Southeastern now operates high-speed commuter services using the HS1 line. It runs new 140 mph, Class 395 trains, from London St. Pancras to Faversham and the Medway towns, as well as to Dover Priory. The highspeed trains serve all stations on HS1, including Stratford International (the only station on HS1 not to be served by Eurostar) and will in 2012 provide the Javelin shuttle service for visitors to the Olympic Games' main venue in Stratford.
London's bus network is extensive, with over 6,800 scheduled services every weekday carrying about six million passengers on over 700 different routes making it one of the most extensive bus systems in the world and by far the largest in Europe.[6] Catering mainly for local journeys, it carries more passengers than the Underground. In addition to this extensive daytime system, a 100-route night bus service is also operated, providing a 24-hour service.
TfL manages the bus system by tendering out routes to private companies. This means that TfL set the routes, frequencies, fares and even the type of vehicle used, and companies bid to run these services for a fixed price for several years, with incentives and penalties in place to encourage good performance against certain criteria.
Many services are operated with the iconic red double-decker buses, virtually all using modern low-floor accessible vehicles rather than the traditional open-platform Routemasters, now limited to two city centre "heritage routes" after a phase out in 2006.
The bus system has been the subject of much investment since TfL's inception in 2000, with consequent improvements in the number of routes (particularly night services), their frequency, reliability and the standard of the vehicles used.
London has a hierarchy of roads ranging from major radial and orbital trunk roads down to minor "side streets". At the top level are motorways and grade-separateddual carriageways, supplemented by non-grade-separated urban dual carriageways, major single carriageway roads, local distributor roads and small local streets.
Most of the streets of central London were laid out before cars were invented and London's road network is often congested. Attempts to tackle this go back at least to the 1740s, when the New Road was built through the fields north of the city; it is now just another congested central London thoroughfare. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, new wide roads such as Victoria Embankment, Shaftesbury Avenue and Kingsway were created. In the 1920s and 1930s a series of new radial roads, such as the Western Avenue and Eastern Avenue, were constructed in the new suburban outskirts of London but little was done in the congested central area.
A 1938 report, The Highway Development Survey, by Sir Charles Bressey and Sir Edwin Lutyens for the Ministry of Transport and Sir Patrick Abercrombie's 1943 County of London Plan and 1944 Greater London Plan all recommended the construction of many miles of new roads and the improvement of existing routes and junctions but little was done to implement the recommendations. In the 1960s the Greater London Council prepared a drastic plan for a network of London Ringways including the construction of the London Motorway Box which would have involved massive demolition and huge cost to bring motorways into the heart of the city. Resistance from Central Government over the costs and campaigns of objection from local residents caused the cancellation of most of the plans in 1973. By the end of the 20th century policy swung towards a preference for public transport improvements, although the 118 mile (190 km) M25 orbital motorway was constructed between 1973 and 1986 to provide a route for traffic to bypass the London urban area.
The busy M25 motorway which circles the urban area.
Due to the opposition to the Ringway plan and earlier proposals there are few grade-separated routes penetrating to the city centre. Only the western A40, the northeastern A12 Leyton By-pass, eastern A13 and southeastern A2 are grade-separated for most of the way into central London. There is also the eastern A1203, a dual carriageway tunnel around the Docklands area, which directly links onto the A13.
There is a technical distinction between the motorways, operated by the Highways Agency, and other major routes, operated by TfL as the Transport for London Route Network (TLRN). Many of London's major radial routes continue far beyond the city as part of the national motorway and trunk road network.
There are also three ring roads linking these routes orbitally. The innermost, the Inner Ring Road, circumnavigates the congestion charging zone in the city centre. The generally grade-separated North Circular (the A406 from Gunnersbury to East Ham) and the non-separated South Circular (the A205) form a suburban ring of roughly 10 km radius. Finally, the M25 encircles most of the urban area with roughly a 25 km radius. The western section of the M25 past Heathrow Airport is one of Europe's busiest, carrying around 200,000 vehicles per day.
None of these roads have tolls, although the Dartford Crossing, which links the two ends of the M25 to the east of London, is tolled.
The major roads mentioned above are supplemented by a host of standard single-carriageway main roads, operated as part of the afore-mentioned TLRN. These roads generally link suburbs with each other, or deliver traffic from the ends of the major routes into the city centre.
The TLRN is supplemented by local distributor roads operated by the local authorities, the London boroughs. These non-strategic roads only carry local traffic.
In February 2003, TfL introduced a radical scheme to charge motorists £5 per day for driving vehicles within a designated area of central London during peak hours, the congestion charge.[7] The politicians behind the scheme claim that it has significantly reduced traffic congestion and hence improved reliability of bus and taxi services,[8] but this is strongly contested by the scheme's critics. The charge was increased to £8 per day on 4 July 2005.[9] In 2007 the zone was extended into west London.[10] On 4 January 2011 several changes were implemented based on the public consultation conducted in 2008, which included the removal of the Western Extension and a charge increase from £8 to £10,
The iconic black cab remains a common sight. They are driven by the only taxicab drivers in the world who have spent at least three years learning the city inside out to gain 'The Knowledge'. All London taxicabs are licensed by TfL's Public Carriage Office (PCO), who also set taxicab fares along with strict maximum vehicle emission standards. Black cabs can be hailed on the street or hired from a taxicab rank (by all the mainline train stations and around the major business, shopping and tourist centres). Taxicab fares are set by TfL and are calculated using a Taximeter in the vehicle (hence the name 'Taxicab') and are calculated using a combination of distance travelled and time.
Private Hire Vehicles (PHVs or minicabs) are cars which are not licensed to pick people up on the street. They must always be booked in advance by phone or at the operators offices. Anyone asking you if you want a 'Taxi' who is stood next to a normal looking car is a tout who is not insured or licensed to carry passengers.
More than 70 years after horse drawn carriages were restricted from the West End, Westminster City Council has announced that it will consider supporting applications to reintroduce them for sightseeing tours across the city.[11] The first horse-drawn vehicles in London were licenced in 1662, as Hackney carriages.
Pedicabs are a fairly recent addition, being mostly used by tourists and operating in the central areas. Unlike the black cab, no test of knowledge is required to operate a pedicab or bicycle rickshaw. These pedicabs are not regulated or licensed, and charge whatever they like, many of them are uninsured, be sure to ask if they carry insurance that indemnifies their passengers, if not buyer beware.
Cambridge Trishaws Ltd moved from Cambridge to London in 1998 as the first such company to work within the city. There are now 5–10 such companies providing competing services. The Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) went to the High Court to try to force them to become licensed, but lost their case in 2004.[12] This led to the PCO overseeing nearly all, but not all, cabs in London.
There has been a move, led by Chris Smallwood, chairman of the London Pedicab Operators Association) to bring in more relevant legislation. Smallwood helped to draft an amendment to a bill to be put before the House of Lords that would introduce these 'lighter' pedicab regulations. This was followed in 2005 by Transport Committee scrutiny to determine the future of the then nascent industry. This led in turn, to a 2006 TfL consultation "for the introduction of a licensing regime that is appropriate for pedicabs and their riders".[13]
London City Airport has a single STOL runway located on a narrow strip of land with docks on both sides.
London is the best served city by airports in the world with almost 150 million passengers using its six airports in 2005. In order of size, these airports are Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and London City; the smallest, Biggin Hill, does not have scheduled flights.
Heathrow and Gatwick serve long-haul, European and domestic flights; Stansted and Luton cater primarily for low-cost European and domestic services, whilst London City caters for business passengers to short-haul and domestic destinations.
The closest airport to the city centre is London City, approximately 10 km east of the City of London financial district in the Docklands area. A branch of the Docklands Light Railway links the airport to the City in under 25 minutes.[14]
Two other airports are at the edge of the city but within the Greater London boundary: Biggin Hill, around 23 km southeast of the centre, and London's principal airport, Heathrow, 20–25 km from central London.
Heathrow handles nearly 70 million passengers per annum, making it Europe's busiest airport. On the western edge of the city in the London Borough of Hillingdon, it has two runways and five passenger terminals, with the £4bn fifth terminal opening in 2008. It is connected to central London by the dedicated Heathrow Express rail service, the Heathrow Connect local rail service and London Underground's Piccadilly line, and is connected to the M4 and M25 motorways.
Gatwick is just under 40 km south of central London in Sussex, some distance outside London's boundary. With a single runway and two terminals, it handles approximately 32 million passengers per year from domestic, short-haul and long-haul flights, and is linked to London by the Gatwick Express, Thameslink and Southern rail services, and by the M23. It is the busiest single runway airport in the world.
Stansted is London's most distant airport, approximately 50 km north of the centre, in Essex. With a single runway and terminal, it handles approximately 20 million passengers annually, mostly from low-cost short-haul and domestic leisure flights. It is connected to London by the Stansted Express rail service and the M11 motorway.
Luton Airport is about 45 km northwest of London, connected to it by the M1 and First Capital Connect trains from nearby Luton Airport Parkway station. It has a single terminal and a runway considerably shorter than the other London airports, and like Stansted it caters mainly for low-cost short-haul leisure flights.
Airfields at Southend and Lydd have been rebranded London Southend and London Ashford, but currently have little traffic. In August 2009, Oxford Airport, some 95 km from London's City Centre, re-branded itself London Oxford Airport in a controversial move, while Kent International was briefly called London Manston; it is 120 km from London.
The River Thames is navigable to ocean-going vessels as far as London Bridge, and to substantial craft well upstream of Greater London. Historically, the river was one of London's main transport arteries. Although this is no longer the case, passenger services have seen something of a revival since the creation in 1999 of London River Services, an arm of Transport for London. LRS now regulates and promotes a small-scale network of river bus commuter services and a large number of leisure cruises operating on the river. Boats are owned and operated by a number of private companies, and LRS manages five of central London's 22 piers.[15]
London also has several canals, including the Regent's Canal, which links the Thames to the Grand Union Canal and thus to the waterway network across much of England. These canals were originally built in the Industrial Revolution for the transport of coal, raw materials and foods. Although they now carry few goods, they are popular with private narrowboat users and leisure cruisers, and a regular "water bus" service operates along the Regent's Canal during the summer months.
Some bulk cargoes are carried on the Thames, and the Mayor of London wishes to increase this use. London's port used to be the country's busiest when it was located in Central London and east London's Docklands. Since the 1960s, containerisation has led to almost all of the port's activities moving further downstream and the ceasing of port-related activity at the extensive network of docks (which were built in the 19th and early 20th centuries). A purpose-built container port at Tilbury in Essex, around ten kilometres outside the Greater London boundary, is today the busiest part of the port, though activity remains along stretches of the Thames, mainly downstream of the Thames Barrier. Fifty riverside wharfs have been safeguarded from development in Greater London. Today the port is the UK's second largest by cargo handled (53 million tonnes in 2008).[16] The Port of London Authority is responsible for most port activities and navigation along the River Thames in London and on the Thames estuary.
Cycling in London has enjoyed a renaissance, particularly since the turn of the millennium. Cyclists find that they enjoy a much cheaper, and often quicker, way around town than those travelling by public transport or car.
Over one million Londoners own bicycles but as of 2008[update] only around 2 per cent of all journeys in London are made by bike: this compares poorly to other major European cities such as Berlin (5 per cent), Munich (12 per cent), and Amsterdam (28 per cent)[17] and Copenhagen (36 per cent).[18] Nevertheless this is an 83 per cent increase compared to that in 2000.[19] There are currently an estimated 480,000 cycle journeys each day in the capital.
The Barclays Cycle Hire scheme, launched 30 July 2010, aims to provide 6,000 bicycles for rental.[20] Bikes are available at a number of docking stations in central London.
London Campaign for Better Transport, campaigns on local issues, and supports the national organisation in pressing for sustainable transport. A current project is a possible "Brent Cross Railway" in north London.
Featured content represents the best that Wikipedia has to offer. These are the articles, pictures, and other contributions that showcase the polished result of the collaborative efforts that drive Wikipedia. All featured content undergoes a thorough review process to ensure that it meets the highest standards and can serve as an example of our end goals. A small bronze star () in the top right corner of a page indicates that the content is featured. This page gives links to all of Wikipedia's featured content and showcases one randomly selected example of each type of content. You can view another random content selection.
Theramenes was an Athenian statesman, prominent in the final decade of the Peloponnesian War. He was particularly active during the two periods of oligarchic government at Athens, as well as in the trial of the generals who had commanded at Arginusae in 406 BC. A moderate oligarch, he often found himself caught between the democrats on the one hand and the extreme oligarchs on the other. Successful in replacing a narrow oligarchy with a broader one in 411 BC, he failed to achieve the same end in 404 BC, and was executed by the extremists whose policies he had opposed. Theramenes remained a controversial figure after his death; Lysias vigorously denounced him while prosecuting several of his former political allies, but others defended his actions. Modern historical assessments have shifted over time; in the 19th century, Theramenes was almost universally condemned, but recent scholarship has produced more positive assessments. Some historians have found in Theramenes a selfish opportunist, others a principled moderate. The details of his actions, his motivations, and the nature of his character continue to be debated down to the present day. (more...)
This is a list of birds recorded in the island of Vieques. Vieques is an island municipality of Puerto Rico located off the east coast of the main island of Puerto Rico, south of Culebra island and west of the Virgin Islands. It has a total area of 348.15 km², of which only 135 km² is land area. On May 1, 2001, the western end of Vieques National Wildlife Refuge was established and on May 1, 2003, the same day of the exit of the U.S. Navy from the island, the eastern end of the refuge was established.
Pied-billed Grebe, commonly known as Zaramago in Spanish.
Grebes are small to medium-large sized freshwater diving birds. They have lobed toes, and are excellent swimmers and divers. However, they have their feet placed far back on the body, making them quite ungainly on land. There are 20 species worldwide and 1 species which occurs in Vieques.
Tropicbirds are slender white birds of tropical oceans, with exceptionally long central tail feathers. Their long wings have black markings, as does the head. There are 3 species world wide and 2 species which occur in Vieques.
The May–July 1994 civil war in Yemen was waged between the armed forces of the former Northern and Southern Yemeni states and their supporters. The war resulted in the defeat of the southern armed forces and the flight into exile of many Yemeni Socialist Party leaders and other southern secessionists.[3]
The Republic of Yemen (ROY) was declared on May 22, 1990 with Ali Abdullah Saleh becoming President and Ali Salim al-Beidh Vice President. Greater Yemen had been politically united for the first time in centuries. A unification of the two country's political and economic systems was to take place over 30 months. In that time, a unified parliament was formed and a unity constitution was agreed upon.[3] Elections were held in April 1993.
Vice President Ali Salim Al-Beidh withdrew to Aden in August 1993 and said he would not return to the government until his grievances were addressed. These included northern violence against his Yemeni Socialist Party, as well as the economic marginalization of the south.[4] Negotiations to end the political deadlock dragged on into 1994. The government of Prime Minister Haydar Abu Bakr Al-Attas, the former PDRY Prime Minister, became ineffective due to political infighting.[3]
An accord between northern and southern leaders was signed in Amman, Jordan on 20 February 1994, but this could not stop the civil war.[3] During these tensions, both the northern and southern armies–which had never integrated–gathered on their respective frontiers.[5]
On April 27, a major tank battle erupted in Amran, near San'a. Both sides accused the other of starting it. On May 4, the southern air force bombed San'a and other areas in the north; the northern air force responded by bombing Aden. President Saleh declared a 30-day state of emergency, and foreign nationals began evacuating the country.[6] Vice President al-Beidh was officially dismissed. South Yemen also fired Scud missiles into San'a, killing dozens of civilians.[7] Prime Minister Haidar Abu Bakr al-Attas was dismissed on May 10 after appealing for outside forces to help end the war.[6]
Southern leaders seceded and declared the Democratic Republic of Yemen (DRY) on 21 May 1994.[4] No international government recognized the DRY. In mid-May, northern forces began a push toward Aden. The key city of Ataq, which allowed access to the country's oil fields, was seized on May 24.[8] The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 924 calling for an end to the fighting and a cease-fire. A cease-fire was called on June 6, but lasted only six hours; concurrent talks to end the fighting in Cairo collapsed as well.[6] The north entered Aden on July 4. Supporters of Ali Nasir Muhammad greatly assisted military operations against the secessionists and Aden was captured on 7 July 1994.[3] Most resistance quickly collapsed and top southern military and political leaders fled into exile.[3]
Almost all of the actual fighting in the 1994 civil war occurred in the southern part of the country, despite air and missile attacks against cities and major installations in the north. Southerners sought support from neighboring states and received billions of dollars of equipment and financial assistance, mostly from Saudi Arabia, which felt threatened by a united Yemen. The United States repeatedly called for a cease-fire and a return to the negotiating table. Various attempts, including by a UN special envoy and Russia, were unsuccessful to effect a cease-fire.
YSP leaders within Yemen reorganized following the civil war and elected a new politburo in July 1994. However, much of its influence had been destroyed in the war.[3]
President Ali Abdallah Saleh was elected by Parliament on 1 October 1994 to a 5-year term. He is still in power.
As of 2007, a group called the South Yemen Movement calling for the secession of the south and the re-establishment of an independent southern state has grown in strength across many parts of south Yemen, leading to an increase in tensions and often violent clashes.[9]
Langport (old forms are "Langeberga", "Langeport") consists of two parts, one on the hill and one by the river. The former owed its origin to its defensible position, and the latter its growth to its facilities for trade on the chief river of Somerset.[3] Its name looks like Anglo-Saxon for "long port", but it may well be "long market place" which could have been on the causeway which is now Bow Street. Many of the houses in Bow Street tilt backwards due to settlement of the land behind the causeway. It is speculated that Langport is the place mentioned in old Welsh sources as "Llongborth" = "Ship-port", where the Battle of Llongborth happened. "Longphort" is a term used in Ireland for a Viking ship enclosure or shore fortress, using an identical etymology. Langport was previously also known as Langport Eastover, with the part on the western bank being Langport Westover, now known just as Westover. Langport is on the ancient way from Glastonbury to Taunton.
Langport could well have been important during the Roman occupation as there were several villas in the vicinity. It was one of the forts listed in the Burghal Hidage indicating its strategic position to King Alfred, as well as being close to the royal centre of Somerton. In 1086 according to Domesday Book it had 34 resident burgesses and was worth the large sum of £79-10s-7d.
The first charter, given by Elizabeth I in 1562, recognized that Langport was a borough of great antiquity, which had enjoyed considerable privileges, being governed by a portreeve. It was incorporated by James I in 1617, but the corporation was abolished in 1883. Langport was represented in parliament in 1304 and 1306. In medieval times Langport was an important centre for cloth making.[4]
The charter of 1562 granted three annual fairs to Langport, on the 28th of June, the 11th of November and the second Monday in Lent. One fair only is now held, a horse and cattle fair on the 3rd of September. A Saturday market was held under the grant of 1562, but in the 19th century the market day was changed to Tuesday.
On 10 July 1645, the Battle of Langport was fought here, in which the last effective Royalist field army was destroyed and the Parliamentary victory in the Civil War became all but inevitable. When the Royalists retreated through the town many were killed by the bridge over the Parrett, and many of the buildings were set on fire. Although one authority states this was an act by the Parliamentary cavalry, reading contemporary accounts of the battle it is clear that the Royalist cavalry set the lower town on fire in the (vain) hope that this would hinder the pursuit led by Cromwell's cavalry.[5]
In 1826 it was the birthplace of Walter Bagehot a businessman, essayist and journalist, who wrote extensively about literature, government, economic affairs and other topics. He went into partnership with George Stuckey and by 1866 the company owned 14 East Indiamen as well as 19 barges on the River Parrett. This developed into the Somerset Trading Company. Stuckey's Bank had been founded in 1770 and by 1909 its banknote circulation was second only to that of the Bank of England. It was then taken over by Parr's Bank which became part of the Westminster Bank.[6]
The Great Bow Bridge, which now carries the A378, is a three-arched bridge, constructed under the terms of the Parrett Navigation Act of 1836. Completed in 1841 at a cost of £3,749,[7] it replaced the previous medieval bridge, with its nine tiny arches, all too small to allow navigation. A bridge at this site was first mentioned in 1220.[8] The medieval bridge consisted of a total of 31 arches, of which nine crossed the river, and 19 of the original arches were located by ground-penetrating radar in 1987, buried beneath the road which runs from Great Bow Bridge to Little Bow Bridge.[9]
Around 1840 the Westport Canal was built which joined the river at Langport.[10] The abortive Ivelchester and Langport Navigation scheme had sought to avoid the Great Bow Bridge, by making the Portlake Rhine navigable, rebuilding Little Bow Bridge in the centre of Langport, and making a new cut to Bicknell's Bridge. Seven locks, each with a small rise, were planned but the scheme foundered in 1797, due to financial difficulties.[11] The railway came to Langport in 1853 and opened up new markets, but caused the decline of river traffic.
In 1856 the proprietor of the Langport Herald, James Richard Moreton, printed and published the 107 hymn tunes and 6 anthems written by his father, who was the minister of Langport Independent Chapel. This was the Reverend James Moreton’s “Sacred Music”, used by Congregationalists and other denominations in the nineteenth century (there is a copy in the British Library).
The parish council has responsibility for local issues, including setting an annual precept (local rate) to cover the council’s operating costs and producing annual accounts for public scrutiny. The parish council evaluates local planning applications and works with the local police, district council officers, and neighbourhood watch groups on matters of crime, security, and traffic. The parish council's role also includes initiating projects for the maintenance and repair of parish facilities, as well as consulting with the district council on the maintenance, repair, and improvement of highways, drainage, footpaths, public transport, and street cleaning. Conservation matters (including trees and listed buildings) and environmental issues are also the responsibility of the council.
Langport lies on the east bank of the River Parrett, below the point where that river is joined by the River Yeo (Ivel). There is a causeway across the moor and an important bridge over the river. Below Langport the Parrett is tidal. The rivers flow from the southern hills through Thorney Moor and Kings Moor, through a gap between the upland areas around Somerton and Curry Rivel, onto the Somerset Levels through which it flows past Bridgwater to the Bristol Channel. During the winter the low lying areas around Langport are sometimes flooded.
To the south of the town is Wet Moor a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest which is part of the extensive grazing marsh grasslands and ditch systems of the Somerset Levels and Moors.[14] In storm conditions the rivers can surcharge their banks and overspill into the adjacent low lying moorland. The rivers running through the moor make home for many wildlife, including wintering Whooper Swans.[15]
Along with the rest of South West England, Langport has a temperate climate which is generally wetter and milder than the rest of the country.[16] The annual mean temperature is approximately 10 °C (50.0 °F). Seasonal temperature variation is less extreme than most of the United Kingdom because of the adjacent sea temperatures. The summer months of July and August are the warmest with mean daily maxima of approximately 21 °C(69.8 °F). In winter mean minimum temperatures of 1 °C(33.8 °F) or 2 °C(35.6 °F) are common.[16] In the summer the Azores high pressure affects the south-west of England, however convective cloud sometimes forms inland, reducing the number of hours of sunshine. Annual sunshine rates are slightly less than the regional average of 1,600 hours.[16] In December 1998 there were 20 days without sun recorded at Yeovilton. Most the rainfall in the south-west is caused by Atlantic depressions or by convection. Most of the rainfall in autumn and winter is caused by the Atlantic depressions, which is when they are most active. In summer, a large proportion of the rainfall is caused by sun heating the ground leading to convection and to showers and thunderstorms. Average rainfall is around 700 mm (28 in). About 8–15 days of snowfall is typical. November to March have the highest mean wind speeds, and June to August have the lightest winds. The predominant wind direction is from the south-west.[16]
Close to All Saints Church, an archway crosses the road, bearing a Perpendicular building known as The Hanging Chapel.[18] After serving this purpose it housed first the grammar school (founded 1675), then the Quekett museum, named after John Thomas Quekett (1815–61) the histologist, a native of the town, whose father was master of the school. The hanging chapel afterwards became a masonic hall.
The main street leads up a slope from the river to the fine Perpendicularchurch of All Saints, which is a Grade I listed building. The octagonal tower, which is in three stages, dates from the 15th century but the top section was rebuilt in 1833. It has a number of interesting gargoyles known locally as ‘hunky punks’.[20] The East window of the chancel contains a set of late 15th century glass depicting various saints, appropriate to the dedication "All Saints". Although restored in the 19th century it is one of the best preserved medieval windows in Somerset. Additionally it is unusual in that the window contains a full set of glass from the same period. The church is no longer used for services and is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust,[21] who have carried out extensive rebuilding work.[22] Its congregation has been merged with nearby St Mary's.
The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (August 2010)
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s[1] and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.
Its key commitments are:
The need for personal conversion (or being "born again")
David Bebbington has termed these four distinctive aspects conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism, noting, "Together they form a quadrilateral of priorities that is the basis of Evangelicalism."[3]
The term evangelical has its etymological roots in the Greek word for "gospel" or "good news": ευαγγελιον (evangelion), from eu- "good" and angelion "message." In that sense, to be evangelical would mean to be a believer in the gospel, that is the message of Jesus Christ.
By the English Middle Ages the term had been expanded to include not only the message, but also the New Testament which contained the message, as well as more specifically the four books of the Bible in which the life, death and resurrection of Jesus are portrayed.[4] The first published use of the term evangelical in English was in 1531 by William Tyndale, who wrote "He exhorteth them to proceed constantly in the evangelical truth."[5] One year later, the earliest recorded use in reference to a theological distinction was by Sir Thomas More, who spoke of "Tyndale [and] his evangelical brother Barns."[5]
While the main usage is religious, the term is also used to characterize a movement that uses active missionary work to convert others to its political position. For example, the Times Literary Supplement refers to "the rise and fall of evangelical fervor within the Socialist movement."[9]
The contemporary North American usage of the term is influenced by the evangelical/fundamentalist controversy of the early 20th century. Evangelicalism may sometimes be perceived as the middle ground between the theological liberalism of the mainline denominations and the cultural separatism of fundamentalism.[10] Evangelicalism has therefore been described as "the third of the leading strands in American Protestantism, straddl[ing] the divide between fundamentalists and liberals."[11] However, according to Christianity Today, “The emerging movement is a protest against much of evangelicalism as currently practiced. The emerging church movement is post-evangelical in the way that neo-evangelicalism (in the 1950s) was post-fundamentalist. It would not be unfair to call it[clarification needed] postmodern evangelicalism.”[12]
While the North American perception is important to understand the usage of the term, it by no means dominates a wider global view, where the fundamentalist debate was not so influential.
In the first half of the 20th century, evangelicalism in America was largely synonymous with fundamentalism. George Marsden in Reforming Fundamentalism says, “There was not a practical distinction between fundamentalist and evangelical: the words were interchangeable” (p. 48). When the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) was formed in 1942, for example, participants included such fundamentalist leaders as Bob Jones, Sr., John R. Rice, Charles Woodbridge, Harry Ironside, and David Otis Fuller.
By the mid-1950s, largely due to the ecumenical evangelism of Billy Graham, the terms evangelicalism and fundamentalism began to refer to two different approaches. Fundamentalism aggressively attacked its liberal enemies; Evangelicalism downplayed liberalism and emphasized outreach and conversion of new members[14]
While some[citation needed] conservative evangelicals believe the label has broadened too much beyond its more limiting traditional distinctives, this trend is nonetheless strong enough to create significant ambiguity in the term.[15] As a result, the dichotomy between "evangelical" and "mainline" denominations is increasingly complex, particularly with such innovations as the "emergent church" movement.
John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, used polling data to separate evangelicals into three camps which he labels as traditionalist, centrist and modernist.[10]
The traditionalists, characterized by high affinity for certain Protestant beliefs, (especially penal substitutionary atonement, justification by faith, the authority of scripture, priesthood of all believers, etc.) which, when fused with the highly political milieu of Western culture (esp. American), has resulted in the political disposition that has been labeled the Christian right, whose most visible spokesmen have been figures like Jerry Falwell and the television evangelist Pat Robertson.
Centrist evangelicals are described as socially conservative, mostly avoiding politics, who still support much of traditional Christian theology.
Modernist evangelicals are a small minority in the movement, have low levels of church attendance, and "have much more diversity in their beliefs."[10]
The start of the 19th century saw an increase in missionary work and many of the major missionary societies were founded around this time (see Timeline of Christian missions).
John Nelson Darby was a 19th century English minister considered to be the father of modern Dispensationalism, an innovative Protestant movement significant in the development of modern evangelicalism.[16]Cyrus Scofield further promoted the influence of this theology through his Scofield Reference Bible.
In Charlotte Bronte's novel, Jane Eyre, Mr Brocklehurst illustrates the dangers and hypocrisies that Charlotte Brontë perceived in the nineteenth-century Evangelical movement.
Evangelicalism in the early part of the 20th century was dominated by the fundamentalist movement, which rejected liberal theology and focused on separation from the world.
In the post–World War II period, a split developed amongst evangelicals, as they disagreed among themselves about how a Christian ought to respond to an unbelieving world. The evangelicals urged that Christians must engage the culture directly and constructively,[17] and they began to express reservations about being known to the world as fundamentalists. As Kenneth Kantzer put it at the time, the name fundamentalist had become "an embarrassment instead of a badge of honor."[18]
The term neo-evangelicalism was coined by Harold Ockenga in 1947 to identify a distinct movement within self-identified fundamentalist Christianity at the time, especially in the English-speaking world. It described the mood of positivism and non-militancy that characterized that generation. The new generation of evangelicals set as their goals to abandon a militant Bible stance. Instead, they would pursue dialogue, intellectualism, non-judgmentalism, and appeasement. They further called for an increased application of the gospel to the sociological, political, and economic areas. Not all conservatives are pleased with the new direction. One author has termed it "the apostasy within evangelicalism."[13]
The self-identified fundamentalists also cooperated in separating their opponents from the fundamentalist name, by increasingly seeking to distinguish themselves from the more open group, whom they often characterized derogatorily, by Ockenga's term, "neo-evangelical" or just evangelical.
The fundamentalists saw the evangelicals as often being too concerned about social acceptance and intellectual respectability, and being too accommodating to a perverse generation that needed correction. In addition, they saw the efforts of evangelist Billy Graham, who worked with non-evangelical denominations, such as the Roman Catholics (which they claimed to be heretical), as a mistake.[19]
The closing years of the 20th century saw controversial postmodern influences entering some parts of evangelicalism, particularly with the emerging church movement.
There are three senses in which the term “evangelical” is used today at the beginning of the 21st-century. The first is to view “evangelical” as all Christians who affirm a few key doctrines and practical emphases. British historian David Bebbington approaches evangelicalism from this direction and notes four specific hallmarks of evangelical religion: conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel in effort; biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible; and crucicentrism, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.[20] A second sense is to look at evangelicalism as an organic group of movements and religious tradition. Within this context “evangelical” denotes a style as much as a set of beliefs. As a result, groups as disparate as black Baptists and Dutch Reformed Churches, Mennonites and Pentecostals, Catholic charismatics and Southern Baptists all come under the evangelical umbrella-demonstrating just how diverse the movement really is.[21] A third sense of the term is as the self-ascribed label for a coalition that arose during the Second World War. This group came into being as a reaction against the perceived anti-intellectual, separatist, belligerent nature of the fundamentalist movement in the 1920s and 1930s. Importantly, its core personalities (like Harold John Ockenga and Billy Graham), institutions (for instance, Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College), and organizations (such as the National Association of Evangelicals and Youth for Christ) have played a pivotal role in giving the wider movement a sense of cohesion that extends beyond these “card-carrying” evangelicals.[22]
While the movement is highly diverse and encompasses a vast number of people because the group is diverse not all of them use the same terminology for the beliefs they have. For instance, several recent studies and surveys by sociologists and political scientists that utilize more complex definitional parameters have estimated the number of evangelicals in the U. S. at about 25-30% of the population, or roughly between 70 and 80 million people. [23]
From the late 20th century onwards, such conservative Protestant Christians, and their churches and social movements, have often been called evangelical to distinguish them from other Protestants.[citation needed][dubious– discuss]
Since the Iraq War, evangelicalism has begun to make inroads in Iraq, capitalizing on a new openness to Western missionaries following the US-led invasion of the country, although the vast majority of converts are from other sects of Christianity present in Iraq.[24][25]
Evangelicals held the view that the modernist and liberal parties in the Protestant churches had surrendered their heritage as evangelicals by accommodating the views and values of "the world." At the same time, they criticized their fellow fundamentalists for their separatism and their rejection of the social gospel as it had been developed by Protestant activists of the previous century. They charged the modernists with having lost their identity as evangelicals and the fundamentalists with having lost the Christ-like heart of evangelicalism. They argued that the gospel needed to be reasserted to distinguish it from the innovations of the liberals as well as the fundamentalists.
Today, evangelicals are often concerned with their own failure to live up to Christian standards in contrast to the world. Christianity Today author Mark Galli says "It's now pretty much agreed that the evangelical church mirrors the dysfunctions of secular society, from premarital sex stats to divorce rates to buying habits. Much to our dismay, we are hardly a light to the world, nor an icon of the abundant, transformed life."[26]
"As part of this renewal of evangelicalism, the new evangelicals sought to engage the modern world and the liberal Christians in a positive way, remaining separate from worldliness but not from the world — a middle way between modernism and the separating variety of fundamentalism. They sought allies in denominational churches and liturgical traditions, disregarding views of eschatology and other "non-essentials," and joined also with Trinitarian varieties of Pentecostalism. They believed that in doing so, they were simply re-acquainting Protestantism with its own recent tradition. The movement's aim at the outset was to reclaim the evangelical heritage in their respective churches, not to begin something new; and for this reason, following their separation from fundamentalists, the same movement has been better known merely as "evangelicalism". By the end of the 20th century, this was the most influential development in American Protestant Christianity."[27]
The World Evangelical Alliance is "a network of churches in 128 nations that have each formed an evangelical alliance and over 100 international organizations joining together to give a worldwide identity, voice and platform" to an estimated more than 600 million evangelical Christians.[28] The Alliance was formed in 1951 by evangelicals from 21 countries. It has worked to support its members to work together globally.
In Britain, according to a 2005 study conducted by the Assemblies of God, evangelicals give 7.5% of their income to their churches and a further 3% to Christian charities.[29]
Toward the end of the 20th century, some have tended to confuse evangelicalism and fundamentalism, but as noted above they are not the same. The labels represent very distinct differences of approach which both groups are diligent to maintain, although because of fundamentalism's dramatically smaller size it often gets classified simply as an ultra-conservative branch of evangelicalism.
Both groups seek to maintain an identity as theological conservatives; evangelicals, however, seek to distance themselves from stereotypical perceptions of the "fundamentalist" posture of antagonism toward the larger society and advocate involvement in the surrounding community rather than separation from it. However, despite the differences, some people, particularly those with a non-denominational background, may consider themselves both evangelical and fundamentalist because they believe in the engaging practices of evangelicalism and take a fundamental view of the Bible.
On the American political spectrum, evangelicals traditionally fall under socially conservative. For instance, based on the biblical position that marriage is defined as only between one man and one woman, they tend to oppose state recognition of same-sex marriage and polyamory. Also, based on the belief that the life of a child begins at conception and that a fetus's right to live should take precedence over a wish to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, evangelicals tend to oppose laws permitting abortion (See below for more details).
Many conservative evangelicals aren't just opposed to the legal recognition of same-sex marriage. They also have actively lobbied for the passage of laws in dozens of U.S. States to ban civil unions, domestic partnerships, reciprocal benefits—such as hospital visitation rights and emergency medical decisions—and any legal recognition whatsoever or rights being extended to monogamous same-sex couples, on the religious grounds that such unions and legal protections are "too similar'" to marriage, and thus violates the God-given rights to the sanctity of marriage between one woman and one man.
Though less publicized, evangelicals traditionally tend to be economically conservative as well; this stems from biblical principles such as reverence for private property rights, freedom to contract, and the view that charity should primarily be voluntary/non-coercive and privately (i.e., church, family, individuals) administered.[citation needed]
Open Evangelical refers to a particular Christian school of thought or Churchmanship, primarily in the United Kingdom (especially in the Church of England). Open evangelicals describe their position as combining a traditional evangelical emphasis on the nature of scripturalauthority, the teaching of the ecumenical creeds and other traditional doctrinal teachings, with an approach towards culture and other theological points of view which tends to be more inclusive than that taken by other evangelicals. Some open evangelicals aim to take a middle position between conservative and charismatic evangelicals, while others would combine conservative theological emphases with more liberal social positions.[30]
British author Dave Tomlinson characterizes post-evangelicalism as a movement comprising various trends of dissatisfaction among evangelicals. The term is used by others with comparable intent, often to distinguish evangelicals in the so-called emerging church movement from post-evangelicals and anti-evangelicals. Tomlinson argues that "linguistically, the distinction [between evangelical and post-evangelical] is similar to the one that sociologists make between the modern and postmodern eras".[31]
There persists considerable and inevitable confusion as to how best to classify the non-traditional/non-conservative forms of evangelicalism. Some call the emerging church movement a version or manifestation of post-evangelicalism, whereas others distinguish both under the broader umbrella of the "evangelical left" movement. As such developments are still relatively new, it remains to be seen how the categories and semantics will settle.
The 2004 survey of religion and politics in the United States identified the evangelical percentage of the population at 26.3 percent while Roman Catholics are 22 percent and mainline Protestants make up 16 percent.[32] In the 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States, the figures for these same groups are 28.6 percent (evangelical), 24.5 percent (Roman Catholic), and 13.9 percent (mainline Protestant.) The latter figures are based on a 2001 study of the self-described religious identification of the adult population for 1990 and 2001 from the Graduate School and University Center at the City University of New York.[33] A 2008 study showed that in the year 2000 about 9 percent of Americans attended an evangelical service on any given Sunday.[34]
Evangelical influence in America was first evident in the late 19th century and early 20th century movement of prohibition movement, which closed saloons and taverns in state after state until it succeeded nationally in 1919.[35] The Christian right is a coalition of numerous groups, of traditionalist and observant church-goers of every kind: Catholic and mainline Protestant, Missouri Synod Lutherans, Southern Baptists, and others.[36] Conversely, there are white evangelicals in the political center and left as well. Most blacks are church members who share evangelical beliefs; they are firmly in the Democratic coalition and (except for gay issues) are generally liberal.[37]
Since 1970 a central issue motivating conservative evangelicals' political activism is abortion. Theologically they argue abortion is the taking of an innocent life, although the Biblical bases underlying this belief vary, from specific Bible verses about when life begins, to the more generalized ban on murder. Pro-choice advocates oppose the evangelicals on abortion and argue that any legal restrictions based on such a religious worldview amount to imposing religion. Abortion was not a crime under English and American common law at least until the "quickening" of the fetus. Physicians—not religious leaders—were responsible for enacting the 19th century laws against abortion in the name of protecting the mother. The Roe v. Wade decision of the Supreme Court in 1973 said women have a right to choose abortion; with some modifications that remains the law. It proved decisive in bringing together Catholics (who had opposed abortion since the 1890s) and evangelicals in a political coalition in the 1970s, which became known as the Religious Right when it successfully mobilized its voters behind presidential candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Supreme Court decisions that outlawed organized prayer in school and restricted church-related schools also played a role in mobilizing the Religious Right.[38] In addition questions of sexual morality and homosexuality have been energizing factors—and above all, the fear that elites are pushing America into secularism.
According to recent reports in the New York Times, some evangelicals have sought to expand their movement's social agenda to include poverty, combating AIDS in the Third World, and protecting the environment.[39] This is highly contentious within the evangelical community, since more conservative evangelicals believe that this trend is compromising important issues and prioritizing popularity and consensus too highly. Personifying this division were the evangelical leaders James Dobson and Rick Warren, the former who warned of the dangers of a Barack Obama victory in 2008 from his point of view,[40] in contrast with the latter who declined to endorse either major candidate on the grounds that he wanted the church to be less politically divisive and that he agreed substantially with both men.[41] Indeed many are not sure how to characterize Rick Warren on the evangelical spectrum; despite his avowed centrism he recently supported California's controversial Proposition 8 (2008), which is regarded by critics as a right-wing position.
Some opponents have argued that the evangelicals actually want a Christian America, -- that is a nation in which Christianity is given a privileged position.[42] Survey data shows that 60-75% of evangelicals reject proposals for a Christian America.[43] Evangelical leaders retort they merely seek freedom from the imposition by national elites of an equally subjective secular worldview, and feel that it is their opponents who are violating their rights.[44]
Typically, members of the evangelical left affirm the primary tenets of evangelical theology, such as the doctrines of Incarnation, atonement, and resurrection, and also see the Bible as a primary authority for the church. A major theological difference, however, which in turn leads to many of the social/political differences, is the issue of how strictly to interpret the Bible, as well as what particular values and principles predominantly constitute the "biblical worldview" believed to be binding upon all followers. Inevitably, battles over how to characterize each other and themselves ensue, with the evangelical left and right often hyperbolically regarding each other as "mainline/non-evangelical" and "fundamentalist" respectively.
Unlike conservative evangelicals, the evangelical left is generally opposed to capital punishment and supportive of gun control. In many cases, evangelical leftists are pacifistic. Some promote the legalization of same-sex marriage or protection of access to abortion for the society at large without necessarily endorsing the practice themselves. There is considerable dispute over how to even characterize the various segments of the evangelical theological and political spectra, and whether a singular discernible rift between "right" and "left" is oversimplified. However, to the extent that some simplifications are necessary to discuss any complex issue, it is recognized that modern trends like focusing on non-contentious issues (like poverty) and downplaying hot-button social issues (like abortion) tend to be key distinctives of the modern "evangelical left" or "emergent church" movement.
Evangelical environmentalism is an environmental movement in the United States in which some Evangelicals have emphasized biblical mandates concerning humanity's role as steward and subsequent responsibility for the caretaking of Creation. While the movement has focused on different environmental issues, it is best known for its focus of addressing climate action from a biblically grounded theological perspective. The Evangelical Climate Initiative argues that human-induced climate change will have severe consequences and impact the poor the hardest, and that God's mandate to Adam to care for the Garden of Eden also applies to Christians today, and that it is therefore a moral obligation to work to mitigate climate impacts and support communities in adapting to change.[45]
^Livingstone, Elizabeth A (2005). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed. rev ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 583. ISBN0192802909.
^Gerstner, John H. (1975). "The Theological Boundaries of Evangelical Faith". In David P. Wells. The Evangelicals. John D. Woodbridge. Nashville: Abingdon Press. pp. 21–36. ISBN0687121817. "Despite the dominant usage of euangellismos in the New Testament, its derivative, evangelical, was not widely or controversially employed until the Reformation period. Then it came into prominence with Martin Luther precisely because he reasserted Paul's teaching on the euangellismos as the indispensable message of salvation. Its light, he argued, was hidden under a bushel of ecclesiastical authority, tradition, and liturgy. The essence of the saving message for Luther was justification by faith alone, the article by which not only the church stands or falls but each individual as well. Erasmus, Thomas More, and Johannes Eck denigrated those who accepted this view and referred to them as 'evangelicals.'"
^Marsden, George M (1991). Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans. p. 5. ISBN0802805396.
^ Cited in Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (1961)
The Communist Party of French India rose in prominence during the Second World War.[3] At the time of the outbreak of the war the party was banned and its assets seized. However, the ban was lifted in September 1940 as the French Communist Party had called for support to the Allied war effort.[4]
Around in August 1947, as independence of British India drew nearer, the Communist Party of French India changed its policy regarding independence and began advocating immediate merger with the Indian Union. Until this point the party had advocated union with France in the short term, and integration with India in the long term.[7] French authorities issued a ban on pro-independence rallies in French India. The Communist Party of French India joined trade unions, the French India National Congress, and the French India Students Congress in protesting against the ban.[8] The Communist Party of French India issued a call to all municipal authorities to haul down the tricolor on August 15, 1947 and hoist the flag of India.[7]
The communists were persecuted in French India, partly due to the rivalry between Edouard Goubert (the leading pro-French politician in the colony) and V. Subbiah. Goubert's henchmen conducted lynchings of communist activists.[9] In 1948 the French authorities served an arrest warrant against V. Subbiah.[10] In January 1950 the office of the Communist Party, located in the private residence of V. Subbiah, was burnt down. The police chief was present at the scene, but police did not intervene. The houses of Communist Party of French India leaders Clemenceau and Annousamy were also torched by goondas.[11][9]
The Communist Party contested the October 1948 municipal polls as part of the Progressive Democratic Party (a coalition between the communists and the Dravidar Kazhagam).[12]
In mid-1951 the arrest warrant against V. Subbiah was withdrawn. V. Subbiah emerged as a major leader of the independence movement. In a public statement he called for the formation of a united front compromising the Communist Party and other pro-independence groups. The Tamil language weekly newspaper Sutantiram, published in India, became an important organ of the movement led by V. Subbiah.[10]
In early 1954 V. Subbiah addressed a mass meeting in the peripheries of Pondicherry, appealing on the population of the colony to leave past differences behind and unite in the struggle for independence. As tension in French India rose in March 1954, the Communist Party began to prepare a campaign of popular direct action demanding immediate merger with the Indian Union.[13] On April 7, 1954 the Communist Party mobilized protests, as the colonial government called out military forces on the streets of Pondicherry. V. Subbiah called upon the thousands of the refugees that had crossed into India to return to take part in the freedom struggle.
Tirubhuvanai was liberated by the communists on April 6, 1954, marking the climax of the freedom movement.[14] Together with the French India Socialist Party and the Merger Congress a temporary united government for the area was set up by the Communist Party in Tirubhuvanai.[15]
The strength of the communists in the struggle caught the attention of the international press, for example the New York Times warned of the possibility of a communist take-over in Pondicherry.[15] The French communist newspaper l'Humanité on the other hand praised the people of French India for their courage in the struggle against colonial domination.[14]
In the midst of the struggle, a proposal that the colony be converted into a French-Indian condominium was floated from French quarters. The Communist Party immediately rejected the proposal.[15]
On April 26, 1954 the Communist Party took part in an All Party Conference. The conference condemned the violent repression against protestors in French India. On April 29, 1954 the Communist Party, Central Merger Congress and other leftist groups launched a joint front to coordinate struggles. At the meeting a decision was adopted that the struggles would be conducted along the lines of Gandhian non-violence.[16]
On August 9, 1954 Pondicherry observed a hartal after a call from the Communist Party and the Youth Congress.[17] V. Subbiah met with Nehru on August 13, 1954 to discuss the prospects of the resistance struggle.[18] On November 1, 1954 France left French India. V. Subbiah returned from exile, meeting a hero's welcome from jubilant masses.[19]
^ Madhava Menon, N. R., and D. Banerjea. Criminal Justice India Series. Ahmedabad: Allied Publishers in collaboration with National University of Juridical Sciences, 2002. p. 11
^ ab Madhava Menon, N. R., and D. Banerjea. Criminal Justice India Series. Ahmedabad: Allied Publishers in collaboration with National University of Juridical Sciences, 2002. pp. 13-14
^ Madhava Menon, N. R., and D. Banerjea. Criminal Justice India Series. Ahmedabad: Allied Publishers in collaboration with National University of Juridical Sciences, 2002. p. 12
^ ab Madhava Menon, N. R., and D. Banerjea. Criminal Justice India Series. Ahmedabad: Allied Publishers in collaboration with National University of Juridical Sciences, 2002. p. 21
^ Madhava Menon, N. R., and D. Banerjea. Criminal Justice India Series. Ahmedabad: Allied Publishers in collaboration with National University of Juridical Sciences, 2002. p. 20
^ Madhava Menon, N. R., and D. Banerjea. Criminal Justice India Series. Ahmedabad: Allied Publishers in collaboration with National University of Juridical Sciences, 2002. p. 17
^ Madhava Menon, N. R., and D. Banerjea. Criminal Justice India Series. Ahmedabad: Allied Publishers in collaboration with National University of Juridical Sciences, 2002. p. 22
^ ab Madhava Menon, N. R., and D. Banerjea. Criminal Justice India Series. Ahmedabad: Allied Publishers in collaboration with National University of Juridical Sciences, 2002. p. 27
^ abc Madhava Menon, N. R., and D. Banerjea. Criminal Justice India Series. Ahmedabad: Allied Publishers in collaboration with National University of Juridical Sciences, 2002. pp. 24-25
^ Madhava Menon, N. R., and D. Banerjea. Criminal Justice India Series. Ahmedabad: Allied Publishers in collaboration with National University of Juridical Sciences, 2002. p. 26
^ Madhava Menon, N. R., and D. Banerjea. Criminal Justice India Series. Ahmedabad: Allied Publishers in collaboration with National University of Juridical Sciences, 2002. p. 30
^ Madhava Menon, N. R., and D. Banerjea. Criminal Justice India Series. Ahmedabad: Allied Publishers in collaboration with National University of Juridical Sciences, 2002. p. 31
Some years after opening his carriage repair business, Atzerodt met John Wilkes Booth in Washington, D.C. Atzerodt was willing to join in a conspiracy to kidnap PresidentAbraham Lincoln, as he later admitted in his trial, which began May 1, 1865. According to the prosecution, Booth assigned Atzerodt to assassinate Vice PresidentAndrew Johnson on April 14, 1865. On that morning, Atzerodt booked room 126 at the Kirkwood House in Washington, where Johnson was staying. However, he could not muster the courage to kill Johnson, so he began drinking at the hotel bar. He presumably got drunk, and spent the night walking the streets of Washington. During his stay at the hotel, Atzerodt had asked the bartender about Johnson's whereabouts. This aroused suspicion the next day, after Lincoln was assassinated. An employee of the hotel contacted the police regarding a "suspicious looking man in a gray coat."[3]
The military police then conducted a search of Atzerodt's room on April 15 and found that he had not slept in it the night before. Additionally, he had a loaded revolver concealed under his pillow, as well as a concealed Bowie knife. The police also found a bank book belonging to Booth in the room. Atzerodt was arrested on April 20. He was apprehended at the house of his cousin, Hartman Richter, in Germantown, Maryland.
Atzerodt's attorney, Captain William Doster, stated to the court that he intended "to show that George Atzerodt was a constitutional coward; that if he had been assigned the duty of assassinating the Vice President, he could never have done it; and that, from his known cowardice, Booth probably did not assign to him any such duty."[4] However, this was to no avail.
After the conviction Atzerodt offered a confession to Reverend Butler, a minister who came to his cell to offer him comfort. Butler said that Atzerodt admitted that he did in fact go to the meeting in March to help plan the kidnapping of President Lincoln while he attended a play at a hospital. Atzerodt said he first heard about Booth's plan to assassinate the President just two hours before the shooting. Atzerodt said that Booth really wanted David Herold to assassinate Vice President Johnson because he thought that Herold had "more pluck" than Atzerodt did. Atzerodt said Booth wanted him to "back up" Herold and "give him more courage."[5]
Atzerodt and three other convicted conspirators (Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, and David Herold) were hanged in Washington, D.C., on July 7, 1865. Atzerodt's last words were: "May we all meet in the other world. God take me now."[4] He did not die instantly; his neck did not break upon impact, and his body shuddered for several minutes before dying.[6] Atzerodt is interred under the fictitious name Gottlief Taubert in St. Paul's Lutheran Cemetery in Druid Hill Park in Baltimore, Maryland.[7]
^ Pitman, Benn ; The assassination of President Lincoln and the trial of the conspirators ... Clark, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange, 2006. ISBN 9781584776000 ; p. 144.
The Wikimedia Foundation's stated goal is to develop and maintain open content, wiki-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge.[11] This is possible thanks to its Terms of Use (updated and approved on June 2009, to adopt CC-BY-SA license).
Jimmy Wales, Founder of the Wikimedia Foundation, in December 2008
The Wikimedia Foundation was created from Wikipedia and Nupedia on June 20, 2003.[12] It applied to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to trademarkWikipedia on September 17, 2004. The mark was granted registration status on January 10, 2006. Trademark protection was accorded by Japan on December 16, 2004, and in the European Union on January 20, 2005. Technically a service mark, the scope of the mark is for: "Provision of information in the field of general encyclopedic knowledge via the Internet."[citation needed] There are plans to license the use of the Wikipedia trademark for some products, such as books or DVDs.[13]
The name "Wikimedia" was coined by American author Sheldon Rampton in a post to the English mailing list in March 2003.[14]
With the foundation's announcement, Wales also transferred ownership of all Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Nupediadomain names to Wikimedia along with the copyrights for all materials related to these projects that were created by Bomis employees or Wales himself. The computer equipment used to run all the Wikimedia projects was also donated by Wales to the foundation, which also acquired the domain names "wikimedia.org" and "wikimediafoundation.org".
In April 2005, the US Internal Revenue Service approved (by letter) the foundation as an educational foundation in the category "Adult, Continuing Education", meaning all contributions to the Wikimedia Foundation are tax deductible for U.S. federal income tax purposes.
On December 11, 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation board noted that the corporation could not become the membership organization initially planned but never implemented due to an inability to meet the registration requirements of Florida Statute. Accordingly, the bylaws were amended to remove all reference to membership rights and activities. The decision to change the bylaws was passed by the board unanimously.[15]
On September 25, 2007, the Wikimedia Foundation board gave notice that the operations would be moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. Major considerations cited for choosing San Francisco were proximity to like-minded organizations and potential partners as well as cheaper and more convenient international travel than is available from St. Petersburg, Florida.[16][17][18]
The one billionth edit to a Wikimedia project took place on April 16, 2010.[19]
Beyond the Encyclopedia: The Frontiers of Free Knowledge - presentation by Erik Möller about the state of the Wikimedia Foundation's projects in 2010
In January 2004, Jimmy Wales appointed his business partners Tim Shell and Michael E. Davis to the board of the Wikimedia Foundation. In June 2004, an election was held for two user representative board members. Following one month of campaigning and two weeks of online voting, Angela Beesley and Florence Nibart-Devouard were elected to join the board. In late 2004, Wales and Beesley launched a startup company, Wikia, affiliated with neither Wikimedia nor Bomis, except for their presence as principals/trustees. In July 2005, Beesley and Nibart-Devouard were re-elected to the board.
On July 1, 2006, Beesley resigned from the board effective upon election of her successor, expressing concern about "certain events and tendencies that have arisen within the organization since the start of this year," but stating her intent to continue to participate in the Wikimedia projects, and in the formation of an Australian chapter. A special election was held in September to finish Beesley's term, ending with the mid-2007 election. The election was won by Erik Möller.
In October 2006, Nibart-Devouard replaced Wales as chair of the Foundation. On December 8, 2006, the board expanded to seven people with the appointments of Kat Walsh and Oscar van Dillen. Effective December 15, 2006, Jan-Bart de Vreede was appointed to replace Shell.
In the June 2007 election, Möller and Walsh were reelected; van Dillen, who ran for re-election, was narrowly edged by Frieda Brioschi.
Davis left the board in November 2007. Nibart-Devouard's elected term expires in June 2008. The appointed terms for Wales and de Vreede expired in December 2008. Brioschi's and Walsh's elected terms expired in June 2009.
In December 2007, Möller resigned from the Board of Trustees, and was hired as the foundation's deputy director by the executive director.
In February 2008, Florence Devouard announced the addition of two new board members: Michael Snow, an American lawyer and chair of the Communication Committee; and Domas Mituzas, a Lithuanian computer software engineer, MySQL employee, and longtime member of the core tech team.[20]
In April 2008, the board announced a restructuring of its membership, increasing the number of board positions to 10 overall, as follows:
Three community-elected seats
Two seats to be selected by the chapters
One board-appointed 'community founder' seat, to be occupied by Jimmy Wales
Four board-appointed 'specific expertise' seats[21]
In the June 2008 board election, Ting Chen was elected for a one-year term, then in September Frieda Brioschi resigned to be elected at the board of Wikimedia Italia.
In the August 2009 board election, Ting Chen (reelected), Kat Walsh and Samuel Klein are elected. Their positions will be effective until July 2011.
In the July 2010 board election, Michael Snow was replaced as chair of the board, although he retains his place on the Advisory Board.
In April 2009, the Wikimedia Foundation conducted a Wikipedia usability study questioning users about the editing mechanism.[22]
In 2004, the foundation appointed Tim Starling as developer liaison to help improve the MediaWiki software, Daniel Mayer as chief financial officer (finance, budgeting and coordination of fund drives), and Erik Möller as content partnership coordinator.
In May 2005, the foundation announced the appointment of seven people to official positions:[23]
Brion Vibber as chief technical officer (Vibber was also an employee of the Foundation, with other duties)
Möller resigned in August 2005, due to differences with the board, and was replaced by James Forrester. In February 2007, Forrester resigned, and the board appointed Gregory Maxwell to the position, renamed "chief research coordinator".[24]
In January 2006, the foundation created several committees, including the Communication Committee, in an attempt to further organize activities essentially handled by volunteers at that time.[25] Starling resigned that month to spend more time on his PhD program.
The functions of the Wikimedia Foundation were, for the first few years, executed almost entirely by volunteers. In 2005, the foundation had only two employees, Danny Wool, a coordinator, and Brion Vibber, a software manager. Though the number of employees has grown, the foundation's staff is still very small, and the bulk of foundation work continues to be done by volunteers.
The location of the Wikimedia Foundation's San Francisco headquarters
As of October 4, 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation had five paid employees:[26] two programmers, an administrative assistant, a coordinator handling fundraising and grants, and an interim executive director,[27] Brad Patrick, previously the foundation's general counsel. Patrick ceased his activity as interim director in January 2007, and then resigned from his position as legal counsel, effective April 1, 2007. He was replaced by Mike Godwin, who served as general counsel and legal coordinator from July 2007[28] until 2010.
In January 2007, Carolyn Doran was named chief operating officer and Sandy Ordonez came on board as head of communications.[29] Doran began working as a part-time bookkeeper in 2006 after being sent by a temporary agency. Doran later left the foundation in July 2007, and Sue Gardner was hired as consultant and special advisor (later CEO). Some months after Doran's departure, it was determined[30] that she was a convicted felon, with a DUI arrest during her tenure at the foundation and a substantial criminal history, including shooting her boyfriend and complicity in credit card forgery.[31] Her departure from the organization was cited as one of the reasons the foundation took about seven months to release its fiscal 2007 financial audit.[32]
Danny Wool, officially the grant coordinator but also largely involved in fundraising and business development, resigned in March 2007. In February 2007, the foundation added a new position, chapters coordinator, and hired Delphine Ménard,[33] who had been occupying the position as a volunteer since August 2005. Cary Bass was hired in March 2007 in the position of volunteer coordinator. In May 2007, Vishal Patel was hired to assist in business development.[34] Oleta McHenry was brought in as accountant in May 2007, through a temporary placement agency and made the official fulltime accountant in August 2007. In January 2008, the foundation appointed three new staff: Veronique Kessler as the new chief financial and operating officer, Kul Wadhwa to replace Vishal Patel as head of business development, and Jay Walsh as head of communications.
In June 2008, the foundation announced two staff additions in fundraising: Rebecca Handler as major gifts officer and Rand Montoya as head of community giving.[35] Soon afterward, Sara Crouse was hired as head of partnerships and foundation relations.[36] In fall 2008, the foundation hired three software developers: Tomasz Finc, Ariel Glenn, and Trevor Parscal.[37]
The Advisory Board is an international network of experts who have agreed to give the foundation meaningful help on a regular basis in many different areas, including law, organizational development, technology, policy, and outreach.[39] As of August 2010[update], the members are:
In addition to the multilingual general encyclopediaWikipedia, the foundation manages a multi-language dictionary and thesaurus named Wiktionary, an encyclopedia of quotations named Wikiquote, a repository of source texts in any language named Wikisource, and a collection of e-book texts for students (such as textbooks and annotated public domain books) named Wikibooks. Wikijunior is a subproject of Wikibooks that specializes in books for children. The launch dates shown below are when official domains were established for the projects and/or beta versions were launched; preliminary test versions at other domains are not considered.
Each year, Wikimedia organizes the event Wikimania, a conference for users of the Wikimedia Foundation projects. It was first organized in Frankfurt (Germany), 2005.
(dark blue) are existing chapters. (dark turquoise) indicates a chapter has been board approved but not yet founded. (green) indicates a chapter is in the planning stages. (light blue) indicates a chapter in discussion.
Wikimedia projects have an international scope. To continue this success on an organizational level, Wikimedia is building an international network of associated organizations.
Local chapters are self-dependent organizations, coordinated by a Chapters Committee (ChapCom), that share the goals of the Wikimedia Foundation and support them within a specified geographical region, usually based on physical boundaries. They support the foundation, the Wikimedia community and Wikimedia projects in different ways—by collecting donations, organizing local events and projects and spreading the word of Wikimedia, free content and Wiki culture. They also provide the community and potential partners with a point of contact capable of fulfilling specific local needs.
Local chapters are self-dependent associations with no legal control of nor responsibility for the websites of the Wikimedia Foundation and vice versa.
Many disputes have resulted in litigation[40][41][42][43] while others have not.[44] Attorney Matt Zimmerman stated "Without strong liability protection, it would be difficult for Wikipedia to continue to provide a platform for user-created encyclopedia content."[45]
The Wikimedia Foundation relies on public contributions and grants to fund its mission.[46] It is exempt from federal income tax[46][47] and from state income tax.[46][48] It is not a private foundation, and contributions to it qualify as tax-deductible charitable contributions.[46] The continued technical and economic growth of each of the Wikimedia projects is dependent mostly on donations but the Wikimedia Foundation also increases its revenue by alternative means of funding such as grants, sponsorship, services and brand merchandising. The Wikimedia OAI-PMH update feed service, targeted primarily at search engines and similar bulk analysis and republishing, has been a source of revenue for several years,[49][50] but is no longer open to new customers.[51]DBpedia was given access to this feed free of charge.[52]
At the beginning of 2006, the foundation's net assets were $270,000. During the year, the organization received support and revenue totaling $1,510,000, with concurrent expenses of $790,000. Net assets increased by $720,000 to a total of over one million dollars.[46] In 2007, the foundation continued to expand, ending the year with net assets of $1,700,000.[53] Both income and expenses nearly doubled in 2007.[53] Wikimedia has been given an overall three-star rating by Charity Navigator, however, it has only a 1 star efficiency rating.[54]
There are both supporting and opposing arguments to that Wikimedia should switch to an advertising-based revenue model.[55]
In March 2008 the foundation announced its largest donation to date: a three-year, $3 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.[56] In 2009, the foundation received three grants – the first grant was a $890,000 Stanton Foundation grant and aimed to help study and simplify user interface for first-time authors of Wikipedia.[57] The second was a $300,000 Ford Foundation Grant, given in July 2009, for Wikimedia Commons that aimed to improve the interfaces and workflows for multimedia uploading on Wikimedia websites.[58] In August 2009, the foundation received a $500,000 grant from Hewlett Foundation.[59] In August 2009, the Omidyar Network issued a potential $2 million in "grant" funding to Wikimedia.[60] In 2010, Google donated $2 million to the Wikimedia Foundation.[61]
Official Long names
(and English translation thereof)
en: The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen
de: Die im Reichsrat vertretenen Königreiche und Länder und die Länder der heiligen ungarischen Stephanskronehu: A birodalmi tanácsban képviselt királyságok és országok és a magyar Szent Korona országai
Austria-Hungary (also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austro-Hungarian monarchy or k.u.k. Monarchy), more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutionalmonarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in Central Europe. The union was a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, under which the House of Habsburg agreed to share power with the separate Hungarian government, dividing the territory of the former Austrian Empire between them. The Austrian and the Hungarian lands became independent entities enjoying equal status.[3] Austria-Hungary was a highly multinational realm, and one of the world's great powers of its time. The dual monarchy had existed for 51 years when it dissolved on 31 October 1918 before a military defeat on the Italian front of the First World War.
The two capitals of the Monarchy were Vienna for Austria and Buda for Hungary, the latter united with neighbouring Pest as Budapest from 1870.[5] Austria-Hungary was geographically the second largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire (621,538 square kilometres (239,977 sq mi) in 1905[7]), and the third most populous (after Russia and the German Empire). Today, the territory it covered has a population of about 69 million.
The Monarchy bore the name internationally of "Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie" (on decision by Franz Joseph I in 1868), which in full meant "The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen".
Name in official languages of Austria-Hungary
Names of the Dual Monarchy in officially recognized languages[citation needed][year needed] of its citizens:
The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, which inaugurated the empire's dual structure in place of the former unitary Austrian Empire (1804–67), originated at a time when Austria had declined in strength and in power—both in the Italian Peninsula (as a result of the Austro-Sardinian War of 1859) and among the states of the German Confederation (where it had been replaced by Prussia as the dominant German power following the Austro-Prussian War, also named the German War, of 1866). Other factors in the constitutional changes were continued Hungarian dissatisfaction with rule from Vienna and increasing national consciousness on the part of other nationalities of the Austrian Empire. Hungarian dissatisfaction arose partly from Austria's suppression, with Russian support, of the Hungarian liberal revolution of 1848–1849. However, dissatisfaction with Austrian rule had grown for many years within Hungary, and had many other causes.
By the late 1850s, however, a large number of Hungarians who had supported the 1848–49 revolution were willing to accept the Habsburg monarchy. They took the line that while Hungary had the right to full internal independence, under the Pragmatic Sanction foreign affairs and defense were "common" to both Austria and Hungary.
After the Austrian defeat at Königgrätz, reconciliation with Hungary was needed to regain status of a great power, and the new foreign minister Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust wanted to successfully conclude the stalemated negotiations with the Hungarians. To shore up support for the monarchy, Emperor Franz Joseph began negotiations for a compromise with the Hungarian nobility to ensure their support. In particular, Hungarian leaders demanded and received the Emperor's coronation as King of Hungary, and the re-establishment of a separate parliament at Budapest with powers to enact laws for the lands of the Hungarian crown.
From 1867 onwards, the abbreviations heading the names of official institutions in Austria-Hungary reflected their responsibility:
K. u. k. ("kaiserlich und königlich" or Imperial & Royal) was the label for institutions common to both parts of the Monarchy, e.g. the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine (War Fleet) and, during the war, the k.u.k. Armee (Army). There were only three k.u.k. ministries:
The Imperial & Royal Ministry of the Exterior and the Imperial House
The Imperial & Royal War Ministry
The Imperial & Royal Ministry of Finance
The last of these was only responsible for financing the Imperial & Royal household, the diplomatic service, the common army and the common war fleet. All other state functions were to be handled separately by each of the two states. From 1867 onwards, common expenditure was allocated 70% to Austria and 30% to Hungary. This split had to be negotiated every 10 years, and by 1907, the Hungarian share had risen to 36.4%.[8] The negotiations in 1917 ended with the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy.
The common army changed its label from k.k. to k.u.k. only in 1889, at the request of the Hungarian government.
K. k. (kaiserlich-königlich) or Imperial-Royal was the label for institutions of Cisleithania (Austria); "royal" in this label referred to the crown of Bohemia.
K. u. (königlich-ungarisch) or M. k. (Magyar királyi) ("Hungarian Royal") referred to Transleithania, the lands of the Hungarian crown.
Politics and government
Government
Three distinct elements ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire:
common foreign, military and joint financial policy under the monarch
the "Austrian" or Cisleithanian government
the Hungarian government
Hungary and Austria maintained separate parliaments, each with its own prime minister. Linking/co-ordinating the two fell to a government under a monarch, wielding power absolute in theory but limited in practice. The monarch’s common government had responsibility for the army, for the navy, for foreign policy, and for the customs union.
Within Cisleithania and Hungary certain regions, such as Galicia and Croatia enjoyed special status with their own unique governmental structures.
A common Ministerial Council ruled the common government: it comprised the three ministers for the joint responsibilities (joint finance, military, and foreign policy), the two prime ministers, some Archdukes and the monarch. Two delegations of representatives (60–60 members), one each from the Austrian and Hungarian parliaments, met separately and voted on the expenditures of the Common Ministerial Council, giving the two governments influence in the common administration. However, the ministers ultimately answered only to the monarch, and he had the final decision on matters of foreign and military policy.
Overlapping responsibilities between the joint ministries and the ministries of the two halves caused friction and inefficiencies. The armed forces suffered particularly from overlap. Although the unified government determined overall military direction, the Austrian and Hungarian governments each remained in charge of "the quota of recruits, legislation concerning compulsory military service, transfer and provision of the armed forces, and regulation of the civic, non-military affairs of members of the armed forces". Needless to say, each government could have a strong influence over common governmental responsibilities. Each half of the Dual Monarchy proved quite prepared to disrupt common operations to advance its own interests.
Relations over the half-century after 1867 between the two halves of the Empire (in fact the Cisleithan part contained about 57% of the combined realm's population and a rather larger share of its economic resources) featured repeated disputes over shared external tariff arrangements and over the financial contribution of each government to the common treasury. Under the terms of the "Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867", an agreement, renegotiated every ten years, determined these matters. Each build-up to the renewal of the agreement saw political turmoil. The disputes between the halves of the Empire culminated in the mid-1900s in a prolonged constitutional crisis—triggered by disagreement over the language of command in Hungarian army units, and deepened by the advent to power in Budapest (April 1906) of a Hungarian nationalist coalition. Provisional renewals of the common arrangements occurred in October 1907 and in November 1917 on the basis of the status quo.
Politics
Legally, besides the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 there were no common laws in Austria-Hungary. All laws, even the ones with identical content like the compromise of 1867, had to pass the parliaments both in Vienna and Budapest and were published in the respective official medium (in the Austrian half it was called Reichsgesetzblatt and was issued in eight languages). To conclude on identical texts, the two parliaments elected delegations of 60 of their members each, which discussed motions of the Imperial & Royal ministries separately and tried to find a compromise.
The first prime minister of Hungary after the Compromise was Count Gyula Andrássy. The old Hungarian Constitution was restored, and Franz Joseph was crowned as King of Hungary. During this time Austria-Hungary was geographically the second largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire (621,537 km2 (239,977 sq mi)), and the third most populous (after Russia and the German Empire).
The Empire relied increasingly on a cosmopolitan bureaucracy – in which Czechs played an important role – backed by loyal elements, including a large part of the German, Hungarian, Polish and Croat aristocracy.[9]
Political struggles in the Empire
The political opponents of the "conservative liberal" aristocracy and gentry class were the leftist liberal "cosmopolitan" political parties in the parliaments of Vienna and Budapest. These leftist liberal parliamentary parties were backed by the big industrialists, bankers, businessmen and the predominant majority of newspaper "media moguls". During the war, they had a important functions in the organization of strikes, protests and civil unrest in the Empire. After the war (as consequent republicans) that parties had key-role in the disintegration and collapse of the monarchy in Austria and Hungary, and proclamation of the republics in Vienna and Budapest.
Like the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire frequently employed liberal economic policies and practices. From the 1860s liberal businessmen succeeded in industrializing parts of the Empire, and prosperous members of the bourgeoisie erected conspicuously large homes, giving themselves a prominence in urban life that rivaled the aristocracy's. They persuaded the government to search out foreign investment to build up infrastructure such as railroads in the early period of the Empire.
Liberals in Austria, most of them ethnic Germans, saw their influence weaken under the leadership of Count Edouard von Taaffe, Austrian prime minister from 1879–1893. Taaffe used a coalition of clergy, conservatives and Slavic parties to weaken the liberals. In Bohemia for example, he designated Czech as an official language of the bureaucracy and school system, thus breaking the German speakers' monopoly on holding office. Reforms motivated other ethnic groups to push for even greater autonomy. By playing nationalities off one another, the government ensured the monarchy's central role in holding together competing interest groups in an era of rapid change.
Foreign policy
By the late 1860s, Austrian ambitions in both Italy and Germany had been choked off by the rise of new national powers. With the decline and failed reforms of the Ottoman Empire, Slavic opposition in the occupied Balkans grew and both Russia and Austria-Hungary saw an opportunity to expand in this region. In 1876, Russia offered to partition the Balkans, but Andrássy declined for Austria-Hungary was already a "saturated" state and it could not cope with additional territories.[10] The whole monarchy was thus drawn into a new style of diplomatic brinkmanship, first conceived of by Andrássy, centering on the province of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a predominantly Slavic area of the Ottoman Empire, which was transferred to Austro-Hungarian control in 1878, by the Congress of Berlin. It was a dangerous game to play in a dangerous place. A road was thus mapped out, with a terminus at Sarajevo in 1914.
The Austro-Hungarian economy changed dramatically during the existence of the Dual Monarchy. The capitalist way of production spread throughout the Empire during its 50-year existence replacing medieval institutions. Technological change accelerated industrialization and urbanization. The GNP per capita grew roughly 1.76% per year from 1870–1913. That level of growth compared very favorably to that of other European nations such as Britain (1%), France (1.06%), and Germany (1.51%).[11] However, in a comparison with Germany and Britain: the Austro-Hungarian economy as a whole still lagged considerably, as sustained modernization had begun much later. In 1873, the old capital Buda and Óbuda (Ancient Buda) were officially merged with the third city, Pest, thus creating the new metropolis of Budapest. The dynamic Pest grew into Hungary's administrative, political, economic, trade and cultural hub. Many of the state institutions and the modern administrative system of Hungary were established during this period. Economic growth centered on Vienna and Budapest, the Austrian lands (areas of modern Austria), the Alpine region and the Bohemian lands. In the later years of the 19th century, rapid economic growth spread to the central Hungarian plain and to the Carpathian lands. As a result, wide disparities of development existed within the Empire. In general, the western areas became more developed than the eastern.
However, by the end of the 19th century, economic differences gradually began to even out as economic growth in the eastern parts of the Empire consistently surpassed that in the western. The strong agriculture and food industry of the Kingdom of Hungary with the center of Budapest became predominant within the Empire and made up a large proportion of the export to the rest of Europe. Meanwhile, western areas, concentrated mainly around Prague and Vienna, excelled in various manufacturing industries. This division of labour between the east and west, besides the existing economic and monetary union, led to an even more rapid economic growth throughout Austria-Hungary by the early 20th century. The most important trading partner was Germany (1910: 48% of all exports, 39% of all imports), followed by Great Britain (1910: almost 10% of all exports, 8% of all imports). Trade with the geographically neighboring Russia, however, had a relatively low weight (1910: 3% of all exports /mainly machinery for Russia, 7% of all imports /mainly raw materials from Russia).
Rail transport expanded rapidly in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its predecessor state, the Habsburg Empire, had built a substantial core of railways in the west, originating from Vienna, by 1841. At that point, the government realized the military possibilities of rail and began to invest heavily in construction. Pozsony (Bratislava), Budapest, Prague, Kraków, Graz, Laibach (Ljubljana) and Venedig (Venice) became linked to the main network. By 1854, the empire had almost 2,000 km (1,200 mi) of track, about 60-70% of it in state hands. The government then began to sell off large portions of track to private investors to recoup some of its investments and because of the financial strains of the 1848 Revolution and of the Crimean War.
From 1854–1879, private interests conducted almost all rail construction. What would become Cisleithania gained 7,952 km (4,941 mi) of track, and Hungary built 5,839 km (3,628 mi) of track. During this time, many new areas joined the railway system and the existing rail networks gained connections and interconnections. This period marked the beginning of widespread rail transportation in Austria-Hungary, and also the integration of transportation systems in the area. Railways allowed the Empire to integrate its economy far more than previously possible, when transportation depended on rivers.
After 1879, the Austrian and the Hungarian governments slowly began to renationalize their rail networks, largely because of the sluggish pace of development during the worldwide depression of the 1870s. Between 1879–1900, more than 25,000 km (16,000 mi) of railways were built in Cisleithania and Hungary. Most of this constituted "filling in" of the existing network, although some areas, primarily in the far east, gained rail connections for the first time. The railway reduced transportation costs throughout the Empire, opening new markets for products from other lands of the Dual Monarchy. In 1914, of a total of 22,981 km (14,279.73 mi) of railway tracks on Austrian part of the Empire, 18,859 (82%) were state owned. See Imperial Austrian State Railways for details in Austria. By 1910, the total length of the rail networks of Hungarian Kingdom reached 22,000 km (13,670 mi), the Hungarian network contained more than 1,490 railway stations. See Hungarian State Railways for details in Kingdom of Hungary.
Navigation
The SS Wien (Vienna) (7.367 t) was one of the largest passenger ships of the Austrian Lloyd and was used for trips to the Orient.
The SS Kaiser Franz Joseph I (12.567 t) of the Austro-Americana was the largest passenger ship ever built in Austria. Because of the Austrian possessions at the Littorals in many European countries and huge parts of the Balkan, Austria had several seaports.
The most significant seaport was Trieste (today part of Italy), where the Austrian merchant navy with their two most important navigation companies (Austrian Lloyd and Austro-Americana) and with several shipyards was settled. The K.U.K. navy used the port also for constructing new naval ships. The upturn started with the decline of Venice, which additionally could not be a rivalry for the Austrians from 1815 until 1866, because it was part of the monarchy. The merchant navy could not reach significance by the time Venice had been such a strong competitor. Also the navy became very significant during the time of the k.u.k. monarchy. For long time the establishment of a navy had failed because of lack of money at the Habsburg family.
The most important seaport for the Hungarian part of the k.u.k. was Fiume, where the Hungarian navigation companies like the famous Adria were operating from. The largest Hungarian shipbuilding company was the Ganz-Danubius. Another significant seaport was Pola – especially for the navy. In 1889 the Austrian merchant navy counted 10.022 ships, with 7.992 fishing vessels. Both 1.859 sailboats with crews of 6.489 men and a load capacity of 140.838 tons were used for the coast and sea trade and 171 steamers with a load capacity of 96.323 tons and a crew of 3.199 men.
The first Danubian steamer company (Donau-Dampfschifffahrt-Gesellschaft /DDSG) was the largest inland shipping company in the whole world until the collapse of the k.u.k. The Austrian Lloyd was one of the biggest ocean shipping companies of those time with voyages to the Orient and since the construction of the Suez Canal also to Asia. Until the beginning of the World War I the company owned 65 middle-sized and big steamers. The Austro-Americana owned one third of them and the biggest Austrian passenger ship, the SS Kaiser Franz Joseph I. In comparison to the Austrian Lloyd the Austro-American concentrated on destinations in North- and South America.[12][13][14][15][16][17]
Religions in Austria-Hungary, from the 1881 edition of Andrees Allgemeiner Handatlas. Catholics (both Roman and Uniate) are blue, Protestants purple, Eastern Orthodox yellow, and Muslims green.
Austria-Hungary 1914, physical
In July 1849, the Hungarian Revolutionary Parliament proclaimed and enacted the first laws on ethnic and minority rights in the world. (The next such laws were in Switzerland.) But these were overturned after the Russian and Austrian armies crushed the Hungarian Revolution. When Hungary made a compromise with the dynasty in 1867 one of the first acts of the restored Parliament was to pass a Law on Nationalities (Act Number XLIV of 1868). It was a liberal piece of legislation, and offered rather extensive language and cultural rights, but refused to recognize the non-Hungarians as state forming elements with territorial autonomy.[18]
The "Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867" created semi-independent states of Hungary and Austria linked by personal union, and entailed the rise of an assertive Magyar identity within the Kingdom of Hungary. Nationalism prevalent in the Empire of Austria also created tension between ethnic German and Czech citizens. In addition, the emergence of national identity in newly independent Romania and Serbia also contributed to ethnic issues in the empire.
Article 19 of the 1867 "Basic State Act" (Staatsgrundgesetz), valid only for the Cisleithanian (Austrian) part of Austria-Hungary,[19] said:
All races of the empire have equal rights, and every race has an inviolable right to the preservation and use of its own nationality and language. The equality of all customary languages ("landesübliche Sprache") in school, office and public life, is recognized by the state. In those territories in which several races dwell, the public and educational institutions are to be so arranged that, without applying compulsion to learn a second country language ("Landessprache"), each of the races receives the necessary means of education in its own language.
The implementation of this principle led to several disputes, as it was not clear which languages could be regarded as "customary". The Germans, the traditional bureaucratic, capitalist and cultural elite, demanded the recognition of their language as a customary language in every part of the Empire. Italian was regarded as an old "culture language" (Kultursprache) by German intellectuals and had always been granted equal rights as an official language of the Empire, but the Germans had difficulty in accepting the Slavic languages as equal to German. On one occasion Count A. Auersperg (Anastasius Grün) entered the diet of Carniola carrying what he claimed to be the whole corpus of Slovene literature under his arm to provide evidence that the Slovene language could in his view not be substituted for German as a medium of higher education.
Nevertheless the following years saw an emancipation of several languages, at least in Cisleithania. From 1867, laws awarded Croatian equal status with Italian in Dalmatia. From 1882, there was a Slovene majority in the diet of Carniola and in the capital Laibach (Ljubljana), thereby replacing German as the dominant official language. Polish was introduced instead of German in 1869 in Galicia as the normal language of government. The Poles themselves systematically disregarded the large Ukrainian minority in the country, and Ukrainian was not granted the status of an official language.
The language disputes were most fiercely fought in Bohemia where the Czech speakers formed a majority and sought equal status for their language. German speakers lost their majority in the Bohemian diet in 1880 and their dominating position in the cities of Prague and Pilsen (while retaining a slight numerical majority in the city of Brno (Brünn)) and found themselves in an unfamiliar minority position. The old Charles University in Prague, hitherto dominated by the German speakers, was divided into German and Czech parts in 1882.
Hungary's leaders were generally less willing than their Austrian counterparts to share power with their subject minorities, but they granted a large measure of autonomy to the Croatia in 1868, paralleling to some extent their own accommodation within the Empire the previous year. The Croatian government, in spite of nominal autonomy, was in fact an economic and administrative arm of Hungary, which the Croatians resented.
Language was one of the most contentious issues in Austro-Hungarian politics. All governments faced difficult and divisive hurdles in deciding on the languages of government and of instruction. Each minorities the widest opportunities for education in their own language as well as in the "dominant" languages of Hungarian and German. On one notable occasion, the "Ordinance of 5 April 1897", the Austrian Prime Minister Count Kasimir Felix Badeni gave Czech equal standing with German in the internal government of Bohemia, leading to a crisis because of nationalist German agitation throughout the Empire. In the end Badeni was dismissed.
The Hungarian minority act of 1868 gave the minorities (Slovaks, Romanians, Serbs et al.) individual (but not also communal) rights to use their language in offices, schools (although in practice often only in those founded by them and not by the state), courts and municipalities (if 20% of the deputies demanded it). From June 1907 (Lex Apponyi), all public and private schools in Hungary were obliged to ensure that after the fourth grade the pupils could express themselves fluently in Hungarian; which led to the closing of several minority schools, mostly Slovak and Rusyn.
It was not rare for the two kingdoms to divide spheres of influence. According to Misha Glenny (The Balkans, 1804–1999), the Austrians responded to Hungarian persecution of Czechs by supporting the Croatian national movement in Zagreb.
Emperor Franz Joseph realised that he reigned in a multiethnic country, and spoke German, Hungarian and Czech fluently, and Polish and Italian to some degree.
The situation of Jews in the kingdom, who numbered about 2 million in 1914, was ambiguous. Antisemitic parties and movements existed, but Vienna and Budapest did not initiate pogroms or implement official antisemitic policies – mainly for fear that such ethnic violence could ignite other ethnic minorities and result in violence that could spin out of control. The antisemitic parties remained on the periphery of political sphere due to their low popularity amongst voters in the parliamentary elections. The majority of Jews lived in small towns in Galicia and rural areas in Hungary and Bohemia, although there were large communities in Vienna, Budapest, Prague and other large cities. Of the pre-World War military forces of the major European powers, the Austro-Hungarian army was almost alone in its regular promotion of Jews to positions of command.[20] While the Jewish population of the lands of the Dual Monarchy was about five percent, Jews made up nearly eighteen percent of the reserve officer corps.[21]
Linguistic distribution
In the Austrian Empire 36.8% of the total population spoke German as a mother tongue and more than 71% of the inhabitants spoke some German. In the Kingdom of Hungary 54.4% of the total population spoke Hungarian as a mother tongue. Not counting autonomous Croatia, more than 64% of the inhabitants of the Hungarian Kingdom spoke Hungarian.
Linguistic distribution
of Austria–Hungary as a whole
Note that some languages are considered dialects of more widely-spoken languages. For example, Rusyn and Ukrainian were both counted as "Ruthenian" in the census, and Rhaeto-Romance languages were counted as "Italian".
World War I
Preludes: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Russian Pan-Slavic organizations sent aid to the Balkan rebels[citation needed] and so pressured the tsar's government that Russia declared war on Turkey in 1877 in the name of protecting Orthodox Christians. Unable to mediate between Turkey and Russia over the control of Serbia, Austria-Hungary declared neutrality when the conflict between the two powers escalated into a war.[10] With help from Romania and Greece, Russia defeated the Ottomans and by the Treaty of San Stefano created a large pro-Russian[citation needed] Bulgaria. This treaty sparked an international uproar that almost resulted in a general European war. Austri1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us~
Wikipedia:Contact us - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Abraham Lincolnpronunciation (help·info) (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865), the 16th President of the United States, served from March 1861 until his assassination. He led the country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis—the American Civil War—preserving the Union while ending slavery and promoting economic and financial modernization. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, Lincoln was mostly self-educated. He became a country lawyer, an Illinois state legislator, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives but failed in two attempts at a seat in the United States Senate. He was an affectionate, though often absent, husband and father of four children.
After deftly opposing the expansion of slavery in the United States in his campaign debates and speeches,[1] Lincoln secured the Republican nomination and was elected president in 1860. Following declarations of secession by southern slave states, war began in April 1861, and he concentrated on both the military and political dimensions of the war effort, seeking to reunify the nation. He vigorously exercised unprecedented war powers, including the arrest and detention without trial of thousands of suspected secessionists. He prevented British recognition of the Confederacy by skillfully handling the Trent affair late in 1861. He issued his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery.
Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including the commanding general Ulysses S. Grant. He brought leaders of various factions of his party into his cabinet and pressured them to cooperate. Under his leadership, the Union took control of the border slave states at the start of the war and tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond. Each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted another until finally Grant succeeded in 1865. An exceptionally astute politician deeply involved with power issues in each state, he reached out to War Democrats and managed his own re-election in the 1864 presidential election.
As the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican party, Lincoln came under attack from all sides. Radical Republicans wanted harsher treatment of the South, War Democrats desired more compromise, and Copperheads despised him--not to mention irreconcilable secessionists in reconquered areas.[2] Politically Lincoln fought back with patronage, by pitting his opponents against each other, and by appealing to the American people with his powers of oratory.[3] His Gettysburg Address of 1863 became the most quoted speech in American history.[4] It was an iconic statement of America's dedication to the principles of nationalism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. At the close of the war, Lincoln held a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to speedily reunite the nation through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. However, just six days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was shot and killed by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. His death marked the first assassination of a U.S. president. Lincoln has been consistently ranked by scholars as one of the greatest U.S. presidents.
Little is known about Lincoln's ancestors. Historical investigations have traced his paternal line back to Samuel Lincoln, an apprentice weaver who arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts, from Norfolk, England, in 1637.[6][7] However, Lincoln only knew of his heritage to his paternal grandfather and namesake, Abraham Lincoln, a local militia captain and landholder. He had inherited a 200-acre (81 ha) estate in Rockingham County, Virginia.[6][8] The elder Abraham later moved his family from Virginia to Jefferson County, Kentucky,[6][9] where he was ambushed and killed in an Indian raid in 1786 with his children Mordecai, Josiah, and Thomas looking on.[9] Mordecai's marksmanship with a rifle saved Thomas from the same fate. As the eldest son, by law Mordecai inherited his father's entire estate.[10]
Nancy Hanks was the illegitimate daughter of Lucy Hanks[citation needed] and born in what is now Mineral County, West Virginia, then part of Virginia. Lucy moved with her daughter to Kentucky, following her sister Elizabeth Hanks Sparrow and her husband Thomas. Lucy Hanks married Henry Sparrow, Thomas' brother. Soon after that, she placed the girl Nancy with her sister Elizabeth and Thomas, who essentially reared her.[11]
In Kentucky, Nancy Hanks married Thomas Lincoln, who became a respected citizen of his rural area. He bought and sold several farms, including the Sinking Spring Farm. The family attended a Separate Baptists church, which had high moral standards and opposed alcohol, dancing, and slavery.[12] As an adult, Thomas never formally joined a church. Thomas enjoyed considerable status in Kentucky—where he sat on juries, appraised estates, served on country slave patrols, and guarded prisoners. By the time his son Abraham was born, Thomas owned two 600-acre (240 ha) farms, several town lots, livestock, and horses. He was among the richest men in the county.[6][13] In 1816, the Lincoln family lost everything—they were stripped of all their lands in court cases because of a faulty title.[14]
They moved north across the Ohio River to free territory and made made a new start in Perry County, Indiana (now in Spencer County). Lincoln later noted that this move was "partly on account of slavery" but mainly due to land title difficulties.[14]
The young Lincoln in sculpture at Senn Park, Chicago
When Lincoln was nine, his 34-year-old mother Nancy died of milk sickness in 1818.[15] Her aunt Elizabeth and uncle Thomas Sparrow, who had followed the Lincolns to Little Pigeon Creek, also died of milk sickness.[11] They are each buried at the Nancy Hanks Lincoln Cemetery.[16] located on the grounds of Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in what is now known as Lincoln City, Indiana. The cemetery, also known as "Pioneer Cemetery", is administered by the National Park Service.
After the death of Lincoln's mother, his older sister, Sarah, took charge of caring for him until their father remarried in 1819. Thomas Lincoln's new wife was the widow Sarah Bush Johnston, the mother of three of her own children. Lincoln became very close to his stepmother, and took to calling her "Mother".[17] As he grew older, Lincoln became increasingly distant from his father. He regretted his father's lack of education and did not like the hard labor associated with frontier life. Still, he willingly took responsibility for all chores expected of him as one of the boys in the household and became an adept axeman in his work building rail fences. Lincoln also agreed with the customary obligation of a son to give his father all earnings from work done outside the home until age 21.[15] In later years, Lincoln occasionally loaned his father money.[18] Lincoln's sister, Sarah, died in her 20s while giving birth to a stillborn son.[7]
In 1830, fearing a milk sickness outbreak along the Ohio River, the Lincoln family moved west, where they settled on public land in Macon County, Illinois.[19] In 1831, after his father relocated the family to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois. It was then that as an ambitious 22-year-old, Lincoln decided to seek a better life and struck out on his own.
Canoeing down the Sangamon River, Lincoln ended up in the village of New Salem in Sangamon County.[20] In the spring of 1831, hired by New Salem businessman Denton Offutt and accompanied by friends, he took goods by flatboat from New Salem to New Orleans via the Sangamon, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers. After arriving in New Orleans—and witnessing slavery firsthand—he walked back home.[21]
Lincoln's formal education consisted of approximately 18 months of classes from several itinerant teachers; he was mostly self-educated and was an avid reader.[22] He attained a reputation for brawn and audacity after a very competitive wrestling match to which he was challenged by the renowned leader of a group of ruffians, "the Clary's Grove boys".[23] Some in his family, and in the neighborhood, considered him to be lazy.[24][25] Lincoln avoided hunting and fishing out of an aversion to killing animals.[26]
1864 photo of President Lincoln with youngest son, Tad
Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln, age 28
Lincoln's first romantic interest was Ann Rutledge, whom he met when he first moved to New Salem; by 1835, they were in a relationship but not formally engaged. She died, however, on August 25, most likely of typhoid fever.[27] In the early 1830s, he met Mary Owens from Kentucky when she was visiting her sister. Late in 1836, Lincoln agreed to a match with Mary if she returned to New Salem. Mary did return in November 1836, and Lincoln courted her for a time; however, they both had second thoughts about their relationship. On August 16, 1837, Lincoln wrote Mary a letter suggesting he would not blame her if she ended the relationship. She never replied and the courtship was over.[28]
In 1840, Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd, who was from a wealthy slave-holding family in Lexington, Kentucky.[29] They met in Springfield, Illinois in December 1839[30] and were engaged the following December.[31] A wedding was set for January 1, 1841, but the couple split as the wedding approached.[30] They later met at a party and then married on November 4, 1842, in the Springfield mansion of Mary's married sister.[32] While preparing for the nuptials and feeling reluctance again, Lincoln, when asked where he was going, replied, "To hell, I suppose."[33]
In 1844, the couple bought a house in Springfield near Lincoln's law office.[34] Mary Todd Lincoln worked diligently in their home, assuming household duties which had been performed for her in her own family. She also made efficient use of the limited funds available from her husband's law practice.[35] One evening, Mary asked Lincoln four times to restart the fire and, getting no reaction as he was absorbed in his reading, she grabbed a piece of firewood and rapped him on the head.[36] The Lincolns had a budding family with the birth of Robert Todd Lincoln in 1843 and Edward Baker Lincoln in 1846. Lincoln, according to those familiar with the family, "was remarkably fond of children",[37] and the Lincolns were not thought to be strict with their children.[38]
Robert was the only child of the Lincolns to live past the age of 18. Edward Lincoln died on February 1, 1850, in Springfield, likely of tuberculosis.[39] The Lincolns' grief over this loss was somewhat assuaged by the birth of "Willie" Lincoln nearly 11 months later, on December 21. However, Willie died of a fever at the age of 11 on February 20, 1862, in Washington, D.C., during President Lincoln's first term.[40] The Lincolns' fourth son, Thomas "Tad" Lincoln, was born on April 4, 1853, and outlived his father, but died of heart failure at the age of 18 on July 16, 1871, in Chicago.[41]
The death of their sons had profound effects on both parents. Later in life, Mary struggled with the stresses of losing her husband and sons, and Robert Lincoln committed her temporarily to a mental health asylum in 1875.[42] Abraham Lincoln suffered from "melancholy", a condition which now may be referred to as clinical depression.[43]
Lincoln's father-in-law was based in Lexington, Kentucky; he and others of the Todd family were either slave owners or slave traders. Lincoln was close to the Todds, and he and his family occasionally visited the Todd estate in Lexington; Lincoln's connections in Lexington could have effectuated his ambitions, but he remained in Illinois, where, to his liking, slavery was almost nonexistent.[44]
In 1832, at age 23, Lincoln and a partner bought a small general store on credit in New Salem, Illinois. Although the economy was booming in the region, the business struggled and Lincoln eventually sold his share. That March he began his political career with his first campaign for the Illinois General Assembly. He had attained local popularity and could draw crowds as a natural raconteur in New Salem, though he lacked an education, powerful friends, and money, which may be why he lost. He advocated navigational improvements on the Sangamon River.[45]
A sketch of young Abraham Lincoln
Before the election Lincoln served as a captain in the Illinois Militia during the Black Hawk War.[46] Following his return, Lincoln continued his campaign for the August 6 election for the Illinois General Assembly. At 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm), he was tall and "strong enough to intimidate any rival". At his first speech, when he saw a supporter in the crowd being attacked, Lincoln grabbed the assailant by his "neck and the seat of his trousers" and threw him.[47] Lincoln finished eighth out of thirteen candidates (the top four were elected), though he received 277 of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem precinct.[48]
Lincoln served as New Salem's postmaster and later as county surveyor, all the while reading voraciously. He then decided to become a lawyer and began teaching himself law by reading Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England and other law books. Of his learning method, Lincoln stated: "I studied with nobody".[49] His second campaign in 1834 was successful. He won election to the state legislature; though he ran as a Whig, many Democrats favored him over a more powerful Whig opponent.[50]Admitted to the bar in 1836,[51] he moved to Springfield, Illinois, and began to practice law under John T. Stuart, Mary Todd's cousin.[52] Lincoln became an able and successful lawyer with a reputation as a formidable adversary during cross-examinations and closing arguments. In 1841, he partnered with Stephen T. Logan until 1844, when he began his practice with William Herndon, whom Lincoln thought "a studious young man".[53] He served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives as a Whig representative from Sangamon County.[54]
In the 1835–1836 legislative session, he voted to expand suffrage to white males, whether landowners or not.[55] He was known for his "free soil" stance of opposing both slavery and abolitionism. He first articulated this in 1837, saying, "Institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils."[56] He closely followed Henry Clay in supporting the American Colonization Society program of making the abolition of slavery practical by helping the freed slaves return to Liberia in Africa.[57]
Congressman Lincoln
From the early 1830s, Lincoln was a steadfast Whig and professed to friends in 1861 to be, "an old line Whig, a disciple of Henry Clay".[58] The party, including Lincoln, favored economic modernization in banking, railroads, and internal improvements and espoused urbanization as well as protective tariffs.[59]
In 1846, Lincoln was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served one two-year term. He was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation, but he showed his party loyalty by participating in almost all votes and making speeches that echoed the party line.[60] Lincoln, in collaboration with abolitionist Congressman Joshua R. Giddings, wrote a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia with compensation for the owners, enforcement to capture fugitive slaves, and a popular vote on the matter. He abandoned the bill when it failed to garner sufficient Whig supporters.[61] Lincoln also spoke out against the Mexican–American War, which he attributed to President Polk's desire for "military glory—that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood".[62]
Lincoln emphasized his opposition to Polk by drafting and introducing his Spot Resolutions. The war had begun with a Mexican slaughter of American soldiers in territory disputed by Mexico and the US; Polk insisted that Mexican soldiers had "invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil".[63][64] Lincoln demanded that Polk show Congress the exact spot on which blood had been shed and prove that the spot was on American soil.[64] Congress never enacted the resolution or even debated it, the national papers ignored it, and it resulted in a loss of political support for Lincoln in his district. One Illinois newspaper derisively nicknamed him "spotty Lincoln".[65][66][67] Lincoln later regretted some of his statements, especially his attack on the presidential war-making powers.[68]
Realizing Clay was unlikely to win the presidency, Lincoln, who had pledged in 1846 to serve only one term in the House, supported General Zachary Taylor for the Whig nomination in the 1848 presidential election.[69] Taylor won and Lincoln hoped to be appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office, but that lucrative patronage job went to an Illinois rival, Justin Butterfield, considered by the administration to be a highly skilled lawyer, but in Lincoln's view, an "old fossil".[70] The administration offered him the consolation prize of secretary or governor of the Oregon Territory. This distant territory was a Democratic stronghold, and acceptance of the post would have effectively ended his legal and political career in Illinois, so he declined and resumed his law practice.[71]
Prairie lawyer
Lincoln in his late 30s – photo taken by one of Lincoln's law students around 1846
Lincoln returned to practicing law in Springfield, handling "every kind of business that could come before a prairie lawyer".[72] Twice a year for sixteen years, ten weeks at a time, he appeared in county seats in the midstate region when the county courts were in session.[73] Lincoln handled many transportation cases in the midst of the nation's western expansion, particularly the conflicts arising from the operation of river barges under the many new railroad bridges. As a riverboat man, Lincoln initially favored those interests but ultimately represented whoever hired him.[74] His reputation grew, and he appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States, arguing a case involving a canal boat that sank after hitting a bridge.[75] In 1849, he received a patent for a flotation device for the movement of boats in shallow water.[76] The idea was never commercialized, but Lincoln is the only president to hold a patent.[77]
In 1851, he represented Alton & Sangamon Railroad in a dispute with one of its shareholders, James A. Barret, who had refused to pay the balance on his pledge to buy shares in the railroad on the grounds that the company had changed its original train route.[78][79] Lincoln successfully argued that the railroad company was not bound by its original charter in existence at the time of Barret's pledge; the charter was amended in the public interest to provide a newer, superior, and less expensive route, and the corporation retained the right to demand Barret's payment. The decision by the Illinois Supreme Court has been cited by numerous other courts in the nation.[78] Lincoln appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases, in 51 as sole counsel, of which 31 were decided in his favor.[80] From 1853 to 1860, another of Lincoln's largest clients was the Illinois Central Railroad.[81]
Lincoln's most notable criminal trial occurred in 1858 when he defended William "Duff" Armstrong, who was on trial for the murder of James Preston Metzker.[82] The case is famous for Lincoln's use of a fact established by judicial notice in order to challenge the credibility of an eyewitness. After an opposing witness testified seeing the crime in the moonlight, Lincoln produced a Farmers' Almanac showing the moon was at a low angle, drastically reducing visibility. Based on this evidence, Armstrong was acquitted.[82] Lincoln rarely raised objections in the courtroom; but in an 1859 case, where he defended a cousin Peachy Harrison, who was accused of stabbing another to death, Lincoln angrily protested the judge's decision to exclude evidence favorable to his client. Instead of holding Lincoln in contempt of court as was expected, the judge, a Democrat, reversed his ruling, allowing the evidence and acquitting Harrison.[82][83]
Republican politics 1854–1860
Lincoln returned to politics to oppose the pro-slavery Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854); this law repealed the slavery-restricting Missouri Compromise (1820). Senior Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois had incorporated popular sovereignty into the Act. Douglas' provision, which Lincoln opposed, specified the people have the right to determine locally whether to allow slavery in their territory rather than have such a decision imposed on them by the national Congress.[84] Foner (2010) contrasts the abolitionists and anti-slavery Radical Republicans of the Northeast who saw slavery a sin, with the conservative Republicans who thought it was bad because it hurt white people and blocked progress. Foner argues that Lincoln was a moderate in the middle, opposing slavery primarily because it violated the republicanism principles of the Founding Fathers, especially the equality of all men and democratic self-government as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.[85]
Portrait of Dred Scott. Lincoln disapproved of the controversial court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford.
On October 16, 1854, in his "Peoria Speech", Lincoln declared his opposition to slavery, which he repeated en route to the presidency.[86] Speaking in his Kentucky accent, with a very powerful voice,[87] he said the Kansas Act had a "declared indifference, but as I must think, a covert real zeal for the spread of slavery. I cannot but hate it. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world..."[88]
In late 1854, Lincoln ran as a Whig for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. At that time, senators were elected by the state legislature.[89] After leading in the first six rounds of voting in the Illinois assembly, his support began to dwindle, and Lincoln instructed his backers to vote for Lyman Trumbull, who defeated opponent Joel Aldrich Matteson.[90] The Whigs had been irreparably split by the Kansas–Nebraska Act. Lincoln wrote, "I think I am a Whig, but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am an abolitionist, even though I do no more than oppose the extension of slavery." Drawing on remnants of the old Whig party, and on disenchanted Free Soil, Liberty, and Democratic party members, he was instrumental in forging the shape of the new Republican Party.[91] At the Republican convention in 1856, Lincoln placed second in the contest to become the party's candidate for vice president.[92]
In 1857–58, Douglas broke with President Buchanan, leading to a fight for control of the Democratic Party. Some eastern Republicans even favored the reelection of Douglas for the Senate in 1858, since he had led the opposition to the Lecompton Constitution, which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state.[93] In March 1857, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford; Chief Justice Roger B. Taney opined that blacks were not citizens, and derived no rights from the Constitution. Lincoln denounced the decision, alleging it was the product of a conspiracy of Democrats to support the Slave Power [94] Lincoln argued, "The authors of the Declaration of Independence never intended 'to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity', but they 'did consider all men created equal—equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'."[95] After the state Republican party convention nominated him for the U.S. Senate in 1858, Lincoln delivered his House Divided Speech, drawing on Mark's gospel from the Bible: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."[96] The speech created an evocative image of the danger of disunion caused by the slavery debate, and rallied Republicans across the North.[97] The stage was then set for the campaign for statewide election of the Illinois legislature which would, in turn, select Lincoln or Douglas as its U.S. senator.[98]
Lincoln–Douglas debates and Cooper Union speech
A. Helser photographed Lincoln in 1860.
The 1858 senate campaign featured the seven Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858, the most famous political debates in American history.[99] The principals stood in stark contrast both physically and politically. Lincoln warned that "The Slave Power" was threatening the values of republicanism, and accused Douglas of distorting the values of the Founding Fathers that all men are created equal, while Douglas emphasized his Freeport Doctrine, that local settlers were free to choose whether to allow slavery or not, and accused Lincoln of having joined the abolitionists.[100] The debates had an atmosphere of a prize fight and drew crowds in the thousands. Lincoln stated Douglas's popular sovereignty theory was a threat to the nation's morality and that Douglas represented a conspiracy to extend slavery to free states. Douglas said that Lincoln was defying the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Dred Scott decision.[101]
Though the Republican legislative candidates won more popular votes, the Democrats won more seats, and the legislature re-elected Douglas to the Senate. Despite the bitterness of the defeat for Lincoln, his articulation of the issues gave him a national political reputation.[102] In May 1859, Lincoln purchased the Illinois Staats-Anzeiger, a German-language newspaper which was consistently supportive; most of the state's 130,000 German Americans voted Democratic but there was Republican support that a German-language paper could mobilize.[103]
On February 27, 1860, New York party leaders invited Lincoln to give a speech at Cooper Union to a group of powerful Republicans. Lincoln argued that the Founding Fathers had little use for popular sovereignty and had repeatedly sought to restrict slavery. Lincoln insisted the moral foundation of the Republicans required opposition to slavery, and rejected any "groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong".[104] Despite his inelegant appearance—many in the audience thought him awkward and even ugly[105]—Lincoln demonstrated an intellectual leadership that brought him into the front ranks of the party and into contention for the Republican presidential nomination. Journalist Noah Brooks reported, "No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience."[106][107] Donald described the speech as a "superb political move for an unannounced candidate, to appear in one rival's (William H. Seward) own state at an event sponsored by the second rival's (Salmon P. Chase) loyalists, while not mentioning either by name during its delivery."[108] In response to an inquiry about his presidential intentions, Lincoln said, "The taste is in my mouth a little."[109]
"The Rail Candidate"—Lincoln's 1860 candidacy is depicted as held up by the slavery issue—a slave on the left and party organization on the right.
On May 9–10, 1860, the Illinois Republican State Convention was held in Decatur.[110] Lincoln's followers organized a campaign team led by David Davis, Norman Judd, Leonard Swett, and Jesse DuBois, and Lincoln received his first endorsement to run for the presidency.[111] Exploiting the embellished legend of his frontier days with his father, Lincoln's supporters adopted the label of "The Rail Candidate".[112] On May 18, at the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Lincoln's friends promised and manipulated and won the nomination on the third ballot, beating candidates such as William H. Seward and Salmon P. Chase. A former Democrat Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was nominated for Vice President to balance the ticket. Lincoln's success depended on his reputation as a moderate on the slavery issue, and his strong support for Whiggish programs of internal improvements and the protective tariff.[113] On the third ballot Pennsylvania put him over the top. Pennsylvania iron interests were reassured by his support for protective tariffs.[114] Lincoln's managers had been adroitly focused on this delegation as well as the others, while following Lincoln's strong dictate to "Make no contracts that bind me".[115]
Most Republicans agreed with Lincoln that the North was the aggrieved party, as the Slave Power tightened its grasp on the national government with the Dred Scott decision and the presidency of James Buchanan. Throughout the 1850s, Lincoln doubted the prospects of civil war, and his supporters rejected claims that his election would incite secession.[116] Meanwhile, Douglas was selected as the candidate of the Northern Democrats, with Herschel Vespasian Johnson as the vice-presidential candidate. Delegates from 11 slave states walked out of the Democratic convention, disagreeing with Douglas's position on popular sovereignty, and ultimately selected John C. Breckinridge as their candidate.[117]
As Douglas and the other candidates went through with their campaigns, Lincoln was the only one of them who gave no speeches. Instead, he monitored the campaign closely and relied on the enthusiasm of the Republican Party. The party did the leg work that produced majorities across the North, and produced an abundance of campaign posters, leaflets, and newspaper editorials. There were thousands of Republican speakers who focused first on the party platform, and second on Lincoln's life story, emphasizing his childhood poverty. The goal was to demonstrate the superior power of "free labor", whereby a common farm boy could work his way to the top by his own efforts.[118] The Republican Party's production of campaign literature dwarfed the combined opposition; a Chicago Tribune writer produced a pamphlet that detailed Lincoln's life, and sold one million copies.[119]
In 1860, northern and western electoral votes (shown in red) put Lincoln into the White House.
1861 inaugural at Capitol still under construction
On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the sixteenth president of the United States, beating Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge of the Southern Democrats, and John Bell of the new Constitutional Union Party. He was the first president from the Republican Party. Winning entirely on the strength of his support in the North and West, no ballots were cast for him in ten of the fifteen Southern slave states, and he won only two of 996 counties in all the Southern states.[120] Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, Douglas 1,376,957 votes, Breckinridge 849,781 votes, and Bell 588,789 votes. Turnout was 82.2 percent, with Lincoln winning the free Northern states, as well as California and Oregon. Douglas won Missouri, and split New Jersey with Lincoln.[121] Bell won Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and Breckinridge won the rest of the South.[122] The State's Electoral votes were decisive: Lincoln had 180 and his opponents added together had only 123. There were fusion tickets in which all of Lincoln's opponents combined to support the same slate of Electors in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, but even if the anti-Lincoln vote had been combined in every state, Lincoln still would have won a majority in the Electoral College.[123]
As Lincoln's election became evident, secessionists made clear their intent to leave the Union before he took office the next March.[124] On December 20, 1860, South Carolina took the lead by adopting an ordinance of secession; by February 1, 1861, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed.[125][126] Six of these states then adopted a constitution and declared themselves to be a sovereign nation, the Confederate States of America.[125] The upper South and border states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas) listened to, but initially rejected, the secessionist appeal.[127] President Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy, declaring secession illegal.[128] The Confederacy selected Jefferson Davis as their provisional President on February 9, 1861.[129]
There were attempts at compromise. The Crittenden Compromise would have extended the Missouri Compromise line of 1820, dividing the territories into slave and free, contrary to the Republican Party's free-soil platform.[130] Lincoln rejected the idea, saying, "I will suffer death before I consent ... to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege to take possession of this government to which we have a constitutional right."[131] Lincoln, however, did support the Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which had passed in Congress and protected slavery in those states where it already existed.[132] A few weeks before the war, he went so far as to pen a letter to every governor asking for their support in ratifying the Corwin Amendment as a means to avoid secession.[133]
En route to his inauguration by train, Lincoln addressed crowds and legislatures across the North. The president-elect then evaded possible assassins in Baltimore, who were uncovered by Lincoln's head of security, Allan Pinkerton. On February 23, 1861, he arrived in disguise in Washington, D.C., which was placed under substantial military guard.[134] Lincoln directed his inaugural speech to the South, saying, "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies ... The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."[135] The failure of the Peace Conference of 1861 signaled that legislative compromise was implausible. By March 1861, no leaders of the insurrection had proposed rejoining the Union on any terms. Meanwhile, Lincoln and nearly every Republican leader agreed that the dismantling of the Union could not be tolerated.[136]
The commander of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, Major Anderson sent a request for provisions to Washington, and the execution of Lincoln's order to meet that request was seen by the secessionists as an act of war. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, forced them to surrender, and began the war.[137] Historian Allan Nevins argued that the newly inaugurated Lincoln miscalculated in believing that he could preserve the Union,[138] and William Tecumseh Sherman, then a civilian, visited Lincoln in the White House during inauguration week and was "sadly disappointed" at Lincoln's seeming failure to realize that "the country was sleeping on a volcano" and that the South was preparing for war.[139] Donald concludes that, "His repeated efforts to avoid collision in the months between inauguration and the firing on Ft. Sumter showed he adhered to his vow not to be the first to shed fraternal blood. But he also vowed not to surrender the forts. The only resolution of these contradictory positions was for the confederates to fire the first shot; they did just that."[140]
On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send detachments totaling 75,000 troops to recapture forts, protect the capital, and "preserve the Union", which, in his view, still existed intact despite the actions of the seceding states. This call forced the states to choose sides. Virginia declared its secession and was rewarded with the Confederate capital, despite the exposed position of Richmond so close to Union lines. North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas also voted for secession over the next two months. Secession sentiment was strong in Missouri and Maryland, but did not prevail; Kentucky tried to be neutral.[141]
Troops headed south towards Washington, to protect the capital in response to Lincoln's call. On April 19, secessionist mobs in Baltimore that controlled the rail links attacked Union troops traveling to the capital. George William Brown, the Mayor of Baltimore, and other suspect Maryland politicians were arrested and imprisoned as Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus.[142]John Merryman, a leader in the secessionist group in Maryland, petitioned Chief Justice Roger Taney to issue a writ of habeas corpus, saying Lincoln's action of holding Merryman without a hearing was unlawful. Taney issued the writ, thereby ordering Merryman's release, but Lincoln ignored it.[143] Throughout the war Lincoln came under heavy, often vituperative attack from most Northern Democrats, called Copperheads,[144] not to mention the Confederates who saw him as the embodiment of the Yankee threat.[145]
"Running the 'Machine' ": An 1864 political cartoon takes a swing at Lincoln's administration—featuring William Fessenden, Edwin Stanton, William Seward, Gideon Welles, Lincoln and others.
After the fall of Fort Sumter, Lincoln soon realized the importance of taking immediate excutive control of the war and making an overall strategy to put down the rebellion. Lincoln encountered an unprecedented political and military crisis, and he responded as commander-in-chief, using unprecedented powers. He expanded his war powers, and imposed a blockade on all the Confederate shipping ports, disbursed funds before appropriation by Congress, and controversally suspended the writ of habeas corpus along the corridor of Washington and Philadelphia, arresting and imprisoning thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers without warrant. The suspension of writ was done in order to give Union enlistments free entry into the capitol. Lincoln was supported by Congress and the northern public for these actions. In addition, Lincoln had to contend with reinforcing strong Union sympathies in the border slave states and keeping the war from becoming an international conflict. [146]
The war effort was the source of continued disparagement of Lincoln, and dominated his time and attention. From the start, it was clear that bipartisan support would be essential to success in the war effort, and any manner of compromise alienated factions on both sides of the aisle, such as the appointment of Republicans and Democrats to command positions in the Union Army.[147]Copperheads and other opponents of the war criticized Lincoln for refusing to compromise on the slavery issue. Conversely, the Radical Republicans criticized him for moving too slowly in abolishing slavery.[148] On August 6, 1861, Lincoln signed the Confiscation Act that authorized judiciary proceedings to confiscate and free slaves who were used to support the Confederate war effort.[149]
In late August 1861, General John C. Frémont created controversy on the Republican side when he issued, without consulting Lincoln, a proclamation of martial law in Missouri. He declared that any citizen found bearing arms could be court-martialed and shot, and that slaves of persons aiding the rebellion would be freed. Charges of negligence in his command of the Department of the West were compounded with allegations of fraud and corruption. Lincoln overruled Frémont's proclamation and he was given another command in November. This decision, in part, prevented the secession of Kentucky while incurring the violence in the North.[150] Lincoln's effort to consolidate Kentucky paid off as Union enlistments increased by over 40,000 troops from Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri.[151]
The war assumed foreign policy implications in 1861 when James Mason and John Slidell, ministers of the Confederacy to Great Britain and France, boarded the British ship Trent in Havana, Cuba. The U.S. Navy illegally intercepted the Trent on the high seas and seized the two Confederate envoys; Britain protested vehemently while the northern Americans cheered. Lincoln managed to resolve the issue by releasing the two men and war was successfully averted with Britain.[152][153] Lincoln's foreign policy approach had been initially hands off, due to his inexperience; he left most diplomacy appointments and other foreign policy matters to his Secretary of State, William Seward. Seward's initial reaction to the Trent affair, however, was too bellicose, so Lincoln also turned to Sen. Charles Sumner, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an expert in British diplomacy.[154]
Despite his lack of expertise in military affairs, Lincoln studied books from the Library of Congress and painstakingly monitored the telegraphic reports. He kept close tabs on all phases of the military effort, consulted wi< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Main_Pagew
Pages that link to "Main Page" - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Macleay's Swallowtail (Graphium macleayanus) is a swallowtail butterfly native to Australia, named after Scottish entomologistAlexander Macleay. It is found in coastal areas of Eastern Australia and on Tasmania. It has a wingspan of about 55 mm (2.2 in), with females being larger than males.
Tanabata(七夕?, meaning "Evening of the seventh") is a Japanese star festival, originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival. It celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi (represented by the stars Vega and Altair respectively). According to legend, the Milky Way separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. The date of Tanabata varies by region of the country, but the first festivities begin on July 7 of the Gregorian calendar. The celebration is held at night.
The festival was imported to Japan by the Empress Kōken in 755.[1] It originated from "The Festival to Plead for Skills" (乞巧奠,Kikkōden?), an alternative name for Qixi,[2]:9 which was celebrated in China and also was adopted in the Kyoto Imperial Palace from the Heian period.
The festival gained widespread popularity amongst the general public by the early Edo period,[2]:19 when it became mixed with various Obon or Bon traditions (because Bon was held on 15th of the seventh month then), and developed into the modern Tanabata festival. Popular customs relating to the festival varied by region of the country,[2]:20 but generally, girls wished for better sewing and craftsmanship, and boys wished for better handwriting by writing wishes on strips of paper. At this time, the custom was to use dew left on taro leaves to create the ink used to write wishes. Incidentally, Bon is now held on 15 August on the solar calendar, close to its original date on the lunar calendar, making Tanabata and Bon separate events.
The name Tanabata is remotely related to the Japanese reading of the Chinese characters 七夕, which used to be read as "Shichiseki". It is believed that a Shinto purification ceremony existed around the same time, in which a Shinto miko wove a special cloth on a loom called a Tanabata (棚機?) near waters and offered it to a god to pray for protection of rice crops from rain or storm and for good harvest later in autumn. Gradually this ceremony merged with Kikkōden to become Tanabata. The Chinese characters 七夕 and the Japanese reading Tanabata joined to mean the same festival, although originally they were two different things, an example of ateji.
The most popular version is as follows:[3][4][5][6]
Orihime (織姫,Weaving Princess?), daughter of the Tentei (天帝,Sky King, or the universe itself?), wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Amanogawa (天の川,Milky Way, lit. "heavenly river"?). Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, Orihime was sad that because of her hard work she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, Tentei arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi (彦星,Cow Herder Star?) (also referred to as Kengyuu (牽牛?)) who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa. When the two met, they fell instantly in love with each other and married shortly thereafter. However, once married, Orihime no longer would weave cloth for Tentei and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven. In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again. Tentei was moved by his daughter’s tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if she worked hard and finished her weaving. The first time they tried to meet, however, they found that they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet.
The following variation of the story is known in China and Japan: A young farmer named Mikeran discovered on his farm a robe which, unbeknownst to him, belonged to a goddess named Tanabata. Soon after, Tanabata visited Mikeran and asked if he had found it. He lied and told the goddess that he hadn't but would help with her search. Eventually the pair fell in love, were wed and had many children. However, one day Tanabata noticed a piece of cloth which had once belonged to her robe on the roof of Mikeran's hut. His lie discovered, Tanabata agreed to forgive him on the condition that he weave a thousand pairs of straw shoes, but until that time, she would leave him. Mikeran was unable to weave the shoes in his lifetime and thus never met Tanabata again. However, it is said that the pair meet once a year when the stars Altair and Vega intersect.[citation needed]
It is said that Tanabata asked Mikeran to weave one thousand sandals and bury them under the bamboo tree and they'd surely meet again. Mikeran wove the sandals and buried them under the bamboo tree as Tanabata had asked. When the tree grew, Mikeran climbed up to find that he was one step short. In his haste, he had used one sandal fewer than necessary, causing the tree to grow one step short. Mikeran called out to Tanabata and she came and lifted him up. Mikeran's father wasn't pleased so he gave Mikeran the difficult job of watching a melon field for three days and nights without touching a single melon. Mikeran however grew very thirsty watching the melons that he touched one. The melon immediately turned into a flowing river forever separating Mikeran and Tanabata. Tanabata pleaded with her father to let her see Mikeran again. Feeling sorry for his daughter, he allows them to see each other on the 7th day of the 7th month.[7]
In present-day Japan, people generally celebrate this day by writing wishes, sometimes in the form of poetry, on tanzaku(短冊,tanzaku?), small pieces of paper, and hanging them on bamboo, sometimes with other decorations. cf (Wish Tree) The bamboo and decorations are often set afloat on a river or burned after the festival, around midnight or on the next day.[8] This resembles the custom of floating paper ships and candles on rivers during Obon. Many areas in Japan have their own Tanabata customs, which are mostly related to local Obon traditions. There is also a traditional Tanabata song:[9]
Sasa no ha sara-sara (笹の葉 さらさら) Nokiba ni yureru (軒端にゆれる) Ohoshi-sama kira-kira (お星様 キラキラ) Kingin sunago (金銀砂子)
Translation:
The bamboo leaves rustle,
shaking away in the eaves.
The stars twinkle;
Gold and silver grains of sand.
The original Tanabata date was based on the Japanese lunisolar calendar, which is about a month behind the Gregorian calendar. As a result, some festivals are held on July 7, some are held on a few days around August 7, while the others are still held on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the traditional Japanese lunisolar calendar, which is usually in August in the Gregorian Calendar.
The Gregorian dates of "the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the Japanese lunisolar calendar" for the coming years are:
2011-08-06
2012-08-24 (The Chinese date is 2012-08-23 because of the time difference.)
Large-scale Tanabata festivals are held in many places in Japan, mainly along shopping malls and streets, which are decorated with large, colorful streamers. The most famous Tanabata festival is held in Sendai from August 6 to August 8. In the Kantō area, the biggest Tanabata festival is held in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa for a few days around July 7. A Tanabata festival is also held in São Paulo, Brazil around the first weekend of July.
Although Tanabata festivals vary by region, most festivals involve Tanabata decoration competitions. Other events may include parades and Miss Tanabata contests. Like other Japanese matsuri, many outdoor stalls sell food, provide carnival games, etc., and add to the festive atmosphere.
Tokyo Disneyland often celebrates the Tanabata Festival featuring a greeting parade with Mickey as Altair and Minnie as Vega.[citation needed]
The Sendai Tanabata festival began shortly after the city was founded in the early Edo Period. The Tanabata festival gradually developed and became larger over the years. Although the festival's popularity started to dwindle after the Meiji Restoration, and almost disappeared during the economic depression that occurred after World War I, volunteers in Sendai revived the festival in 1928 and established the tradition of holding the festival from August 6 to August 8.
During World War II it was impossible to hold the festival, and almost no decorations were seen in the city from 1943 to 1945, but after the war, the first major Tanabata festival in Sendai was held in 1946, and featured 52 decorations. In 1947, the Showa Emperor Hirohito visited Sendai and was greeted by 5,000 Tanabata decorations. The festival subsequently developed into one of the three major summer festivals in the Tohoku region and became a major tourist attraction. The festival now includes a fireworks show that is held on August 5.
At the Sendai Tanabata festival, people traditionally use seven different kinds of decorations, which each represent different meanings. The seven decorations and their symbolic meanings are:
Paper strips (短冊; Tanzaku) : Wishes for good handwriting and studies
Paper Kimono (紙衣; Kamigoromo) : Wishes for good sewing. Wards off accidents and bad health.
Paper Crane (折り鶴; Orizuru) : Family safety, health, and long life
Purse (巾着; Kinchaku) : Good business
Net (投網; Toami) : Good fishing and harvests
Trash Bag (くずかご; Kuzukago) : Cleanliness and thriftyness
Streamers (吹き流し; Fukinagashi) : The strings that Orihime uses to weave
The ornamental ball (くす玉; Kusudama) often decorated above streamers in present-day Tanabata decorations was originally conceived in 1946 by the owner of a shop in downtown Sendai. The ball was originally modelled after the Dahlia flower. In recent years, box-shaped ornaments have become popular alternatives to the ornamental ball.
In 2008, the 34th G8 summit in Tōyako, Hokkaidō coincided with Tanabata.[10] As host, Japanese Prime MinisterYasuo Fukuda invited the G8 leaders to participate in the spirit of the festival. They were each asked to write a wish on a piece of paper called tanzaku, to hang the tanzaku on a bamboo tree, and then to take the necessary actions to change the world for better.[11] As a symbolic gesture, the actual writing and the act of hanging up that note is at least a first step.[12]
Protesting organizations in Sapporo during the G8 summit also tried to use the spirit of Tanabata to focus attention on a somewhat different set of wishes. Non-governmental organizations like Oxfam, and CARE International set up an online wish petition campaign to coincide with the G8 Summit and Tanabata.[14]
Outside Japan, Fukuda's timely gesture had unanticipated consequences. For example, the Indian nationally circulated newspaper, The Hindu picked up on this festival theme by printing an editorial featuring unconventional Tanabata wishes.[15]
Fukuda also invited his fellow citizens to try turning off the lights in their house and stepping outside to enjoy with their family the sight of the Milky Way in the night sky.[16] On July 7, the Japanese Ministry of the Environment anticipated that over 70,000 facilities and households across Japan would switch off their lights from 20:00 to 22:00 as a symbolic step and as a wish for the future.[17]
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all ages. The sport can be played by anyone who can hold a racket, including people in wheelchairs.
The modern game of tennis originated in Birmingham, England in the late 19th century as "lawn tennis" which has close connections to various field/lawn games as well as to the ancient game of real tennis. Up to then, "tennis" referred to the latter sport: for example, in Disraeli's novel Sybil (1845), Lord Eugene De Vere announces that he will "go down to Hampton Court and play tennis. As it is the Derby [classic horse race], nobody will be there".[1] After its creation, lawn tennis spread throughout the upper-class English-speaking population before spreading around the world.[2]
The rules of tennis have not changed much since the 1890s. Two exceptions are that from 1908 to 1961 the server had to keep one foot on the ground at all times, and the adoption of the tie-break in the 1970s. A recent addition to professional tennis has been the adoption of electronic review technology coupled with a point challenge system, which allows a player to challenge the line (or chair) umpire's call of a point. Players have unlimited opportunity to challenge, but once three incorrect challenges are made in a set, they cannot challenge again until the next set. If the set goes to a tie break, players are given one additional opportunity to challenge the call. This electronic review, currently called Hawk-Eye, is available at a limited number of high-level ATP and WTA tournaments.
Tennis is enjoyed by millions of recreational players and is also a hugely popular worldwide spectator sport, especially the four Grand Slam tournaments (also referred to as the "Majors"): the Australian Open played on hard courts, the French Open played on red clay courts, Wimbledon played on grass courts, and the US Open played also on hard courts.
Most historians believe that tennis originated in France in the 12th century, but the ball was then struck with the palm of the hand. It was not until the 16th century that rackets came into use, and the game began to be called "tennis." It was popular in England and France, although the game was only played indoors where the ball could be hit off the wall. Henry VIII of England was a big fan of this game, which is now known as real tennis.[3]
Harry Gem and his friend Augurio Perera developed a game that combined elements of rackets and the Basque ball game pelota, which they played on Perera's croquet lawn in Birmingham, United Kingdom.[4][5] In 1872, along with two local doctors, they founded the world's first tennis club in Leamington Spa.[6]
In December 1873, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield designed and patented a similar game — which he called sphairistike (Greek: σφάίρίστική, from ancient Greek meaning "skill at playing at ball"), and was soon known simply as "sticky" — for the amusement of his guests at a garden party on his estate of Nantclwyd, in Llanelidan, Wales.[7] He likely based his game on the evolving sport of outdoor tennis including real tennis. According to some tennis historians, modern tennis terminology also derives from this period, as Wingfield borrowed both the name and much of the French vocabulary of real tennis and applied them to his new game.[citation needed]
Lawn tennis in the U.S., 1887
The first championships at Wimbledon in London were played in 1877.[8] The first Championships culminated a significant debate on how to standardize the rules.
In America in 1874 Mary Ewing Outerbridge, a young socialite, returned from Bermuda where she met Major Wingfield. She laid out a tennis court at the Staten Island Cricket Club in New Brighton Staten Island, New York. The exact location of the club was under what is now the Staten Island Ferry terminal. The first American National tournament in 1880 was played there. An Englishman named O.E Woodhouse won the singles match. There was also a doubles match which was won by a local pair. There were different rules at each club. The ball in Boston was larger than the one normally used in NY. On May 21, 1881, the United States National Lawn Tennis Association (now the United States Tennis Association) was formed to standardize the rules and organize competitions.[9] The U.S. National Men's Singles Championship, now the US Open, was first held in 1881 at Newport, Rhode Island.[10] The U.S. National Women's Singles Championships were first held in 1887.[11] Tennis was also popular in France, where the French Open dates to 1891.[12] Thus, Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open (dating to 1905) became and have remained the most prestigious events in tennis.[8][13] Together these four events are called the Majors or Slams (a term borrowed from bridge rather than baseball).[14]
The comprehensive rules promulgated in 1924 by the International Lawn Tennis Federation, now known as the International Tennis Federation, have remained largely stable in the ensuing eighty years, the one major change being the addition of the tie-break system designed by James Van Alen.[15] That same year, tennis withdrew from the Olympics after the 1924 Games but returned 60 years later as a 21-and-under demonstration event in 1984. This reinstatement was credited by the efforts by the then ITF President Philippe Chatrier, ITF General Secretary David Gray and ITF Vice President Pablo Llorens, and support from IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch. The success of the event was overwhelming and the IOC decided to reintroduce tennis as a full medal sport at Seoul in 1988.
The Davis Cup, an annual competition between men's national teams, dates to 1900.[16] The analogous competition for women's national teams, the Fed Cup, was founded as the Federation Cup in 1963 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the ITF also known as International Tennis Federation.[17]
In 1926, promoter C.C. Pyle established the first professional tennis tour with a group of American and French tennis players playing exhibition matches to paying audiences.[13][18] The most notable of these early professionals were the American Vinnie Richards and the Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen.[13][19] Once a player turned pro he or she could not compete in the major (amateur) tournaments.[13]
In 1968, commercial pressures and rumors of some amateurs taking money under the table led to the abandonment of this distinction, inaugurating the open era, in which all players could compete in all tournaments, and top players were able to make their living from tennis.[20] With the beginning of the open era, the establishment of an international professional tennis circuit, and revenues from the sale of television rights, tennis's popularity has spread worldwide, and the sport has shed its upper/middle-class English-speaking image[21] (although it is acknowledged that this stereotype still exists).[21][22][23]
In 1954, Van Alen founded the International Tennis Hall of Fame, a non-profit museum in Newport, Rhode Island.[24] The building contains a large collection of tennis memorabilia as well as a hall of fame honoring prominent members and tennis players from all over the world. Each year, a grass-court tournament and an induction ceremony honoring new Hall of Fame members are hosted on its grounds.
Part of the appeal of tennis stems from the simplicity of equipment required for play. Beginners need only a racquet and balls.
Racquets
A tennis racket.
The components of a tennis racquet are a handle and neck joining a roughly elliptical frame that holds a matrix of tightly pulled strings. For the first 100 years of the modern game, racquets were of wood and of standard size, and strings were of animal gut. Laminated wood construction yielded more strength in racquets used through most of the 20th century until first metal and then composites of carbon graphite, ceramics, and lighter metals such as titanium were introduced. These stronger materials enabled the production of oversized rackets that yielded yet more power. Meanwhile technology led to the use of synthetic strings that match the feel of gut yet with added durability.
Under modern rules of tennis, the racquet must adhere to the following guidelines;[25]
The hitting area, composed of the strings, must be flat and generally uniform.
The frame of the hitting area may not be more than 29 inches in length and 12.5 inches in width.
The entire racquet must be of a fixed shape, size, weight, and weight distribution. There may not be any energy source built into the racquet.
The racquet must not provide any kind of communication, instruction or advice to the player during the match.
The rules regarding racquets have changed over time, as material and engineering advances have been made. For example, the maximum length of the frame had been 32 inches until 1997, when it was shortened to 29 inches.[26]
Tennis balls are of hollow rubber with a felt coating. Traditionally white, the predominant color was gradually changed to Optic Yellow in the latter part of the 20th century to allow for improved visibility.
Miscellaneous
Advanced players improve their performance through a number of accoutrements. Vibration dampers may be interlaced in the proximal part of the string array for improved feel. Racket handles may be customized with absorbent materials to improve the players' grip. Players often use sweat bands on their wrists to keep their hands dry as well. Finally, although the game can be played in a variety of shoes, specialized tennis shoes have wide, flat soles for stability and a built-up front structure to avoid excess wear.
Tennis is played on a rectangular, flat surface, usually grass, clay, a hardcourt of concrete and/or asphalt and occasionally carpet (indoor). The court is 78 feet (23.77 m) long, and 27 feet (8.23 m) wide for singles matches and 36 ft (10.97 m) for doubles matches.[27] Additional clear space around the court is required in order for players to reach overrun balls. A net is stretched across the full width of the court, parallel with the baselines, dividing it into two equal ends. The net is 3 feet 6 inches (1.07 m) high at the posts and 3 feet (91.4 cm) high in the center.[27]
The modern tennis court owes its design to Major Walter Clopton Wingfield who, in 1873, patented a court much the same as the current one for his stické tennis (sphairistike). This template was modified in 1875 to the court design that exists today, with markings similar to Wingfield's version, but with the hourglass shape of his court changed to a rectangle.[28]
Lines
The lines that delineate the width of the court are called the baseline (farthest back) and the service line (middle of the court). The short mark in the center of each baseline is referred to as either the hash mark or the center mark. The outermost lines that make up the length are called the doubles sidelines. These are the boundaries used when doubles is being played. The lines to the inside of the doubles sidelines are the singles sidelines and are used as boundaries in singles play. The area between a doubles sideline and the nearest singles sideline is called the doubles alley, which is considered playable in doubles play. The line that runs across the center of a player's side of the court is called the service line because the serve must be delivered into the area between the service line and the net on the receiving side. Despite its name, this is not where a player legally stands when making a serve.[29] The line dividing the service line in two is called the center line or center service line. The boxes this center line creates are called the service boxes; depending on a player's position, he or she will have to hit the ball into one of these when serving.[30] A ball is out only if none of it has hit the line or the area inside the lines upon its first bounce. All the lines are required to be between 1 and 2 inches (51 mm) in width. The baseline can be up to 4 inches (100 mm) wide if so desired.[29]
The players (or teams) start on opposite sides of the net. One player is designated the server, and the opposing player is the receiver. Service alternates game by game between the two players (or teams.) For each point, the server starts behind their baseline, between the center mark and the sideline. The receiver may start anywhere on their side of the net. When the receiver is ready, the server will serve, although the receiver must play to the pace of the server.
In a legal service, the ball travels past the net (without touching it) and into the diagonally opposite service box. If the ball hits the net but lands in the service box, this is a let or net service, which is void, and the server gets to retake that serve. The player can serve any number of let services in a point and they are always treated as voids and not as faults. A fault is a serve that falls long or wide of the service box, or does not clear the net. There is also a "foot fault", which occurs when a player's foot touches the baseline or an extension of the center mark[31] before the ball is hit. If the second service is also a fault, the server double faults, and the receiver wins the point. However, if the serve is in, it is considered a legal service.
A legal service starts a rally, in which the players alternate hitting the ball across the net. A legal return consists of the player or team hitting the ball before it has bounced twice or hit any fixtures except the net, provided that it still falls in the server's court. A player or team cannot hit the ball twice in a row. The ball must travel past the net into the other players' court. A ball that hits the net during a rally is still considered a legal return. The first player or team to fail to make a legal return loses the point.
A tennis match is determined through the best of 3 or 5 sets. Typically for both men's and women's matches, the first player to win two sets wins the match. At certain important tennis tournaments for men, including all four Grand Slam tournaments, Davis Cup and the final of the Olympic Games, the first player to win three sets wins the match.[32] A set consists of games, and games, in turn, consist of points.
A game consists of a sequence of points played with the same player serving. A game is won by the first player to have won at least four points in total and at least two points more than the opponent. The running score of each game is described in a manner peculiar to tennis: scores from zero to three points are described as "love", "fifteen", "thirty", and "forty" respectively (see Tennis score.) If at least three points have been scored by each player, and the scores are equal, the score is "deuce". If at least three points have been scored by each side and a player has one more point than his opponent, the score of the game is "advantage" for the player in the lead. During informal games, "advantage" can also be called "ad in" or "ad out", depending on whether the serving player or receiving player is ahead, respectively.
In tournament play, the chair umpire calls the point count (e.g., "fifteen-love") after each point. The score of a tennis match during play is always read with the serving player's score first. After a match, the score is always read with the winning player's score first. At the end of a game, the chair umpire also announces the winner of the game and the overall score.
A game point occurs in tennis whenever the player who is in the lead in the game needs only one more point to win the game. The terminology is extended to sets (set point), matches (match point), and even championships (championship point). For example, if the player who is serving has a score of 40-love, the player has a triple game point (triple set point, etc.) as the player has three consecutive chances to win the game. Game points, set points, and match points are not part of official scoring and are not announced by the chair umpire in tournament play.
A break point occurs if the receiver, not the server, has a chance to win the game with the next point. Break points are of particular importance because serving is generally advantageous. A receiver who has two (score of 15–40) or three (score of love-40) consecutive chances to win the game has double break point or triple break point, respectively. If the receiver does, in fact, win their break point, the receiver is said to have converted their break point, but if the receiver fails to win their break point it is called a failure to convert.
A set consists of a sequence of games played with service alternating between games, ending when the count of games won meets certain criteria. Typically, a player wins a set by winning at least six games and at least two games more than the opponent. If one player has won six games and the opponent five, an additional game is played. If the leading player wins that game, the player wins the set 7–5. If the trailing player wins the game, a tie-break is played. A tie-break, played under a separate set of rules, allows one player to win one more game and thus the set, to give a final set score of 7–6. Only in the final sets of matches at the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, the Olympic Games, Davis Cup, and Fed Cup are tie-breaks not played. In these cases, sets are played indefinitely until one player has a two-game lead. A "love" set means that the loser of the set won zero games. In tournament play, the chair umpire announces the winner of the set and the overall score.
In tournament play, the chair umpire announces the end of the match with the well-known phrase "Game, set, match" followed by the winning person's or team's name.
The first player or doubles team to win four points wins the game, regardless of whether the player or team is ahead by two points. When the game score reaches three points each, the receiver chooses which side of the court (advantage court or deuce court) the service is to be delivered on the seventh and game-deciding point.
Pro set
Instead of playing multiple sets, players may play one "pro set". A pro set is first to 8 (or 10) games by a margin of two games, instead of first to 6 games. A 12-point tie-break is usually played when the score is 8–8 (or 10–10). These are often played with no-ad scoring.
Match tiebreak
This is sometimes played instead of a third set. This is played like a regular tiebreak, but the winner must win ten points instead of seven. Match tiebreaks are used in the Hopman Cup for mixed doubles, on the ATP and WTA tours for doubles and as a player's choice in USTA league play.
Another, however informal, tennis format is called Canadian doubles. This involves three players, with one person playing a doubles team. The single player gets to utilize the alleys normally reserved only for a doubles team. Conversely, the doubles team does not use the alleys when executing a shot. The scoring is the same as a regular game. This format is not sanctioned by any official body.
"Australian doubles", another informal and unsanctioned form of tennis, is played with similar rules to the "Canuk" style, only in this version, players rotate court position after each game. As such, each player plays doubles and singles over the course of a match, with the singles player always serving. Scoring styles vary, but one popular method is to assign a value of 2 points to each game, with the server taking both points if he or she holds serve and the doubles team each taking one if they break serve.
Wheelchair tennis can be played by able-bodied players as well as people who require a wheelchair for mobility. An extra bounce is permitted. This rule makes it possible to have mixed wheelchair and able-bodied matches. It is possible for a doubles team to consist of a wheelchair player and an able-bodied player (referred to as "one-up, one-down"), or for a wheelchair player to play against an able-bodied player. In such cases, the extra bounce is permitted for the wheelchair users only.
There are five types of court surface used in professional play. Each surface is different in the speed and height of the bounce of the ball. The same surface plays faster indoors than outdoors.
Examples are red clay (used at the French Open and many other tournaments, especially in Europe and Latin America) and green clay (an example of which is Har-Tru and used mainly in the U.S.). Clay courts normally have a slower paced ball and a fairly true bounce with more spin.
Examples are acrylic (e.g. Plexicushion used at the Australian Open, DecoTurf used at the US Open), asphalt, and concrete. Hardcourts typically have a faster-paced ball with a very true bounce.
Used at Wimbledon. Grass courts usually have a faster-paced ball, and a more erratic bounce. Wimbledon has slowed its courts over the years.
Carpet
Any form of removable court covering, including carpeting and artificial turf. The bounce can be higher or lower than a hard court. There are no longer any professional tournaments held on carpet.
Wood
Popular from the 1880's through the first half of the 20th century, there are no longer any professional tournaments held on wood.
In most professional play and some amateur competition, there is an officiating head judge or chair umpire (usually referred to as the umpire), who sits in a raised chair to one side of the court. The umpire has absolute authority to make factual determinations. The umpire may be assisted by line judges, who determine whether the ball has landed within the required part of the court and who also call foot faults. There also may be a net judge who determines whether the ball has touched the net during service. In some tournaments, certain line judges, usually those who would be calling the serve, are replaced by electronic sensors that beep when an out call would have been made. In some tournaments, electric line calls are not made, but rather are used to assist the linespeople. When a ball lands in a spot where the linesperson is not sure if the ball was in or out, a noise is made that only linespeople can hear (because they are wearing headsets), and helps them to make the call. In some open-tournament matches, players are allowed to challenge a limited number of close calls by means of electronic review. The US Open, the NASDAQ-100 Open in Key Biscayne, Florida, the US Open Series, and World Team Tennis started using a "challenge" system in 2006 and the Australian Open and Wimbledon introduced the system in 2007. This used the Hawk-Eye system and the rules were similar to those used in the NFL, where a player gets a limited number of opportunities to challenge per match/set. More recently, a player may use unlimited challenges in a set, provided that he or she is not incorrect more than three times. In clay-court matches, such as at the French Open, a call may be questioned by reference to the mark left by the ball's impact on the court surface.
The referee, who is usually located off the court, is the final authority about tennis rules. When called to the court by a player or team captain, the referee may overrule the umpire's decision if the tennis rules were violated (question of law) but may not change the umpire's decision on a question of fact. If, however, the referee is on the court during play, the referee may overrule the umpire's decision.
Ball boys and girls may be employed to retrieve balls, pass them to the players, and hand players their towels. They have no adjudicative role. In rare events (e.g., if they are hurt or if they have caused a hindrance), the umpire may ask them for a statement of what actually happened. The umpire may consider their statements when making a decision. In some leagues, especially junior leagues, players make their own calls, trusting each other to be honest. This is the case for many school and university level matches. The referee or referee's assistant, however, can be called on court at a player's request, and the referee or assistant may change a player's call. In unofficiated matches, a ball is out only if the player entitled to make the call is sure that the ball is out.
In tennis, a junior is a player 18 and under who is still legally protected by a parent or guardian. Players on the main adult tour who are under 18 must have documents signed by a parent or guardian. These players, however, are still eligible to play in junior tournaments.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) conducts a junior tour that allows juniors to establish a world ranking and an Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) or Women's Tennis Association (WTA) ranking. Most juniors who enter the international circuit do so by progressing through ITF, Satellite, Future, and Challenger tournaments before entering the main circuit. The latter three circuits also have adults competing in them. Some juniors, however, such as Australian Lleyton Hewitt and Frenchman Gaël Monfils, have catapulted directly from the junior tour to the ATP tour by dominating the junior scene or by taking advantage of opportunities given to them to participate in professional tournaments.
In 2004, the ITF implemented a new rankings scheme to encourage greater participation in doubles, by combining two rankings (singles and doubles) into one combined tally. Junior tournaments do not offer prize money except for the Grand Slam tournaments, which are the most prestigious junior events. Juniors may earn income from tennis by participating in the Future, Satellite, or Challenger tours. Tournaments are broken up into different tiers offering different amounts of ranking points, culminating with Grade A.
Leading juniors are allowed to participate for their nation in the Junior Fed Cup and Davis Cup competitions as well. To succeed in tennis often means having to begin playing at a young age. To facilitate and nurture a junior's growth in tennis, almost all tennis playing nations have developed a junior development system. Juniors develop their play through a range of tournaments on all surfaces, accommodating all different standards of play. Talented juniors may also receive sponsorships from governing bodies or private institutions.
Match play
Convention dictates that two players shake hands at the end of a match
A tennis match is intended to be continuous.[33] Because stamina is a relevant factor, arbitrary delays are not permitted. In most cases, service is required to occur no more than 20 seconds after the end of the previous point.[33] This is increased to 90 seconds when the players change ends (after every odd-numbered game), and a 2 minute break is permitted between sets.[33] Other than this, breaks are permitted only when forced by events beyond the players' control, such as rain, damaged footwear, damaged racquet, or the need to retrieve an errant ball. Should a player be determined to be stalling repeatedly, the chair umpire may initially give a warning followed by subsequent penalties of "point", "game", and default of the match for the player who is consistently taking longer than the allowed time limit.[34]
In the event of a rain delay, darkness or other external conditions halting play, the match is resumed at a later time, with the same score as at the time of the delay, and the players at the same end of the court when rain halted play, or at the same position (north or south) if play is resumed on a different court.
Balls wear out quickly in serious play and, therefore, in ATP and WTA tournaments, they are changed after every nine games with the first change occurring after only seven games, because the first set of balls is also used for the pre-match warm-up.[35] As a courtesy to the receiver, the server will often signal to the receiver before the first serve of the game in which new balls are used as a reminder that they are using new balls. However, in ITF tournaments like Fed Cup, the balls are changed in a 9–11 style. Continuity of the balls' condition is considered part of the game, so if a re-warm-up is required after an extended break in play (usually due to rain), then the re-warm-up is done using a separate set of balls, and use of the match balls is resumed only when play resumes.
A recent proposed rules change is to allow coaching on court during a match on a limited basis.[36][37][38][39] This has been instituted in women's tennis for WTA Tour events from 2009 onwards.[40]
Tim Henman preparing to hit a serve. The left arm is extended, having just launched the ball into the air. The right arm will be raised up and forward at speed so that the racquet connects with the ball
Roger Federer preparing to hit a forehand. He is "loading" his body weight on his back (right) foot and coiling his shoulders with the help of his left hand. From this position, he will "uncoil" his body beginning with his legs, progressing to his hips and then on to his arms. This is how the "modern" forehand, utilizing the open stance, is executed.
A competent tennis player has eight basic shots in his or her repertoire: the serve, forehand, backhand, volley, half-volley, overhead , drop shot, and lob.
A serve (or, more formally, a "service") in tennis is a shot to start a point. The serve is initiated by tossing the ball into the air and hitting it (usually near the apex of its trajectory) into the diagonally opposite service box without touching the net. The serve may be hit under- or overhand. If the ball hits the net on the first serve and bounces over into the correct diagonal box then it is called a "let" and the server gets two more additional serves to get it in. If the server misses his or her first serve and gets a let on the second serve, then they get one more try to get the serve in the box.
Experienced players strive to master the conventional overhand serve to maximize its power and placement. The server may employ different types of serve including flat serve, topspin serve, slice serve, and kick (American twist) serve. A reverse type of spin serve is hit in a manner that spins the ball opposite the natural spin of the server, the spin direction depending upon right- or left-handedness. If the ball is spinning counterclockwise, it will curve right from the hitter's point of view and curve left if spinning clockwise.
Some servers are content to use the serve simply to initiate the point; however, advanced players often try to hit a winning shot with their serve. A winning serve that is not touched by the opponent is called an "ace".
Players use various grips during play, including the continental (The "Handshake Grip"), eastern (Can be either semi-eastern or full eastern. Usually used for backhands.), and western (semi-western or full western, usually for forehand grips) grips. Most players change grips during a match depending on what shot they are hitting for example a slice shot and serve you would have a continental grip. [41]
For a right-handed player, the forehand is a stroke that begins on the right side of the body, continues across the body as contact is made with the ball, and ends on the left side of the body. There are various grips for executing the forehand, and their popularity has fluctuated over the years. The most important ones are the continental, the eastern, the semi-western, and the western. For a number of years, the small, apparently frail 1920s player Bill Johnston was considered by many to have had the best forehand of all time, a stroke that he hit shoulder-high using a western grip. Few top players used the western grip after the 1920s, but in the latter part of the 20th century, as shot-making techniques and equipment changed radically, the western forehand made a strong comeback and is now used by many modern players. No matter which grip is used, most forehands are generally executed with one hand holding the racquet, but there have been fine players with two-handed forehands. In the 1940s and 50s, the Ecuadorian/American player Pancho Segura used a two-handed forehand to achieve a devastating effect against larger, more powerful players. Currently, France's Fabrice Santoro uses a two-handed forehand. Some females such as Monica Seles and France's Marion Bartoli also use a two-handed forehand.
For right-handed players, the backhand is a stroke that begins on the left side of their body, continues across their body as contact is made with the ball, and ends on the right side of their body. It can be executed with either one hand or with both and is generally considered more difficult to master than the forehand. For most of the 20th century, the backhand was performed with one hand, using either an eastern or a continental grip. The first notable players to use two hands were the 1930s Australians Vivian McGrath and John Bromwich, but they were lonely exceptions. The two-handed grip gained popularity in the 1970s as Björn Borg, Chris Evert, Jimmy Connors, and later Mats Wilander and Marat Safin used it to great effect, and it is now used by a large number of the world's best players, including Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams. Two hands give the player more control, while one hand can generate a slice shot, applying backspin on the ball to produce a low trajectory bounce. Reach is also limited with the two-handed shot. The player long considered to have had the best backhand of all time, Don Budge, had a powerful one-handed stroke in the 1930s and 1940s that imparted topspin onto the ball. Ken Rosewall, another player noted for his one-handed backhand, used a very accurate slice backhand through the 1950s and 1960s. A small number of players, notably Monica Seles, use two hands on both the backhand and forehand sides.
Other shots
A volley is made in the air before the ball bounces, generally near the net, and is usually made with a stiff-wristed punching motion to hit the ball into an open area of the opponent's court. The half volley is made by hitting the ball on the rise just after it has bounced, once again generally in the vicinity of the net. The swinging volley is hit out of the air as the player approaches the net. It is an offensive shot used to take preparation time away from the opponent. From a poor defensive position on the baseline, the lob can be used as either an offensive or defensive weapon, hitting the ball high and deep into the opponent's court to either enable the lobber to get into better defensive position or to win the point outright by hitting it over the opponent's head. If the lob is not hit deeply enough into the other court, however, the opponent may then hit an overhead smash, a hard, serve-like shot, to try to end the point. Finally, if an opponent is deep in his court, a player may suddenly employ an unexpected drop shot, softly tapping the ball just over the net so that the opponent is unable to run in fast enough to retrieve it.
Tournaments are often organized by gender and number of players. Common tournament configurations include men's singles, women's singles, and doubles, where two players play on each side of the net. Tournaments may be arranged for specific age groups, with upper age limits for youth and lower age limits for senior players. Example of this include the Orange Bowl and Les Petits As. There are also tournaments for players with disabilities, such as wheelchair tennis and deaf tennis.[42] In the four Grand Slam tournaments, the singles draws are limited to 128 people for each gender.
Most large tournaments Seed players, but players may also be matched by their skill level. According to how well a person does in sanctioned play, a player is given a rating that is adjusted periodically to maintain competitive matches. For example, the United States Tennis Association administers the National Tennis Rating Program (NTRP), which rates players between 1.0 and 7.0 in 1/2 point increments. Average club players under this system would rate 3.0–4.5 while world class players would be 7.0 on this scale.
Aside from the historical significance of these events, they also carry larger prize funds than any other tour event and are worth double the number of ranking points to the champion than in the next echelon of tournaments, the Masters 1000 (men) and Premier events (women).[44][45] Another distinguishing feature is the number of players in the singles draw. There are 128, more than any other professional tennis tournament. This draw is composed of 32 seeded players, other players ranked in the world's top 100, qualifiers, and players who receive invitations through wild cards. Grand Slam men's tournaments have best-of-five set matches throughout. Grand Slam tournaments are among the small number of events that last two weeks, the others being the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California and the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Florida. Currently, the Grand Slam tournaments are the only tour events that have mixed doubles contests. Grand Slam tournaments are held in conjunction with wheelchair tennis tournaments (with the exception being Wimbledon, where the grass surface prevents this) and junior tennis competitions. Grand Slam tournaments are often seen as the culmination of a particular season, such as the US Open Series. These tournaments also contain their own idiosyncrasies. For example, players at Wimbledon are required to wear predominantly white, a rule that has motivated certain players, such as Andre Agassi, to skip the tournament.[46] Wimbledon has its own particular methods for disseminating tickets, often leading tennis fans to follow complex procedures to obtain tickets.[47]
The ATP World Tour Masters 1000 is a group of nine tournaments that form the second-highest echelon in men's tennis. Each event is held annually, and a win at one of these events is currently worth 1000 ranking points. When the Association of Tennis Professionals, led by Hamilton Jordan, began running the men's tour in 1990, the directors designated the top nine tournaments, outside of the Grand Slam events, as "Super Nine" events.[48] These eventually became the Tennis Masters Series. In November at the end of the tennis year, the world's top eight players compete in the ATP World Tour Finals, a tournament with a rotating locale. It is currently held in London, England.[49]
On August 31, 2007 the ATP announced that major changes will take place in 2009. The Masters Series will be renamed to the “Masters 1000”, with the addition of the number 1000 referring to the number of ranking points earned by the winner of each tournament. Contrary to earlier plans, the number of tournaments will not be reduced from nine to eight and the Monte Carlo Masters will remain part of the series although, unlike the other events, it will not have a mandatory player commitment. The Hamburg Masters event will be downgraded to a 500 point event. The Madrid Masters will move to May and onto clay courts, and a new tournament in Shanghai will take over Madrid's former indoor October slot. In 2011 six of the nine “1000” level tournaments will be combined ATP and WTA events.[50][51]
The International Series for men is split into two categories, both run by the ATP: the 250 Series and 500 Series. Like the Masters 1000, these events offer various amounts of prize money, and some regular International Series events offer larger prize monies than 500 Series tournaments.[44] The Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships offer the largest financial incentive to players, with total prize money of US$1,426,000.
Challenger Tour and Futures Tournaments
The Challenger Tour for men is the lowest level of tournament administered by the ATP. It is composed of roughly 160 events and, as a result, features a more diverse range of countries hosting events.[53] The majority of players use the Challenger Series to work their way up the rankings, including World No. 1s Pete Sampras, Marcelo Ríos, Patrick Rafter, and Gustavo Kuerten. Andre Agassi, between winning Grand Slam tournaments, plummeted to World No. 141 and used Challenger Series events for match experience and to progress back up the rankings.[54] The Challenger Series offers prize funds of between US$25,000 and US$150,000.
Below the Challenger Series are the Futures Tournaments, the main events on the ITF Men's Circuit. These tournaments also contribute towards a player's ATP rankings points. Futures Tournaments offer prize funds of between US$10,000 and US$15,000; however, futures status is granted only to events offering a total of US$30,000, meaning that two or three tournaments are played.[55] Approximately 400 Futures Tournaments are played each year.
Premier events
Premier events for women form the most prestigious level of events on the Women's Tennis Association Tour after the Grand Slam tournaments. These events offer the largest rewards in terms of points and prize money. Within the Premier category are Premier Mandatory, Premier 5, and Premier tournaments. The tiering system in women's tennis was introduced in 1988. At the time of its creation, only two tournaments, the Lipton International Players Championships in Florida and the German Open in Berlin, comprised the Tier I category. In 2009, four tournaments are Premier Mandatory, five tournaments are Premier 5, and ten tournaments are Premier.
Players
Professional tennis players enjoy the same relative perks as most top sports personalities: clothing, equipment and endorsements. Like players of other individual sports such as golf, they are not salaried, but must play and finish highly in tournaments to obtain money. In recent years, some controversy has surrounded the involuntary or deliberate noise caused by players` grunting.
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English: Execution of Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt, conspirators of Abraham Lincoln assassination, on July 7, 1865 at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. 1 photographic print on stereo card : albumen, stereograph. Original captions: "Execution of the conspirators -- the drop"; from reverse side of submission notes: "The trap is sprung".
Français : Exécution de Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold et George Atzerodt, conspirateurs de l'Assassinat d'Abraham Lincoln. Stéréographe alumen sur bristol. Mentions sur la photographie : au recto : « Execution des conspirateurs : La chute », au verso : « La trappe est déclenchée ».
This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID stereo.1s01779.
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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is an international corporation based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin on 23 June 1894 with Demetrios Vikelas as its first president. Today its membership consists of the 205 National Olympic Committees.
The IOC organizes the modern Olympic Games held in Summer and Winter, every four years. The first Summer Olympics organized by the International Olympic Committee were held in Athens, Greece, in 1896; the first Winter Olympics were in Chamonix, France, in 1924. Until 1992, both Summer and Winter Olympics were held in the same year. After that year, however, the IOC shifted the Winter Olympics to the even years between Summer Games, to help space the planning of the two events two years apart from one another.
On 22 June 1894, the Olympic games were re-created as an international tournament by Pierre de Coubertin. The baron hoped to foster international communication and peace through the Olympic Games. The IOC is a parent organization intended to localize administration and authority for the Games, as well as to provide a single legal entity which owns copyrights, trademarks, and other intangible properties associated with the Olympic games. For example, the Olympic logos, the design of the Olympic flag, the motto, creed, and anthem are all owned and administered by the IOC. There are other organizations which the IOC coordinates as well, which are collectively called the Olympic Movement. The IOC President is responsible for representing the IOC as a whole, and there are members of the IOC which represent the IOC in their respective countries.
[edit]Original members of the International Olympic Committee
Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the International Olympic Committee and sometime President
Encourage and support the promotion of ethics in sport as well as education of youth through sport and to dedicate its efforts to ensuring that, in sport, the spirit of fair play prevails and violence is banned;
Encourage and support the organization, development and coordination of sport and sports competitions;
Ensure the regular celebration of the Olympic Games;
Cooperate with the competent public or private organizations and authorities in the endeavor to place sport at the service of humanity and thereby to promote peace;
Take action in order to strengthen the unity and to protect the independence of the Olympic Movement;
Act against any form of discrimination affecting the Olympic Movement;
Encourage and support the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women;
Lead the fight against doping in sporting
Encourage and support measures protecting the health of athletes;
Oppose any political or commercial abuse of sport and athletes;
Encourage and support the efforts of sports organizations and public authorities to provide for the social and professional future of athletes;
Encourage and support the development of sport for all;
Encourage and support a responsible concern for environmental issues, to promote sustainable development in sport and to require that the Olympic Games are held accordingly;
Promote a positive legacy from the Olympic Games to the host cities and host countries;
Encourage and support initiatives blending sport with culture and education;
Encourage and support the activities of the International Olympic Academy (IOA) and other institutions which dedicate themselves to Olympic education.
The Session is the general meeting of the members of the IOC, held once a year in which each member has one vote. It is the IOC’s supreme organ and its decisions are final.
Extraordinary Sessions may be convened by the President or upon the written request of at least one third of the members.
Among others, the powers of the Session are:
To adopt or amend the Olympic Charter.
To elect the members of the IOC, the Honorary President and the honorary members.
To elect the President, the Vice-Presidents and all other members of the IOC Executive Board.
The IOC Executive Board consists of the President, four Vice-Presidents and ten other members. All members of the IOC Executive Board are elected by the Session, in a secret ballot, by a majority of the votes cast. The IOC Executive Board assumes the general overall responsibility for the administration of the IOC and the management of its affairs.
The IOC Session elects, by secret ballot, the IOC President from among its members for a term of eight years renewable once for a term of four years. The current IOC President, Jacques Rogge, was re-elected for a second term that consists of four years on 9 October 2009.[1] Former President Juan Antonio Samaranch has been elected Honorary President For Life.
In addition to the Olympic medals for competitors, the IOC awards a number of other honours:
the IOC President's Trophy is the highest sports award given to athletes who have excelled in their sport and had an extraordinary career and created a lasting impact on their sport.
the Pierre de Coubertin medal is awarded to athletes who demonstrate a special spirit of sportsmanship in Olympic events
the Olympic Cup is awarded to institutions or associations with a record of merit and integrity in actively developing the Olympic Movement
the Olympic Order is awarded to individuals for particularly distinguished contributions to the Olympic Movement, and superseded the Olympic Certificate.
For most of its existence, the IOC was controlled by members who were co-opted, which means they were selected by other members. Countries that had hosted the Games were allowed two members, others one or none. When named, they became not representatives of their respective countries to the IOC, but rather the opposite, IOC members in their respective countries.
For a long time, members of royalty have been members of co-option, such as Prince Albert II of Monaco, as have former athletes. These last 10 years, the composition has evolved, in order to get a better representation of the sports world. Members seats have been allocated specifically to athletes, International Federations leaders and National Olympic Committees leaders.
The total number of IOC members may not exceed 115. Each member of the IOC is elected for a term of eight years and may be re-elected for one or several further terms.
A majority of members whose memberships are not linked to any specific function or office; their total number may not exceed 70; there may be no more than one such member national of any given country;
Active athletes, the total number of whom may not exceed 15, elected for eight years by their peers during the Olympic Games;
Presidents or persons holding an executive or senior leadership position within IFs, associations of IFs or other organizations recognized by the IOC, the total number of whom may not exceed 15;
Presidents or persons holding an executive or senior leadership position within NOCs, or world or continental associations of NOCs, the total number of whom may not exceed 15; there may be no more than one such member national of any given country within the IOC.
The membership of IOC members ceases in the following circumstances:[3]
Resignation: any IOC member may cease their membership at any time by delivering his written resignation to the President.
Non re-election: any IOC member ceases to be a member without further formality if they are not re-elected.
Age limit: any IOC member ceases to be a member at the end of the calendar year during which they reach the age of 80.
Failure to attend Sessions or take active part in IOC work for two consecutive years.
Transfer of domicile or of main center of interests to a country other than the country which was theirs at the time of their election.
Members elected as active athletes cease to be a member upon ceasing to be a member of the IOC Athletes’ Commission.
Presidents and individuals holding an executive or senior leadership position within NOCs, world or continental associations of NOCs, IFs or associations of IFs or other organizations recognized by the IOC cease to be a member upon ceasing to exercise the function they were exercising at the time of their election.
Expulsion: an IOC member may be expelled by decision of the Session if such member has betrayed their oath or if the Session considers that such member has neglected or knowingly jeopardized the interests of the IOC or acted in a way which is unworthy of the IOC.
In the early 1980s, the Olympics were on the verge of bankruptcy when the IOC drafted a team to help market the event and the organization.[4] In 1998, one of the members of that team, Michael Payne, became the first marketing director of the IOC.[4][5] During his 20 years with the IOC,[4] Payne created a multi-billion dollar marketing program for the organization which turned the Games around financially.[6][7][8]
The Olympic Movement generates revenue through five major programs. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) manages broadcast partnerships and the TOP worldwide sponsorship program. The Organizing Committees for the Olympic Games (OCOGs) manage domestic sponsorship, ticketing and licensing programs within the host country under the direction of the IOC. The Olympic Movement generated a total of more than US$4 billion in revenue during the most recent Olympic quadrennium (2001–2004).
The IOC distributes some of Olympic marketing revenue to organizations throughout the Olympic Movement to support the staging of the Olympic Games and to promote the worldwide development of sport. The IOC retains approximately 8% of Olympic marketing revenue for the operational and administrative costs of governing the Olympic Movement.
[edit]The Organizing Committees of the Olympic Games (OCOGs)
The IOC provides TOP program contributions and Olympic broadcast revenue to the OCOGs to support the staging of the Olympic Games and Olympic Winter Games:
TOP Program Revenue to OCOGs; the two OCOGs of each Olympic quadrennium generally share approximately 50% of TOP program revenue and value-in-kind contributions, with approximately 30% provided to the summer OCOG and 20% provided to the winter OCOG.
Broadcast Revenue to OCOGs; the IOC contributes 49% of the Olympic broadcast revenue for each Games to the OCOG. During the 2001 – 2004 Olympic quadrennium, the Salt Lake 2002 Organizing Committee received US$443 million in broadcast revenue from the IOC, and the Athens 2004 Organizing Committee received US$732 million.
Domestic Program Revenue to OCOGs; the OCOGs generate substantial revenue from the domestic marketing programs that they manage within the host country, including domestic sponsorship, ticketing and licensing.
The NOCs receive financial support for the training and development of Olympic teams, Olympic athletes and Olympic hopefuls. The IOC distributes TOP program revenue to each of the NOCs throughout the world. The IOC also contributes Olympic broadcast revenue to Olympic Solidarity, an IOC organization that provides financial support to NOCs with the greatest need.
The continued success of the TOP program and Olympic broadcast agreements has enabled the IOC to provide increased support for the NOCs with each Olympic quadrennium. The IOC provided approximately US$318.5 million to NOCs for the 2001 – 2004 quadrennium.
The IOC is now the largest single revenue source for the majority of IFs, with its contributions of Olympic broadcast revenue that assist the IFs in the development of their respective sports worldwide. The IOC provides financial support from Olympic broadcast revenue to the 28 IFs of Olympic summer sports and the seven IFs of Olympic winter sports after the completion of the Olympic Games and the Olympic Winter Games, respectively.
The continually increasing value of Olympic broadcast partnership has enabled the IOC to deliver substantially increased financial support to the IFs with each successive Games. The seven winter sports IFs shared US$85.8 million in Salt Lake 2002 broadcast revenue. The contribution to the 28 summer sports IFs from Athens 2004 broadcast revenue has not yet been determined, but the contribution is expected to mark a significant increase over the US$190 million that the IOC provided to the summer IFs following Sydney 2000.
Countries bidding to host the Summer Olympic Games or the Winter Olympic Games compete aggressively to have their bid accepted by the IOC. The IOC members, representing most of the member countries, vote to decide where the Games will take place. Members from countries which have cities bidding to host the games are excluded from the voting process, up until the point where their city drops out of the contest.
In recent years, the contest for the right to host the games has grown increasingly fierce and controversial. Allegations were leveled after the 1996 Olympics that Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) organizers bribed members of the IOC to obtain the Olympic Games. However, ACOG documents were destroyed prior to a formal inquiry and the allegations remain unproven. In his defense, ACOG Chairman Billy Payne said "Atlanta's bidding effort included excessive actions, even thought processes, that today seem inappropriate but, at the time, reflected the prevailing practices in the selection process and an extremely competitive environment". In 2002, Salt Lake City was involved in a bribery scandal but earlier stories, reported by British journalists Vyv Simson and Andrew Jennings,[9] date back decades. Corruption in the IOC has been documented by numerous investigations. After the Salt Lake City scandal in which a number of IOC members were expelled following an extensive investigation, efforts were made to clamp down on abuses of the bid city process. More stringent rules were introduced and an advisory board of recently retired former athletes was set up. Critics of the organization believe more fundamental reform is required, for instance replacing the self-perpetuating system of delegate selection with a more democratic process.
Even legal attempts to sway the IOC to accept a city's bid can spark controversy, such as Beijing's successful bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics. Several human rights organizations spoke out against the poor human rights condition of China, in conflict with the Olympic Charter of the IOC.[10]
In an August 2007 interview on the Beijing 2008 website, IOC President Jacques Rogge said, the IOC "definitely would love to see the continents that have not yet organized the Games like Africa or Latin America do that in the future. I cannot tell you exactly when, but I will see it in my life... We believe in the near future we can determine the host country under this rotating system. As of now, we haven't set a timetable for starting this system".[11] Rogge also said that he would like the IOC to give chance for the games to be held in Third World nations like Haiti, Cambodia, and Cameroon within 2020 and beyond.[12]
Scandal broke on 10 December 1998, when Swiss IOC member Marc Hodler, head of the coordination committee overseeing the organization of the 2002 games, announced that several members of the IOC had taken bribes. Soon four independent investigations were underway: by the IOC, the USOC, the SLOC, and the United States Department of Justice.
Before any of the investigations could even get under way both Welch and Johnson resigned their posts as the head of the SLOC. Many others soon followed. The Department of Justice filed charges against the two: fifteen charges of bribery and fraud. Johnson and Welch were eventually acquitted of all criminal charges in December 2003.
As a result of the investigation ten members of the IOC were expelled and another ten were sanctioned.[13] This was the first expulsion or sanction for corruption in the more than a century the IOC had existed. Although nothing strictly illegal had been done, it was felt that the acceptance of the gifts was morally dubious. Stricter rules were adopted for future bids and ceilings were put into place as to how much IOC members could accept from bid cities. Additionally new term and age limits were put into place for IOC membership, and fifteen former Olympic athletes were added to the committee.
In 2006, a report ordered by the Nagano region's governor said the Japanese city provided millions of dollars in an "illegitimate and excessive level of hospitality" to IOC members, including $4.4 million spent on entertainment alone.[14]
International groups attempted to pressure the IOC to reject Beijing's bid in protest of the state of human rights in the People's Republic of China. One Chinese dissident who expressed similar sentiments was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison for calling on the IOC to do just that at the same time that IOC inspectors were touring the city.[15]Amnesty International expressed concern in 2006 regarding the Olympic Games to be held in China in 2008, likewise expressing concerns over the human rights situation. The second principle in the Fundamental Principles of Olympism, Olympic Charter states that The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.[16] Amnesty International considers the policies and practices of the People's Republic as failing to meet that principle, and urged the IOC to press China to immediately enact human rights reform.[17]
In August 2008, the IOC issued DMCA take down notices on Tibetan Protest videos of the Beijing Olympics hosted on YouTube.[18] YouTube and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) both pushed back against the IOC, which then withdrew their complaint.
In 2010, the International Olympic Committee was nominated for the Public Eye Awards. This award seeks to present "shame-on-you-awards to the nastiest corporate players of the year".[19]
The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics saw controversy surrounding women's ski jumping. Ski jumping is the last remaining Olympic sport that bars women from competing. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) says the exclusion of women is not discrimination. President Jacques Rogge has insisted that the decision "was made strictly on a technical basis, and absolutely not on gender grounds." But female would-be Olympic competitors say they do not understand what that "technical basis" is and wonder if he was referring to their abilities. They point to American Lindsey Van, who holds the world record for the single longest jump by anyone, male or female. Ironically, she broke the record flying from a jump built at Whistler for the Vancouver Olympics. They argued the numbers of top-level women ski jumpers are satisfactory too. When the IOC voted in 2006 not to add women's ski jumping, 83 competitors from 14 nations jumped at the top level, less universality than required to add a new event. But in the same year, women's ski cross claimed just 30 skiers from 11 nations. The committee added it.[20]
Chappelet, Jean-Loup; Brenda Kübler-Mabbott (2008). International Olympic Committee and the olympic system: the governance of world sport. New York: Routledge. ISBN978-0-415-43167-5.
A man holds thirty children and teachers hostage in a kindergarten in the city of Muar in Malaysia's Johor state, the hostages are later rescued when police storm the classroom, none of the hostages died. (Edmonton Sun)
2011 Egyptian revolution: A court in Suez upholds the release of police accused of killing 17 people during the popular revolution that ousted the regime of Hosni Mubarak from power; family members attack police cars and the court building as a result. There is a call for 1 million people to demonstrate in Tahrir Square on Friday. (BBC)(Al Jazeera)
The French ship Dignity Al Karama is reported to have successfully reached international waters and is heading for the Gaza Strip, with hopes expressed that the remaining unsabotaged ships currently being held by Greek authorities will soon join it. (The Voice of Russia)
Israeli officials are reported to be boycotting a United Nations official over an unpublished report concerning the part played by Israeli forces in the recent deaths of 7 Palestinian protesters during the annual Nakba commemorations. (BBC)
5 Belarusian journalists are sentenced to administrative arrests ranging from 3 to 12 days for attending unsanctioned rallies in Minsk and other cities. (RIA Novosti)
Irish government lawmaker Denis Naughten votes against his own government over cuts to a hospital, amid protests by hundreds of people outside Dáil Éireann; he now faces expulsion from Fine Gael with the hospital's emergency department to close on Monday. (Irish Examiner)(The Irish Times)(RTÉ)
Sting cancels a performance in Astana, Kazakhstan, in support of striking oil and gas workers and calls for "the spotlight of the international media [to be shone] on their situation in the hope of bringing about positive change". (The Guardian)
British tabloid the News of the World faces fresh allegations linking it to hacking activities, this time after it emerges that the mobile phone of murdered 13-year-old schoolgirl Milly Dowler was interfered with and messages left by relatives were deleted. This gave relatives the false impression that Milly Dowler was still alive when she was not. (BBC)(Al Jazeera)
Colin Stagg, the man who was falsely accused of Rachel Nickell's 1992 murder on Wimbledon Common, is informed that he too had his phone hacked by the News of the World, as many as six years after he was acquitted. Robert Napper later admitted responsibility. (The Guardian)
In an unusual move, House of Commons Speaker John Bercow allows an emergency debate to discuss the possibilities of a public inquiry and of a cover-up, occurring in the House of Commons tomorrow. (The Guardian)
Both The Sun and Daily Mirror tabloid newspapers are accused of being in contempt of court for publishing articles about the arrest of Christopher Jefferies in relation to the murder of Joanna Yeates; Jefferies was later released without charge. British Attorney General Dominic Grieve is seeking to bring charges against the newspapers. Judges will make a decision on the case at a later date.(BBC)(The Belfast Telegraph)
13 UK Uncut activists appear in court on charges of aggravated trespass after peacefully occupying the luxury London food retailer Fortnum & Mason during a protest against tax avoidance in March. More than 100 other activists are also expected to be put on trial later, with Labour MP John McDonnell claiming such a trial would be "outrageous" and "fly in the face of public opinion". (The Guardian)
2011 Syrian uprising: Government troops arrive in Hama in buses to raid houses and arrest civilians following the mass popular anti-government protests there on Friday. Tanks laying siege to the city move north to other villages. (BBC)
Sony Corp. says that it will fully restore all the Playstation Network videogame services in Japan, which will complete worldwide restoration of those services, disrupted in April. (Reuters)
Ratko Mladić is removed from his hearing after he is ruled to have spoken out of turn while asking that he have his own lawyer instead of one appointed by the court, then quarrelling with the judge to be allowed speak. (BBC)
Sir Hugh Orde, President of the UK's Association of Chief Police Officers, announces that key policing services are being left "unfunded" as a result of cuts. (BBC)
At his trial Japanese man Tatsuya Ichihashi admits to killing British teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker whose body was found in a bathtub in 2007. (BBC)
Karim Wade, son of Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade, issues a strong denial of speculation that his father plans to pass on power to him as if he were a monarch. (BBC)
President of the United StatesBarack Obama is falsely declared dead by the Twitter account of the U.S. broadcaster Fox News in a series of messages stating, "@BarackObama has just passed. The President is dead" and "BREAKING NEWS: @BarackObama assassinated, 2 gunshot wounds have proved too much". Hackers are blamed though the messages remain online several hours later. (BBC)(AP via The Sydney Morning Herald)(CNN)
Thousands of people turn out to cheer on Hugo Chávez upon his return to Caracas; he vows to win back his health and describes the support of his people as "the best medicine for whatever illness". (BBC)
Members of the Dutch-Italian vessel issue an open letter to the Greek prime minister Georgios Papandreou following the alleged sabotage of two ships and the prevention of the rest from setting sail for Gaza. (Al Jazeera)(Malaysia Star)(ABC News)
Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, speaking on radio, welcomes a diplomatic victory after its attempts to stop the flotilla from setting sail to Gaza are assisted by the Greek ban on the ships from leaving port. (The Daily Telegraph)
According to reports in the Toronto Star, the flotilla is to make an attempt to set sail on Monday. (Toronto Star)
The Buddhist crisis was a period of political and religious tension in South Vietnam from May 1963 to November 1963 characterized by a series of repressive acts by the South Vietnamese government and a campaign of civil resistance, led mainly by Buddhist monks.[1]
In South Vietnam, a country where the Buddhist majority was estimated to comprise between 70 and 90 percent of the population in 1963,[2][3][4][5][6] President Ngô Đình Diệm's pro-Catholic policies antagonized many Buddhists. A member of the Catholic minority, his government was biased towards Catholics in public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business favors and tax concessions.[7] Diem once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that he was a Buddhist, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted."[8] Many officers in the ARVN converted to Catholicism in the belief that their career prospects depended on it, and many were refused promotion if they did not do so.[8] Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias intended to repel Vietcong guerrillas was done so that weapons were only given to Catholics.[9] Some Catholic priests ran private armies,[10] and in some areas forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of pagodas occurred.[11] Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime.[12]
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country, and the "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to conduct public activities, was not repealed by Diem.[13] The land owned by the church was exempt from land reform,[14] and Catholics were also de facto exempt from the corvée labor that the government obliged all other citizens to perform; public spending was disproportionately distributed to Catholic majority villages. Under Diem, the Catholic Church enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and in 1959, he dedicated the country to the Virgin Mary.[15] The Vatican flag was regularly flown at major public events in South Vietnam.[16]
A rarely enforced 1958 law—known as Decree Number 10—was invoked in May 1963 to prohibit the display of religious flags. This disallowed the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. The application of the law caused indignation among Buddhists on the eve of the most important religious festival of the year, as a week earlier Catholics had been encouraged to display Vatican flags at a government-sponsored celebration for Diem's brother, Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, the most senior Catholic cleric in the country.[17][18] On May 8, in Huế, a crowd of Buddhists protested against the ban on the Buddhist flag. The police and army broke up the demonstration by firing guns at and throwing grenades into the gathering, leaving eight dead.[19][20]
Diệm denied governmental responsibility for the incident. Instead, the president blamed the Vietcong for the event. Diệm’s Secretary of State Nguyen Dinh Thuan accused the Vietcong of exploiting Buddhist unrest and declared that Diệm could not make concessions without fueling further demands. The Vietnam Press, a pro-Diệm newspaper, published a government declaration confirming the existence of religious freedom and emphasizing the supremacy of the country’s flag. Diệm’s National Assembly affirmed this statement, but this did not placate the Buddhists.
On May 30, more than 500 monks demonstrated in front of the National Assembly in Saigon. The Buddhists had evaded a ban on public assembly by hiring four buses and filling up and pulling the blinds down. They drove around the city before the convoy stopped at the designated time and the monks disembarked. This was the first time that an open protest had been held in Saigon against Diem in his eight years of rule.[21] They unfurled banners and sat down for four hours before disbanding and returning to the pagodas to begin a nationwide 48-hour hunger strike organised by the Buddhist patriarch, Thich Tinh Khiet.[22]
On June 1, Diệm's authorities announced the dismissal of the three major officials involved in the Huế incident: the province chief and his deputy, and the government delegate for the Central Region of Vietnam. The stated reason was that they had failed to maintain order. By this time, the situation appeared to be beyond reconciliation.[23]
On June 3, Vietnamese police and troops of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam poured chemicals on the heads of praying Buddhist protestors in the South Vietnamese city of Huế. 67 people were hospitalised and the United States privately threatened to withdraw aid.
On June 11, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Ðức burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection in protest against Diem's policies.
In the meantime, Xa Loi Pagoda in Saigon had become a centre of Buddhist unrest. There the monks produced and mimeographed pamphlets attacking Diem's policies for dissemination, organised mass meetings, demonstrations and hunger strikes. They compiled daily news items to motivate followers and campaigned among relatives in the civilian public sector and the armed forces.[24] The Hue shootings were kept on the agenda by a memorial service at the An Quang Pagoda in the Chinese district of Cholon which was addressed by prominent members of the sangha (monks and nuns). Hundreds of ordained Buddhist monks and nuns then formed a procession to take the memorial tablets back into Xa Loi in the city centre.
On July 7, 1963, the secret police of Ngo Dinh Nhu—the brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm—attacked a group of journalists from the United States who were covering Buddhist protests on the ninth anniversary of Diem's rise to power. Peter Arnett of the Associated Press (AP) was punched in the nose, but the quarrel quickly ended after David Halberstam of The New York Times, being much taller than Nhu's men, counterattacked and caused the secret police to retreat. Arnett and his colleague, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and photographer Malcolm Browne, were later accosted by police at their office and taken away for questioning on suspicion of attacking police officers.[25][26][27]
On Sunday, August 18, the Buddhists staged a mass protest at Xa Loi Pagoda, Saigon's largest, attracting around 15,000 people, undeterred by rain.[28][29] The attendance was approximately three times higher than that at the previous Sunday's rally.[30][31] The event lasted for several hours, as speeches by the monks interspersed religious ceremonies.[29] A Vietnamese journalist said that it was the only emotional public gathering in South Vietnam since Diem's rise to power almost a decade earlier.[28]David Halberstam of The New York Times speculated that by not exploiting the large crowd by staging a protest march towards Gia Long Palace or other government buildings, the Buddhists were saving their biggest demonstration for the scheduled arrival of new US ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., in the following week. As a government attack on Xa Loi was anticipated, Halberstam concluded that the Buddhists were playing "a fast and dangerous game".[32] He wrote that "the Buddhists themselves appeared to be at least as much aware of all the developments, and their protest seemed to have a mounting intensity".[28]
On the evening of August 18, ten senior generals of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam met to discuss the situation and decided that martial law would need to be imposed. On August 20, Nhu summoned seven of the generals to Gia Long Palace for consultation. They presented their request to impose martial law and discussed dispersion of the monks. Nhu sent the generals to see Diệm. The president listened to the group of seven, led by General Tran Van Don. Don claimed that Communists had infiltrated the monks at Xa Loi Pagoda and warned that ARVN morale was deteriorating because of the civil unrest. He claimed that it was possible that the Buddhists could assemble a crowd to march on Gia Long Palace. Hearing this, Diem agreed to declare martial law effective on the next day, without consulting his cabinet. Troops were ordered into Saigon to occupy strategic points. Don was appointed at the acting Chief of the Armed Forces in the place of General Le Van Ty, who was abroad having medical treatment. Don noted that Diem was apparently concerned with the welfare of the monks, telling the generals that he did not want any of them hurt. The martial law orders were authorized with the signature of Don, who had no idea that military action was to occur in the early hours of August 21 without his knowledge.[33][34]
Shortly after midnight on August 21, on the instructions of Nhu, troops of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces under Colonel Lê Quang Tùng executed a series of synchronised attacks on the Buddhist pagodas in South Vietnam. Over 1400 Buddhists were arrested. The number killed or "disappeared" is estimated to be in the hundreds. The most prominent of the pagodas raided was that of Xa Loi, which had become the rallying point for Buddhists from the countryside. The troops vandalized the main altar and managed to confiscate the intact charred heart of Thich Quang Duc, the monk who had self-immolated in protest against the policies of the regime. The Buddhists managed to escape with a receptacle with the remainder of his ashes. Two monks jumped the back wall of the pagoda into the grounds of the adjoining US Aid Mission, where they were given asylum. Thich Tinh Khiet, the 80 year old Buddhist patriarch, was seized and taken to a military hospital on the outskirts of Saigon.[35] The commander of the III Corps of the ARVN, Ton That Dinh soon announced military control over Saigon, canceling all commercial flights into the city and instituting press censorship.[36]
Once the US government realized the truth about who was behind the raids, they reacted with disapproval towards the Diem regime. The Americans had pursued a policy of quietly and privately advising the Ngos to reconcile with the Buddhists while publicly supporting the alliance, but following the attacks, this route was regarded as untenable. Furthermore, the attacks were carried out by American-trained Special Forces personnel funded by the CIA, and presented incoming Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., with a fait accompli.[37][38] The State Department issued a statement declaring that the raids were a "direct violation" of the promise to pursue "a policy of reconciliation".[35][39]
On August 24, the Kennedy administration sent Cable 243 to Lodge at the embassy in Saigon, marking a change in American policy. The message advised Lodge to seek the removal of the Nhus from power, and to look for alternative leadership options if Diem refused to heed American pressure for reform. As the probability of Diem's sidelining Nhu and his wife was seen as virtually nil, the message effectively meant the fomenting of a coup.[40][41][42] The Voice of America also broadcast a statement blaming Nhu for the raids and absolving the army of responsibility.[43]
After the events of August, Diem's regime became a major preoccupation for the Kennedy administration and a fact-finding mission was launched. The stated purpose of the expedition was to investigate the progress of the war by South Vietnam and their American military advisers against the Viet Cong insurgency. The mission was led by Victor Krulak and Joseph Mendenhall. Krulak was a Major General in the United States Marine Corps, while Mendenhall was a senior Foreign Service Officer experienced in dealing with Vietnamese affairs. The trip lasted four days.[44]
In their submissions to the NSC, Krulak presented an extremely optimistic report on the progress of the war, while Mendenhall presented a very bleak picture of military failure and public discontent. Krulak disregarded the effects of popular discontent in combating the Viet Cong. The general felt that the Vietnamese soldiers' efforts in the field would not be affected by the public's unease with Diem's policies. Mendenhall focused on gauging the sentiment of urban-based Vietnamese and concluded that Diem's policies increased the possibility of religious civil war. Mendenhall said that Diem's policies were causing the South Vietnamese to believe that life under the Viet Cong would improve the quality of their lives.[44]
The divergent reports led US President John F. Kennedy to famously ask his two advisers:
The two of you did visit the same country, didn't you?[45][46]
The inconclusive report was the subject of bitter and personal debate among Kennedy's senior advisers. Various courses of action towards Vietnam were discussed, such as fostering a regime change or taking a series of selective measures designed to cripple the influence of the Nhus, who were seen as the major causes of the political problems in South Vietnam.[44]
^Adam Roberts, ‘Buddhism and Politics in South Vietnam’, The World Today, Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, vol. 21, no. 6, June 1965, pp. 240-50 analyses the causes of the Buddhist crisis and its significance as a case of non-violent struggle.
Dommen, Arthur J. (2001). The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans: Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN0253338549.
Gettleman, Marvin E. (1966). Vietnam: History, documents and opinions on a major world crisis. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books.
Halberstam, David; Singal, Daniel J. (2008). The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN0-7425-6007-4.
Jacobs, Seth (2006). Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN0-7425-4447-8.
Jones, Howard (2003). Death of a Generation: how the assassinations of Diem and JFK prolonged the Vietnam War. New York City, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-505286-2.
Tucker, Spencer C. (2000). Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social and Military History. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN1-57607-040-9.
Warner, Denis (1963). The Last Confucian. New York City, New York: Macmillan.
Under the 1977 Soviet Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR),and the Bolshevik and Menshevik split up that was the subsequent of the 1917 October Revolution, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers was the head of government[1] and the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet was the head of state.[2] The office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers was the equivalent to a First WorldPrime Minister,[1] while the office of the Chairman of the Presidium was equivalent to the office of the President.[2] In the Soviet Union's seventy-year history there was no official leader of the Soviet Union offices but a Soviet leader usually led the country through the office of the Premier and/or the office of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Following Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the 1920s[3] the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party became synonymous with 'Leader of the Soviet Union'[4] because the post controlled both the CPSU and the Soviet Government.[3] The post of the General Secretary was abolished under Stalin and later re-established by Nikita Khrushchev under the name of First Secretary; in 1966 Leonid Brezhnev reverted the office title to its former name. Being the head of the communist party,[5] the office of the General Secretary was the highest in the Soviet Union until 1990.[6] The post of General Secretary lacked clear guidelines of succession, so after the death or removal of a Soviet leader, the successor usually needed the support of the Politburo, the Central Committee, or another government or party apparatus to both take and stay in power. The President of the Soviet Union, an office created in March 1990, replaced the General Secretary as the highest Soviet political office.[7]
Contemporaneously to establishment of the office of the President, representatives of the Congress of People's Deputies voted to remove Article 6 from the Soviet constitution which stated that the Soviet Union was a one-party state controlled by the Communist Party which, in turn, played the leading role in society. This vote weakened the Party and its hegemony over the Soviet Union and its people.[8] Upon death, resignation, or removal from office of an incumbent President, the Vice President of the Soviet Union would assume the office, though the Soviet Union collapsed before this was actually tested.[9] After the failed August Coup the Vice President was replaced by an elected member of the State Council of the Soviet Union.[10]
Vladimir Lenin was voted the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (Sovnarkom) on 30 December 1922 by the Congress of Soviets.[11] His health, at the age of 53, declined from effects of two bullet wounds, later aggravated by three strokes which culminated with his death in 1924.[12] Irrespective of his health status in his final days, Lenin was already losing much of his power to Stalin.[13]Alexei Rykov succeeded Lenin as Chairman of the Sovnarkom, and although he was officially the most powerful person in the country, the Politburo of the Communist Party began to overshadow the Sovnarkom through the 1920s. By the end of the decade Rykov merely rubber stamped the decisions predetermined by the Political Bureau (Politburo) of the Communist Party. Stalin's early policies pushed for rapid industrialisation, nationalisation of private industry[14] and the collectivisation of private plots created under Lenin's New Economic Policy.[15] As leader of the Politburo, Stalin consolidated near-absolute power by 1938 after the Great Purge, a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution.[16]Nazi German troops invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941,[17] but were repulsed by the Soviets in December. On Stalin's orders, the USSR launched a counter-attack on Nazi Germany.[18] Stalin died in March 1953,[19] his death triggered a power struggle in which Khrushchev after several years emerged victorious against Georgy Malenkov.[20]
Khrushchev denounced Stalin on two occasions: in 1956 and 1962. His policy of de-Stalinisation earned him many enemies within the party, especially from old Stalinist appointees. Many saw this approach as destructive and destabilising. A group known as Anti-Party Group tried, but failed, to oust Khrushchev from office in 1957.[21] As Khrushchev grew older, his erratic behavior became worse, usually taking decisions without discussing or confirming them with the Politburo.[22]Leonid Brezhnev, a close companion of Khrushchev, was elected First Secretary the same day of Khrushchev's removal from power; Alexei Kosygin became the new Premier and Anastas Mikoyan kept his office as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. In 1965, on the orders of the Politburo, Mikoyan was forced to retire; Nikolai Podgorny took over the office of Chairman of the Presidium.[23] The USSR in the post-Khrushchev 1960s was governed by a collective leadership.[24]Henry A. Kissinger, the American National Security Advisor, falsely believed that Kosygin was the 'Leader of the Soviet Union' and that he was at the helm of 'Soviet foreign policy' because he represented the Soviet Union at the 1967 Glassboro Summit Conference.[25] The "Era of Stagnation", a derogatory term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev, was a period marked by low socio-economic efficiency in the country and a gerontocracy ruling the country.[26]Yuri Andropov succeeded Brezhnev in his post as General Secretary in 1982. In 1983 Andropov was hospitalised, and rarely met up at work to chair the politburo meetings due to his declining health. Nikolai Tikhonov usually chaired the meetings in his place.[27] Following Andropov's death, an even older leader, Konstantin Chernenko was elected to the General Secretariat. His rule lasted for little more than a year.[28]
Gorbachev was elected to the General Secretariat by the Politburo on 11 March 1985.[29] By the mid-to-late 1980s Gorbachev had launched the policies of perestroika (literally meaning "reconstruction", but varies) and glasnost ("openness" and "transparency").[30] The dismantling of the principal defining features of communism in 1988 and 1989 in the Soviet Union led to the unintended consequence of breaking-up the Soviet state into 15 successor states after the failed August Coup of 1991 led by Gennady Yanayev.[31]
Chairman of the Sovnarkom of Russia and of the Soviet Union from 2 February 1924 - 18 May 1929 and 19 December 1930, respectively. Rykov's tenure encompassed the transfer of power from the official government organs to the Politburo of the Communist Party. The Politburo of the Communist Party became the de facto decision maker by the end of the 1920s, and as such took power away from Rykov, who continued to be the official leader of the Russian SFSR and the USSR until the dates listed above.
Was the leading figure of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, but was later forced to resign. From Stalin's death[41] to February 1955 Malenkov, through the office of Premier, was locked in a power struggle against Khrushchev.[42]
Served as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Soviet Union and Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 27 March 1958 to 14 October 1964. While vacationing in Abkhazia, Khrushchev was called by Leonid Brezhnev to return to Moscow for a special meeting of the Presidium, to be held on 13 October 1964. On 14 October, Khrushchev's retirement was announced.[45]
Served as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, was later renamed General Secretary,[22] and later Chairman of the Presidium.[23]
Served as General Secretary from 11 March 1985,[52] and resigned on 24 August 1991,[55] Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1 October[51] 1988 until the office was renamed to the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet on 25 May 1989 to 15 March 1990[52] and President of the Soviet Union from 15 March 1990[56] to 25 December 1991.[57] The day following Gorbachev's resignation as President, the Soviet Union was formally dissolved.[54]
On three occasions, between Lenin's death and Stalin's rise, Stalin's death and Nikita Khrushchev's rise to power, and between Khrushchev's fall and Leonid Brezhnev's consolidation of power in the government apparatus, a collective leadership known as the Troika (meaning "threesome")[58] governed the country, with no single individual holding leadership alone.[23][39]
When Vladimir Lenin suffered his first stroke a Troika was established to govern the country in his place. The Troika consisted of Lev Kamenev, Joseph Stalin, and Grigory Zinoviev. The Troika was dissolved when Kamenev and Zinoviev decided to break with Stalin in 1925.[60]
^Ginsburgs, George; Ajani, Gianmaria; van den Berg, Gerard Peter (1989). Soviet Administrative Law: Theory and Policy. Brill Publishers. p. 500. ISBN978–0792302885.
^Tinggaard Svendsen, Gert; Haase Svendsen, Gunnar Lind (2009). Handbook of Social Capital: The Troika of Sociology, Political Science and Economics. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 460. ISBN978–1845423232.
The Kingdom of Hawaii was established during the years 1795 to 1810 with the subjugation of the smaller independent chiefdoms of Oʻahu, Maui, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, Kauaʻi and Niʻihau by the chiefdom of Hawaiʻi (or the "Big Island") into one unified government. The Kingdom was overthrown in 1893-1894.
A series of violent battles, lasting 15 years, was led by the warrior chief who would become Kamehameha the Great. The Kingdom of Hawaii was established with the help of western weapons and advisors, such as John Young and Isaac Davis.[1] Although successful in attacking both Oʻahu and Maui, he failed to secure a victory in Kauaʻi, his effort hampered by a storm. Eventually, Kauaʻi's chief swore allegiance to Kamehameha. The unification ended the ancient Hawaiian society, transforming it into an independent constitutional monarchy crafted in the traditions and manner of European monarchs.
The Hawaiian army and navy developed from the warriors of Kona under Kamehameha I, who unified Hawaii in 1810. The army and navy used both traditional canoes and uniforms including helmets made of natural materials and loincloths (called the Malo) as well as western technology like artillery cannons, muskets, and European ships. European advisors were captured, treated well and became Hawaiian citizens. When Kamehameha died in 1819 he left his son Liholiho a large arsenal with tens of thousands of men and many warships. This helped put down the revolt at Kuamoʻo later in 1819.
During the Kamehameha Dynasty the population in Hawaii was ravaged by epidemics following the arrival of outsiders. The military shrank with the population, so by the end of the Dynasty there was no Hawaiian navy and an army consisting of several hundred troops. After a French invasion that sacked Honolulu in 1849 Kamehameha III sought treaties with the United States and Britain to become a protectorate state. During the outbreak of the Crimean War, in Europe, Kamehameha III declared Hawaii a neutral state,[2] similar to Switzerland, ending any hope of Hawaii to benefits through war. After Hawaii became a protectorate of the United States strong pressure was put on Kamehameha IV to make trade exclusively to the United States even annexing the islands. To counterbalance this situation Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V pushed for alliances with other foreign powers, especially Great Britain. Hawaii claimed uninhabited islands in the Pacific including the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, many of which came into conflict with American claims.
Following the Kamehameha Dynasty the small army was disbanded under Lunalilo after a barracks revolt in September 1873 until his death leaving Hawaii solely protected by the United States who had wavering support of the monarchy. The small army was restored under King Kalakaua but failed to stop the 1887 Rebellion by the Missionary Party. In 1891 Queen Liliʻuokalani came to power. Following the elections 1892 with petitions and request from her administration to change the constitution of 1887. The US protectorate policy was that at least one U.S. cruiser must be present in Hawaii at all times. So, on January 17, 1893, Liliʻuokalani, believing the U.S. military would intervene if she changed the constitution, waited for the USS Boston to leave port. Once it was known that Liliʻuokalani was revising the constitution, the Boston was recalled and assisted the Missionary Party in her overthrow. In 1993, the U.S. Congress passed the Apology Resolution, admitting wrongdoing and issuing an apology. Following the overthrow and the establishment of the Provisional Government of Hawaii the Kingdom's military was disarmed and disbanded.
From 1810 to 1893, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was ruled by two major dynastic families: the House of Kamehameha and the Kalākaua Dynasty. Five members of the Kamehameha family led the government as king. Liholiho (Kamehameha II) and Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III), were direct sons of Kamehameha the Great. For a period of Liholiho and Kauikeaouli's reigns, the primary wife of Kamehameha the Great, Queen Kaʻahumanu, ruled as Queen Regent and Kuhina Nui, or Prime Minister.
Under the rule of Queen Kaʻahumanu, the powerful newly-converted Protestant widow of Kamehameha the Great, Catholicism was illegal in Hawaii, and in 1831 chiefs loyal to her forcibly deported French Catholic priests; Native Hawaiian converts were imprisoned and Protestant ministers ordered them to be tortured.[citation needed] The prejudice against the French Catholic missionaries remained the same under the reign of her successor, the Kuhina NuiKaʻahumanu II.
In 1839 Captain Laplace of the French frigate Artémise sailed to Hawaii under orders to:
Destroy the malevolent impression which you find established to the detriment of the French name; to rectify the erroneous opinion which has been created as to the power of France; and to make it well understood that it would be to the advantage of the chiefs of those islands of the Ocean to conduct themselves in such a manner as not to incur the wrath of France. You will exact, if necessary with all the force that is yours to use, complete reparation for the wrongs which have been committed, and you will not quit those places until you have left in all minds a solid and lasting impression.
Under the threat of war, King Kamehameha III signed the Edict of Toleration on July 17, 1839 and paid the $20,000 in compensation for the deportation of the priests and the incarceration and torture of converts, agreeing to Laplace's demands. The kingdom proclaimed:
That the Catholic worship be declared free, throughout all the dominions subject to the King of the Sandwich Islands; the members of this religious faith shall enjoy in them the privileges granted to Protestants.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu returned unpersecuted and as reparation Kamehameha III donated land for them to build a church upon.
An even more serious threat occurred on February 13, 1843. Lord George Paulet of the Royal Navy warship HMS Carysfort, entered Honolulu Harbor and demanded that King Kamehameha III cede the islands to the British Crown.[3] Under the guns of the frigate, Kamehameha III surrendered to Paulet on February 25, writing to his people:
"Where are you, chiefs, people, and commons from my ancestors, and people from foreign lands?
Hear ye! I make known to you that I am in perplexity by reason of difficulties into which I have been brought without cause, therefore I have given away the life of our land. Hear ye! but my rule over you, my people, and your privileges will continue, for I have hope that the life of the land will be restored when my conduct is justified.
Done at Honolulu, Oahu, this 25th day of February, 1843.
Kamehameha III
Kekauluohi"[4]
Dr. Gerrit P. Judd, a missionary who had become the Minister of Finance for the Kingdom, secretly arranged for J.F.B. Marshall to be envoy to the United States, France and Britain, to protest Paulet's actions.[5] Marshall, a commercial agent of Ladd & Co., conveyed the Kingdom's complaint to the Vice Consul of Britain in Tepec. Rear Admiral Richard Darton Thomas, Paulet's commanding officer, arrived at Honolulu harbor on July 26, 1843 on HMS Dublin from Valparaíso, Chile. Admiral Thomas apologized to Kamehameha III for Paulet's actions, and restored Hawaiian sovereignty on July 31, 1843. In his restoration speech, Kamehameha III declared that "Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono" (The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness), the motto of the future State of Hawaii.
In August 1849, French admiral Louis Tromelin arrived in Honolulu Harbor with the La Poursuivante and Gassendi. De Tromelin made ten demands to King Kamehameha III on August 22, mainly demanding that full religious rights be given to Catholics, (a decade earlier, during the French Incident the ban on Catholicism had been lifted, but Catholics still enjoyed only partial religious rights). On August 25 the demands had not been met. After a second warning was made to the civilians, French troops overwhelmed the skeleton force and captured Honolulu Fort, spiked the coastal guns and destroyed all other weapons they found (mainly muskets and ammunition). They raided government buildings and general property in Honolulu, causing $100,000 in damages. After the raids the invasion force withdrew to the fort. De Tromelin eventually recalled his men and left Hawaii on September 5.
Anticipating this foreign encroachment on Hawaiian territory, King Kamehameha III had dispatched a delegation to the United States and Europe to secure the recognition of Hawaiian Independence. Timoteo Haʻalilio, William Richards and Sir George Simpson were commissioned as joint Ministers Plenipotentiary on April 8, 1842. Sir George Simpson left for England while Haʻalilio and Richards to the United States on July 8, 1842. The Hawaiian delegation secured the assurance of U.S. President John Tyler on December 19, 1842 of Hawaiian independence, and then met Simpson in Europe to secure formal recognition by the United Kingdom and France. On March 17, 1843, King Louis-Philippe of France recognized Hawaiian independence at the urging of King Leopold I of Belgium. On April 1, 1843, Lord Aberdeen on behalf of Queen Victoria, assured the Hawaiian delegation that, "Her Majesty's Government was willing and had determined to recognize the independence of the Sandwich Islands under their present sovereign."[6]
Flier for 30th anniversary celebration of the 1843 treaty
On November 28, 1843, at the Court of London, the British and French Governments formally recognized Hawaiian independence. The "Anglo-Franco Proclamation", a joint declaration by France and Britain, signed by King Louis-Phillipe and Queen Victoria, assured the Hawaiian delegation that:
Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and His Majesty the King of the French, taking into consideration the existence in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands) of a government capable of providing for the regularity of its relations with foreign nations, have thought it right to engage, reciprocally, to consider the Sandwich Islands as an Independent State, and never to take possession, neither directly or under the title of Protectorate, or under any other form, of any part of the territory of which they are composed.
The undersigned, Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs, and the Ambassador Extraordinary of His Majesty the King of the French, at the Court of London, being furnished with the necessary powers, hereby declare, in consequence, that their said Majesties take reciprocally that engagement.
In witness whereof the undersigned have signed the present declaration, and have affixed thereto the seal of their arms.
Done in duplicate at London, the 28th day of November, in the year of our Lord, 1843.
" 'ABERDEEN. [L.S.]
" 'ST. AULAIRE. [L.S.],[7]
Hawaiʻi was thus the first non-European indigenous state to be admitted into the Family of Nations.[8] The United States declined to join with France and the United Kingdom in this statement. Even though President John Tyler had verbally recognized Hawaiian Independence, it was not until 1849 that the United States formally recognized Hawaii as a fellow nation.[9]
November 28 became a national holiday to celebrate the recognition of Hawaii's independence. The Hawaiian Kingdom entered into treaties with most major nations and established over ninety legations and consulates.[8]
Dynastic rule by the Kamehameha family ended in 1872 with the death of Kamehameha V. Upon his deathbed, he summoned High Chiefess Bernice Pauahi Bishop to declare his intentions of making her heir to the throne. She and her cousin, Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani were the last direct Kamehameha family members surviving. Bernice refused the crown and Kamehameha V died before naming an alternative heir.
The refusal of Bishop to take the crown forced the legislature of the Kingdom to elect a new monarch. From 1872 to 1873, several distant relatives of the Kamehameha line were nominated. In a ceremonial popular vote and a unanimous legislative vote, William C. Lunalilo, grandnephew of Kamehameha I, became Hawaiiʻis first of two elected monarchs, but only reigned from 1873–1874.
Like his predecessor, Lunalilo failed to name an heir to the throne. Once again, the legislature of the Kingdom of Hawaii needed an election to fill the royal vacancy. Queen Emma, widow of Kamehameha IV, was nominated along with David Kalākaua. The 1874 election was a nasty political campaign in which both candidates resorted to mudslinging and innuendo. David Kalākaua became the second elected King of Hawaii but without the ceremonial popular vote of Lunalilo. The choice of the legislature was controversial, and U.S. and British troops were called upon to suppress rioting by Queen Emma's supporters, the Emmaites.
Hoping to avoid uncertainty in the monarchy's future, Kalākaua proclaimed several heirs to the throne to define a line of succession. His sister Liliʻuokalani would succeed the throne upon Kalākaua's death, with Princess Victoria Kaʻiulani to follow. If she could not produce an heir by birth, Prince David Lamea Kawananakoa then Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole would rule after her.
In 1887, a constitution was drafted by Lorrin A. Thurston, Minister of Interior under King Kalākaua. The constitution was proclaimed by the king after a meeting of 3,000 residents including an armed militia demanded he sign it or be deposed. The document created a constitutional monarchy like the United Kingdom's, stripping the King of most of his personal authority, empowering the legislature and establishing cabinet government. It has since become widely known as the "Bayonet Constitution" because of the threat of force used to gain Kalākaua's cooperation.
The 1887 constitution empowered the citizenry to elect members of the House of Nobles (who had previously been appointed by the King). It increased the value of property a citizen must own to be eligible to vote above the previous Constitution of 1864 and denied voting rights to Asians who comprised a large proportion of the population. (A few Japanese and some Chinese had previously become naturalized and now lost voting rights they had previously enjoyed.) This guaranteed a voting monopoly to wealthy native Hawaiians and Europeans. The Bayonet Constitution continued allowing the monarch to appoint cabinet ministers, but stripped him of the power to dismiss them without approval from the Legislature.
In 1891, Kalākaua died and his sister Liliʻuokalani assumed the throne. She came to power during an economic crisis precipitated in part by the McKinley Tariff. By rescinding the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875, the new tariff eliminated the previous advantage Hawaiian exporters enjoyed in trade to U.S. markets. Many Hawaiian businesses and citizens were feeling the pressures of the loss of revenue, so Liliʻuokalani proposed a lottery and opium licensing to bring in additional revenue for the government. Her ministers and closest friends tried to dissuade her from pursuing the bills, and these controversial proposals were used against her in the looming constitutional crisis.
Liliʻuokalani wanted to restore power to the monarch by abrogating the 1887 Constitution. The queen launched a campaign resulting in a petition to proclaim a new Constitution. Many citizens and residents who in 1887 had forced Kalākaua to sign the "Bayonet Constitution" became alarmed when three of her recently appointed cabinet members informed them that the queen was planning to unilaterally proclaim her new Constitution.[10] Some cabinet ministers were reported to have feared for their safety after upsetting the queen by not supporting her plans.[11]
In 1893, local businessmen and politicians, composed primarily of American and European residents, overthrew the queen, her cabinet and her marshal, and took over the government of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.
USS Boston's landing force on duty at the Arlington Hotel, Honolulu, at the time of the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, January 1893.[12]
Historians suggest that businessmen were in favor of overthrow and annexation to the U.S. in order to benefit from more favorable trade conditions with its main export market.[13][14][15][16] The McKinley Tariff of 1890 eliminated the previously highly favorable trade terms for Hawaii's sugar exports, a main component of the economy.
In response to Liliʻuokalani's move, a group of European and American residents formed a "Committee of Safety" on January 14, 1893 in opposition to the Queen and her plans. After a mass meeting of supporters, the Committee committed itself to the removal of the Queen, and seeking annexation to the United States.[17]
United States Government Minister John L. Stevens summoned a company of uniformed U.S. Marines from the USS Boston and two companies of U.S. sailors to land on the Kingdom and take up positions at the U.S. Legation, Consulate, and Arion Hall on the afternoon of January 16, 1893. This deployment was at the request of the Committee of Safety, which claimed an "imminent threat to American lives and property". Stevens was accused of ordering the landing himself on his own authority, and inappropriately using his discretion. Historian William Russ concluded that "the injunction to prevent fighting of any kind made it impossible for the monarchy to protect itself".[18]:350
On July 17, 1893, Sanford B. Dole and his committee took control of the government and declared itself the Provisional Government of Hawaii "to rule until annexation by the United States" and lobbied the United States for it.[18]:90 Dole was president of both governments. During this time, members of the former government lobbied in Washington for the United States to restore the Hawaiian Kingdom. President Grover Cleveland considered the overthrow to have been an illegal act of war; he refused to consider annexation of the islands and initially worked to restore the queen to her throne. Between December 14, 1893 and January 11, 1894 a standoff occurred between the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom against the Provisional Government to pressure them into returning the Queen known as the Black Week. This incident drove home the message that president Cleveland wanted Queen Liliʻuokalani's return to power, so on July 4, 1894 the Republic of Hawaiʻi was proclaimed to wait out Cleveland's second term. Also in 1894, as lobbying continued in Washington, the exiled government was secretly amassing an army of 600 strong led by former Captain of the GuardSamuel Nowlein. In 1895 they attempted a counter-rebellion, Queen Liliʻuokalani was arrested when a weapons cache was found on the palace grounds, she was tried by a military tribunal of the Republic, convicted of treason, and placed under permanent house arrest in her own home. While under house arrest she dissolved the exiled government to avoid future acts of violence to restore the monarchy. She did this on January 24, 1895 in a five page letter. She formally abdicated the throne and became a citizen of the Republic, the Kingdom of Hawaii was no more.
It was not until a change in administrations to President William McKinley that the Republic of Hawaiʻi succeeded in its goal when in 1898, Congress approved a joint resolution of annexation creating the U.S. Territory of Hawaiʻi. This followed the precedent of Texas which was also annexed by a joint resolution of Congress. Dole was appointed to be the first governor of the Territory of Hawaiʻi.
The overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and the subsequent annexation of Hawaiʻi has recently been cited as the first major instance of American imperialism.[19]
Early in its history, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was governed from several locations including coastal towns on the islands of Hawaiʻi and Maui (Lāhainā). It wasn't until the reign of Kamehameha III that a capital was established in Honolulu on the Island of Oʻahu.
On August 12, 1898, the flag of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi over ʻIolani Palace was lowered to raise the United States flag to signify annexation.
By the time Kamehameha V was king, he saw the need to build a royal palace fitting of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi's new found prosperity and standing with the royals of other nations. He commissioned the building of the palace at Aliʻiōlani Hale. He died before it was completed. Today, the palace houses the Supreme Court of the State of Hawaiʻi.
David Kalākaua shared the dream of Kamehameha V to build a palace, and eagerly desired the trappings of European royalty. He commissioned the construction of ʻIolani Palace. In later years, the palace would become his sister's makeshift prison under guard by the forces of the Republic of Hawaii, the site of the official raising of the U.S. flag during annexation, and then territorial governor's and legislature's offices. It is now a museum.
Aliʻiōlani Hale, Originally designed as a Palace for Kamehameha V, although Kamehameha V later decided to convert the building into a government building during construction
^Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen, Appendix A "The three ministers left Mr. Parker to try to dissuade me from my purpose; and in the meantime they all (Peterson, Cornwell, and Colburn) went to the government building to inform Thurston and his part of the stand I took."
^Morgan Report, p804-805 "Every one knows how quickly Colburn and Peterson, when they could escape from the palace, called for help from Thurston and others, and how afraid Colburn was to go back to the palace."
^ Kinzer, Stephen. (2006). Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq.
^ Stevens, Sylvester K. (1968) American Expansion in Hawaii, 1842-1898. New York: Russell & Russell. (p. 228)
^ Dougherty, Michael. (1992). To Steal a Kingdom: Probing Hawaiian History. (p. 167-168)
^ La Croix, Sumner and Christopher Grandy. (March 1997). "The Political Instability of Reciprocal Trade and the Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom" in The Journal of Economic History 57:161-189.
The Bristol Channel is an important area for wildlife, in particular waders, and has protected areas, including National Nature Reserves such as Bridgwater Bay at the mouth of the River Parrett. At low tide large parts of the channel become mud flats due to the tidal range of 15 metres (49 ft),[2] second only to Bay of Fundy in Eastern Canada.[3][4] Development schemes have been proposed along the channel, including an airport and a tidal barrier for electricity generation, but conservation issues have so far managed to block such schemes.
The largest islands in the Bristol Channel are Lundy, Steep Holm and Flat Holm. The islands and headlands provide some shelter for the upper reaches of the channel from storms. These islands are mostly uninhabited and protected as nature reserves, and are home to some unique wild flower species. In 1971 a proposal was made by the Lundy Field Society to establish a marine reserve. Provision for the establishment of statutory Marine Nature Reserves was included in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and on 21 November 1986 the Secretary of State for the Environment announced the designation of a statutory reserve at Lundy.[5] There is an outstanding variety of marine habitats and wildlife, and a large number of rare and unusual species in the waters around Lundy, including some species of seaweed, branching sponges, sea fans and cup corals.[6]
The Bristol Channel has some extensive and popular beaches and spectacular scenery, particularly on the coasts of Exmoor and Bideford Bay in North Devon and the Vale of Glamorgan and Gower Peninsula on the Glamorgan coast. The western stretch of Exmoor boasts Hangman cliffs, the highest cliffs in mainland Britain, culminating near Combe Martin in the "Great Hangman", a 1,043 ft (318 m) 'hog-backed' hill with a cliff-face of 820 ft (250 m); its sister cliff "The Little Hangman" has a cliff-face of 716 ft (218 m). On the Gower Peninsula, at its western extremity is the Worms Head, a headland of carboniferouslimestone which is approachable on foot at low tide only. The beaches of Gower (at Rhossili, for example) and North Devon, such as Croyde and Woolacombe, win awards for their water quality and setting, as well as being renowned for surfing. In 2004, The Times "Travel" magazine selected Barafundle Bay in Pembrokeshire as one of the twelve best beaches in the world. In 2007, Oxwich Bay made the same magazine's Top 12 best beaches in the world list, and was also selected as Britain's best beach for 2007.
There are no cities on the English coast but the resorts of Burnham-on-Sea, Watchet, Minehead and Ilfracombe face directly onto the Bristol Channel, whilst Barnstaple and Bideford are sited on estuaries opening onto Bideford Bay at the westernmost end of the Bristol Channel. The city of Bristol, originally established on the River Avon but now with docks on the Severn estuary, is one of the most important ports in Britain and gives its name to the Channel which forms its seaward approach.
There are no road or rail crossings of the Bristol Channel so direct crossings are necessarily made by sea or air, or less directly by the road and rail crossings of the Severn estuary. The Channel can be a hazardous area of water because of its strong tides and the rarity of havens on the north Devon and Somerset coasts that can be entered in all states of the tide. Because of the treacherous waters, pilotage is an essential service for shipping. A specialised style of sailing boat, the Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter, developed in the area.
This tradition is continued each summer by the PS Waverley, the last seagoing paddle steamer in the world, built in 1947. The steamer provides pleasure trips between the Welsh and English coasts and to the islands of the channel. Trips are also offered on the MV Balmoral, also owned by Waverley Excursions.
The Burnham-on-Sea Area Rescue Boat (BARB)[2] uses a hovercraft to rescue people from the treacherous mud flats on that part of the coast. A hovercraft was recently tested to determine the feasibility of setting up a similar rescue service in Weston-super-Mare. There are also RNLI lifeboats stationed along both sides of the Channel. In the Severn Estuary, in-shore rescue is provided by two independent lifeboat trusts, the Severn Area Rescue Association (SARA) and the Portishead and Bristol Lifeboat Trust.[7]
The Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary have the potential to generate more renewable electricity than all other UK estuaries. It has been stated that, if harnessed, it could create up to 5% of the UK’s electricity, contributing significantly to UK climate change goals and European Union renewable energy targets. The Severn Tidal Power Feasibility Study was launched in 2008 by the UK Government to assess all tidal range technologies, including barrages, lagoons and others.[8] The study will look at the costs, benefits and impacts of a Severn tidal power scheme and will help Government decide whether it could or could not support such a scheme. Some of the options being looked at may include a road crossing downstream of the existing crossings of the estuary.
On 30 January 1607 (New style) thousands of people were drowned, houses and villages swept away, farmland inundated and flocks destroyed when a flood hit the shores of the Channel. The devastation was particularly bad on the Welsh side, from Laugharne in Carmarthenshire to above Chepstow on the English border. Cardiff was the most badly affected town. There remain plaques up to 8 ft (2.4 m) above sea level to show how high the waters rose on the sides of the surviving churches. It was commemorated in a contemporary pamphlet "God's warning to the people of England by the great overflowing of the waters or floods."
The cause of the flood is uncertain and disputed. It had long been believed that the floods were caused by a combination of meteorological extremes and tidal peaks, but research published in 2002 showed some evidence of a tsunami in the Channel.[9] Although some evidence from the time describes events similar to a tsunami, there are also similarities to descriptions of the 1953 floods in East Anglia, which were caused by a storm surge. It has been shown that the tide and weather at the time were capable of generating such a surge.[10]
In 1835 John Ashley was on the shore at Clevedon with his son who asked him how the people on Flat Holm could go to church. For the next three months Ashley voluntarily ministered to the population of the island. From there he recognised the needs of the seafarers on the four hundred sailing vessels in the Bristol Channel and created the Bristol Channel Mission. He raised funds and in 1839 a specially designed mission cutter was built with a main cabin which could be converted into a chapel for 100 people, this later became first initiative of the Mission to Seafarers.[11]
Much of the coastline at the western end of the Bristol Channel faces west towards the Atlantic Ocean meaning that a combination of an off-shore (east) wind and a generous Atlantic swell produces excellent surf along the beaches. The heritage coasts of the Vale of Glamorgan, Bideford Bay and Gower are, along with the Atlantic coasts of Pembrokeshire and Cornwall, the key areas for surfing in the whole of Britain. Although slightly overshadowed by the Atlantic coasts of North Cornwall and West Pembrokeshire, both Gower and Bideford Bay nevertheless have several superb breaks—notably Croyde in Bideford Bay and Langland Bay on Gower—and surfing in Gower and Bideford Bay is enhanced by the golden beaches, clean blue waters, excellent water quality and good facilities close by to the main surf breaks.
The high quality of the landscape of much of both coasts of the Bristol Channel means that they are popular destinations for walkers. Sections of two national trails; the South West Coast Path and the Pembrokeshire Coast Path follow these shores along with various other shorter waymarked recreational routes. A continuous coastal path is being developed along the entire Welsh shore under the auspices of the Countryside Council for Wales.
The first person to swim the 30.5 nautical miles (56.5 km; 35.1 mi) from Ilfracombe to Swansea was Gethin Jones, who achieved the record on 13 September 2009, taking nearly 22 hours.[12]
The youngest person to swim the Bristol Channel from Penarth to Clevedon is Gary Carpenter who at age 17 on August Bank Holiday 2007, swam the channel in 5 hours 35 minutes making him the youngest and fastest swimmer of the Bristol Channel. Gary Carpenter's coach Steve Price was the first ever person to swim from Penarth to Clevedon back in 1990.[13]
^Haslett, Simon K.; Edward A. Bryant (2004). "The AD 1607 coastal flood in the bristol channel and severn estuary: historical records from Devon and Cornwall (UK)". Archaeology in the Severn Estuary15: 81–89.
^ Horsburgh, K.J. and M. Horritt (2006) The Bristol Channel floods of 1607 – reconstruction and analysis. Weather, 61(10), 272-277.
^Farr, Grahame (1954). Somerset Harbours. London: Christopher Johnson. pp. 49.
The name "Central Government of Vietnam" reflects an expectation of merger with the North. The French promised a merger, but delayed due to war with Vietminh.
The aftermath of the altercation. David Halberstam(centre, wearing sunglasses), repels plainclothes policemen after their attack on Peter Arnett(far left).
The Double Seven Day scuffle was a physical altercation on July 7, 1963, in Saigon, South Vietnam. The secret police of Ngô Đình Nhu—the brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm—attacked a group of journalists from the United States who were covering Buddhist protests on the ninth anniversary of Diệm’s rise to power. Peter Arnett of the Associated Press (AP) was punched on the nose, but the quarrel quickly ended after David Halberstam of The New York Times, being much taller than Nhu’s men, counterattacked and caused the secret police to retreat. Arnett and his colleague, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and photographer Malcolm Browne, were later accosted by police at their office and taken away for questioning on suspicion of attacking police officers.
After their release, the journalists went to the US embassy in Saigon to complain about their treatment at the hands of Diệm’s officials and asked for US government protection. Their appeals were dismissed, as was a direct appeal to the White House. Through the efforts of US AmbassadorFrederick Nolting, the assault charges laid against the journalists were subsequently dropped. Vietnamese Buddhists reacted to the incident by contending that Diệm’s men were planning to assassinate monks, while Madame Ngô Đình Nhu repeated earlier claims that the US government had been trying to overthrow her brother-in-law.
Browne took photographs of Arnett’s bloodied face, which were published in newspapers worldwide. This drew further negative attention to the behaviour of the Diệm régime amidst the backdrop of the Buddhist crisis.
The incident occurred during a period of popular unrest by the Buddhist majority against the Roman Catholic rule of Diệm. Buddhist discontent had grown since the Hue Vesak shootings on May 8, 1963.[1] The government decided to selectively invoke a law, prohibiting the display of religious flags, by banning the use of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha.[1] One week earlier, the Vatican flag had been flown at a celebration for Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục, Diệm’s brother. The Buddhists defied the ban, flying their flags on Vesak and holding a demonstration, which was ended with government gunfire and eight deaths.[1][2] The killings sparked nation-wide protests by South Vietnam’s Buddhist majority against the policies of Diệm’s regime. The Buddhists demanded that Diệm give them religious equality, but with their demands unfulfilled, the protests increased in magnitude.[3] The most notable of these was the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức on June 11, which was iconically photographed by the media and became a negative symbol of the Diệm régime.[4][5]
Known as Double Seven Day, July 7 was the ninth anniversary of Diệm’s 1954 ascension to Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam.[6] In October 1955, following a fraudulent referendum, Diệm established the Republic of Vietnam, generally known as South Vietnam, and declared himself President.[7] The night of July 6, 1963, had started in a festive mood as Diệm awarded decorations to military officers at a ceremony.[4][5] Among those in the audience were Generals Trần Văn Đôn and Dương Văn Minh, the Chief of Staff of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and the Presidential Military Advisor, respectively.[8] They had returned from observing SEATO military exercises in Thailand,[6] where they had been informed about the regional disquiet over Diem's policies towards the Buddhists.[1]
American pressmen had been alerted to an upcoming Buddhist demonstration to coincide with Double Seven Day at Chanatareansey Pagoda in the north of Saigon.[6][9] The group, which included Arnett, Browne, David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan of United Press International, and CBS's Peter Kalischer waited outside the building with their equipment. After an hour-long religious ceremony, the Buddhists filed out of the pagoda into a narrow alley along a side street, where they were blocked and ordered to stop by plain-clothed policemen. The Buddhists did not resist, but Arnett and Browne began taking photos of the confrontation. The police, who were loyal to Ngo Dinh Nhu,[9] thereupon punched Arnett in the nose, knocked him to the ground, kicked him with their pointed-toe shoes, and broke his camera.[10] Halberstam, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Buddhist crisis, was a tall man, standing around 20 centimetres (7.9 in) taller than the average Vietnamese policeman.[5] He waded into the fracas swinging his arms, reportedly saying "Get back, get back, you sons of bitches, or I'll beat the shit out of you!"[5] Nhu's men ran away without waiting for a Vietnamese translation,[9] but not before Browne had clambered up a power pole and taken photos of Arnett's bloodied face. The police smashed Browne's camera, but his photographic film survived the impact. The other journalists were jostled and rocks were thrown at them. Photos of Arnett's bloodied face were circulated in US newspapers and caused further ill-feeling towards Diem's regime, with the images of Thich Quang Duc on the front pages still fresh in the minds of the public.[4][5]
Ngo Dinh Nhu (pictured right), controlled South Vietnam's secret police.
Diem's address on Double Seven Day worsened the mood of Vietnamese society. He stated that the "problems raised by the General Association of Buddhists have just been settled."[11] He reinforced perceptions that he was out of touch by attributing any lingering problems to the "underground intervention of international red agents and Communist fellow travelers who in collusion with fascist ideologues disguised as democrats were surreptitiously seeking to revive and rekindle disunity at home while arousing public opinions against us abroad".[11] The remark about fascists was seen as a reference to the conspiratorial Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang who had long been enemies of Diem, but his address attacked all those who had criticised him in the past. He no longer trusted anyone outside his family and considered himself to be a martyr.[5][11]
The indignant reporters stridently accused the Diem regime of causing the altercation,[5] whereas the police claimed that the journalists threw the first punch.[9] Embassy official John Mecklin noted that even Diem's media officials were privately skeptical about the veracity of the testimony of Nhu's men.[12] In a heated meeting at the embassy, the press corps demanded that William Trueheart, the acting US Ambassador to South Vietnam in the absence of the holidaying Frederick Nolting, deliver a formal protest to Diem on behalf of the American government. Trueheart angered them by refusing to do so and blaming both sides for the confrontation.[5] In his report to Washington, Trueheart asserted that the uniformed policemen had tacitly helped the plainclothed counterparts, but he also had "no doubt that [the] reporters, at least once [the] fracas had started, acted in [a] belligerent manner towards [the] police".[5] Trueheart contended that since the journalists had a long history of bad blood with the Diem regime, their word could not be taken over that of the Vietnamese police.[9]
Since the embassy was unwilling to provide government protection against police aggression, the journalists appealed directly to the White House.[5] Browne, Halberstam, Sheehan and Kalischer wrote a letter to US President John F. Kennedy, asserting that the regime had begun a full-scale campaign of "open physical intimidation to prevent the covering of news which we feel Americans have a right to know".[4] The protests did not garner any Presidential sympathy for the journalists, but instead resulted in trouble from their media employers. UPI's Tokyo office criticised Sheehan for trying to "make Unipress policy" on his own when "Unipress must be neutral, neither pro-Diem, pro-Communist or pro-anybody else".[13]Emanuel Freedman, the foreign editor of The New York Times reprimanded Halberstam, writing "We still feel that our correspondents should not be firing off cables to the President of the United States without authorization."[13]
The incident provoked reactions from both the Buddhists and the Diem regime. A monk called on the US embassy to send a military unit from the American advisors already present in Vietnam to Xa Loi Pagoda, the main Buddhist temple in Saigon and the organisational hub of the Buddhist movement. The monk claimed that the attack on Arnett indicated that Xa Loi's monks were targets of assassination by Nhu's men, something that Trueheart rejected, turning down the protection request. [9] Xa Loi and other Buddhist centers across the country were raided a month later by Special Forces under the direct control of the Ngo family. On the part of the South Vietnamese government, the de facto first lady Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu used her English language mouthpiece newspaper, the Times of Vietnam, to accuse the United States of supporting the failed coup attempt against Diem in 1960.[9]
Later in the day of the altercation, the police collected Browne and Arnett from the AP bureau in Saigon and took the pair to what they described as a "safe house".[12] The police interrogators said that they would be arrested but were unspecific about the charges. One charge was that of assaulting two police officers, but the interrogators hinted that more serious offences such as organising illegal demonstrations were being considered. The officers conversed among themselves in French, a language which the reporters did not speak, but Arnett thought that they mentioned the word espionage.[12] After four hours of questioning, the pair were charged with assault. Browne and Arnett in turn filed charges against the police over the altercation, and demanded compensation for the damage to their photographic equipment.[9] Arnett and Browne were temporarily released in the evening, after which the whole Saigon press corps stormed the US embassy.[12]
Browne and Arnett were called in for five hours of questioning on the following day. Arnett was accompanied by a British embassy official who, reflecting Arnett's New Zealand citizenship, provided consular assistance on behalf of Wellington.[13] In the end, Diem agreed to have the charges against Browne and Arnett dropped after hours of heated argument with US Ambassador Frederick Nolting, who had returned from his vacation.[9]
Jacobs, Seth (2006). Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN0-7425-4447-8.
Jones, Howard (2003). Death of a Generation: how the assassinations of Diem and JFK prolonged the Vietnam War. New York City, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-505286-2.
Cif was first discovered by co-culturing P. aeruginosa with human airway epithelial cells and monitoring the resulting effect on chloride ion efflux across a polarized monolayer. After co-culture, the CFTR specific chloride ion efflux was found to be drastically reduced.[4] This was determined to be caused by reduced levels of CFTR at the apical surface of these cells. This effect was later found to be the result of a single secreted protein produced by P. aeruginosa, which was named the CFTR inhibitory factor for this initial phenotype. Cif is secreted by P. aeruginosa PA14 as soluble protein as well as packaged into outer membrane vesicles (OMV).[6] Cif is far more potent when applied in OMVs, likely due to efficiency of delivery. Purified, recombinant Cif protein can be applied to polarized monolayers of mammalian cells and promote the removal of CFTR[1][7] and P-glycoprotein[2] from the apical membrane. Cif accomplishes this by interfering with the host deubiquitylation system.[3]
The active site of Cif is shown with a Cα trace in gray, and side chains of select residues playing a role in catalysis are displayed as sticks. From PDB3KD2.
Cif is an epoxide hydrolase (EH) with unique substrate selectivity.[7] Cif is the first example of an EH serving as a virulence factor. Based on structural comparison, it appears that the enzyme utilizes a catalytic triad of residues Asp129, Glu153 and His297, with accessory residues His177 and Tyr239 coordinating the epoxide oxygen during ring opening. Cif is also the first example of an EH utilizing a His-Tyr pair to coordinate an epoxide substrate, rather than the canonical Tyr-Tyr pair. In the proposed enzyme mechanism, Asp129 nucleophilically attacks a carbon of the epoxide moiety of a substrate, forming an ester linked enzyme-acyl intermediate. The preference for which carbon is attacked varies depending upon the substrate. In the second step of the reaction, a water molecule is activated by the charge-relay His297-Glu153 pair, and undergoes nucleophilic attack on the Cγ of Asp129. This hydrolyzes the ester group, liberating the hydrolysis product as a vicinal diol.[7]
Cif belongs to the α/β hydrolase family of proteins. Its structure was determined by X-ray crystallography and consists of the canonical α/β hydrolase fold with a cap domain, which it uses to constitutively homo-dimerize in solution. The active site is burred in the interior of the protein at the interface between the α/β hydrolase core and the cap.[7][8]
^ abYe S, MacEachran DP, Hamilton JW, O'Toole GA, Stanton BA. (2008). "Chemotoxicity of doxorubicin and surface expression of P-glycoprotein (MDR1) is regulated by the Pseudomonas aeruginosa toxin Cif". Am J Physiol Cell Physiol295 (3): C807–18. doi:10.1152/ajpcell.00234. PMC2544439. PMID18650266.
^ abBomberger JM, Ye S, Maceachran DP, Koeppen K, Barnaby RL, O'Toole GA, Stanton BA. (2011). Rohde, John. ed. "A Pseudomonas aeruginosa toxin that hijacks the host ubiquitin proteolytic system". PLoS Pathog7 (3): e1001325. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1001325. PMC3063759. PMID21455491.
^ abSwiatecka-Urban A, Moreau-Marquis S, Maceachran DP, Connolly JP, Stanton CR, Su JR, Barnaby R, O'toole GA, Stanton BA. (2006). "Pseudomonas aeruginosa inhibits endocytic recycling of CFTR in polarized human airway epithelial cells". Am J Physiol Cell Physiol290 (3): C862–72. doi:10.1152/ajpcell.00108.2005. PMID16236828.
^MacEachran DP, Stanton BA, O'Toole GA. (2008). "Cif is negatively regulated by the TetR family repressor CifR". J Bacteriol76 (7): 3197–3206. doi:10.1128/IAI.00305-08. PMC2446692. PMID18458065.
^Bomberger JM, Maceachran DP, Coutermarsh BA, Ye S, O'Toole GA, Stanton BA. (2009). Ausubel, Frederick M.. ed. "Long-distance delivery of bacterial virulence factors by Pseudomonas aeruginosa outer membrane vesicles". PLoS Pathog5 (4): e1000382. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1000382. PMC2661024. PMID19360133.
^ abcdBahl CD, Morisseau C, Bomberger JM, Stanton BA, Hammock BD, O'Toole GA, Madden DR. (2010). "Crystal structure of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator inhibitory factor Cif reveals novel active-site features of an epoxide hydrolase virulence factor". J Bacteriol192 (7): 1785–1795. doi:10.1128/JB.01348-09. PMC2838060. PMID20118260.
^Bahl CD, MacEachran DP, O'Toole GA, Madden DR. (2010). "Purification, crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction analysis of Cif, a virulence factor secreted by Pseudomonas aeruginosa". Acta CrystallogrF66 (1): 26–28. doi:10.1107/S1744309109047599. PMC2805529. PMID20057063.
Coordinated Universal Time (abbreviated UTC)[1] is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. Computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC for that purpose.
UTC is closely related to Universal Time and Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and within informal or casual contexts where sub-second precision is not required, it can be used interchangeably.
Time zones around the world can be expressed as positive or negative offsets from UTC as in this list.
UTC is the time standard used for many Internet and World Wide Web standards. In particular, the Network Time Protocol, which is designed to synchronise the clocks of many computers over the Internet (usually to that of a known accurate clock), uses UTC.
Those who transmit on the amateur radio bands often log the time of their radio contacts in UTC, as transmissions can go worldwide on some frequencies. In the past, the FCC required all amateur radio operators in the United States to log their radio conversations.[3]International broadcasters such as the BBC World Service also use UTC when publishing their schedules and announcing times during broadcasts.
Since the difference between UTC and UT1 is not allowed to exceed 0.9 seconds, if high precision is not required, the general term Universal Time (UT) may be used.[6]
In casual use, when fractions of a second are not important, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) can be considered equivalent to UTC or UT1. Saying "GMT" often implies either UTC or UT1 when used within informal or casual contexts. In technical contexts, usage of "GMT" is avoided; the unambiguous terminology "UTC" or "UT1" is preferred.[6]
The notation for Coordinated Universal Time is UTC. The International Telecommunication Union and the International Astronomical Union wanted Coordinated Universal Time to have the same notation in all languages. English and French speakers wanted the initials of both their respective language's terms to be used internationally: "CUT" for "coordinated universal time" and "TUC" for "temps universel coordonné". This resulted in the final compromise of "UTC",[1] which conforms to the pattern for the notations of the variants of Universal Time (UT0, UT1, UT2, UT1R etc.).[7]
As a time scale, UTC divides up time into days, hours, minutes and seconds. Days are conventionally identified using the Gregorian calendar, but Julian day numbers can also be used. Each day contains 24 hours and each hour contains 60 minutes. The number of seconds in a minute is usually 60, but it may also be 61 or 59.
Thus, in the UTC time scale, the second and all smaller time units (millisecond, microsecond etc.) are of constant duration, but the minute and all larger time units (hour, day, week etc.) are of variable duration.
Most UTC days contain exactly 86,400 SIseconds, with exactly 60 seconds in each minute. However, since the mean solar day is slightly longer than 86,400 SI seconds, occasionally the last minute of a UTC day will have 61 seconds. The extra second is called a leap second. It accounts for the grand total of the extra length (about 2 milliseconds each) of all the mean solar days since the previous leap second. The last minute of a UTC day is allowed to contain 59 seconds to cover the remote possibility of the Earth rotating faster, but that has not yet been necessary since UTC was introduced. The irregular day lengths mean that fractional Julian days do not work properly with UTC.
UTC is derived from International Atomic Time (TAI), which is a coordinate time scale tracking notional proper time on the rotating surface of the Earth (the geoid). At any particular time, UTC proceeds as a linear function of TAI. From 1972 onwards, UTC ticks at the same rate as TAI, but earlier (back to the 1961 start of UTC), UTC ticked at a different rate. In order to maintain a close approximation to UT1 (equivalent to GMT before 1960), UTC occasionally has discontinuities where it changes from one linear function of TAI to another. These discontinuities take the form of leaps implemented by a UTC day of irregular length, and (prior to 1972) changes to the rate at which UTC ticks relative to TAI. Discontinuities in UTC have occurred only at the end of a Gregorian month.[8]
The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) tracks and publishes the difference between UTC and Universal Time, DUT1 = UT1 − UTC, and introduces discontinuities into UTC to keep DUT1 in the interval (−0.9 s, +0.9 s). Since 1972 the discontinuities have consisted only of a leap of one second at the end of 30 June or 31 December. The IERS publishes its decision on whether to have a leap second on each of these dates a few months in advance, in Bulletin C.[9] In principle, leap seconds can also occur on 31 March or 30 September, but the IERS has never found this necessary.
As with TAI, UTC is only known with the highest precision in retrospect. The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) publishes monthly tables of differences between canonical TAI/UTC and TAI/UTC as estimated in real time by participating laboratories. (See the article on International Atomic Time for details.)
Because of time dilation, a standard clock not on the geoid, or in rapid motion, will not maintain synchronicity with UTC. Therefore, telemetry from clocks with a known relation to the geoid is used to provide UTC when required, on locations such as those of spacecraft.
UTC is a discontinuous timescale, so it is not possible to compute the exact time interval elapsed between two UTC timestamps without consulting a table that describes how many leap seconds occurred during that interval. Therefore, many scientific applications that require precise measurement of long (multi-year) intervals use TAI instead. TAI is also commonly used by systems which cannot handle leap seconds. A fixed 19-second offset from TAI also gives GPS time.
For most common and legal-trade purposes, the fractional second difference between UTC and UT (GMT) is inconsequentially small, so UTC is often called GMT (for instance, by the BBC).[10]
Time zones usually differ from UTC by an integral number of hours,[11] although the laws of each jurisdiction would have to be consulted if sub-second accuracy was required. Several jurisdictions established time zones that differ by an integer number of half-hours or quarter-hours from UT1 or UTC.
The UTC time zone is sometimes denoted by the letter Z—a reference to the equivalent nautical time zone (GMT), which has been denoted by a Z since about 1950. The letter also refers to the "zone description" of zero hours, which has been used since 1920 (see time zone history). Since the NATO phonetic alphabet and amateur radio word for Z is "Zulu", UTC is sometimes known as Zulu time. This is especially true in aviation, where Zulu is the universal standard.[12] This ensures all pilots regardless of location are using the same 24-hour clock, thus avoiding confusion when flying between time zones.[13] See list of military time zones for letters used in addition to Z in qualifying time zones other than Greenwich.
On electronic devices that only allow the current time zone to be configured using maps or city names, UTC can be selected indirectly by selecting Reykjavik, Iceland, which is always on UTC time and does not use daylight saving.
UTC does not change with a change of seasons, but local time or civil time may change if a time zone jurisdiction observes daylight saving time or summer time. For example, UTC is 5 hours ahead of local time on the east coast of the United States during winter, but 4 hours ahead during summer.
In 1955, the caesiumatomic clock was invented. This provided a form of timekeeping that was both more stable and more convenient than astronomical observations. In 1956, the U.S. National Bureau of Standards started to use atomic frequency standards in generating the WWV time signals, named for the shortwave radio station which broadcasts them. In a controversial decision, the frequency of the signals was initially set to match the rate of UT, but then kept at the same frequency by the use of atomic clocks and deliberately allowed to drift away from UT. When the divergence grew significantly, the signal was phase shifted (stepped) by 20 ms to bring it back into agreement with UT. Twenty-nine such steps were used before 1960.[14] The signal frequency was changed less often.
In 1958, the International Atomic Time (TAI) service started. It was based on the frequency for the caesium transition, newly established,[15] that was later used to redefine the second in 1967, at a length practically equal to the second of ephemeris time.[16] The WWV time signal's frequency was offset from the TAI frequency, so that clocks which followed the WWV signal would tick exactly one second for every 1.00000001 s ticked by clocks which followed the TAI signal.
Despite the initial controversy, it became clear that basing time signals on atomic clocks was an improvement over the prior system. However, it was widely desired to keep civil time synchronised with the Earth's rotation, and many uses of time signals (such as for navigation) relied on their closely matching Universal Time. WWV's compromise approach was copied by other agencies worldwide, such as the Royal Greenwich Observatory. It then became a concern that time signals should be synchronised with each other, rather than independently determining their own frequency offsets and phase shifts.
In 1960, an international agreement was made on atomic-based time signals. A frequency offset of 1.5 × 10−8 was adopted by all the participating institutions, matching the then-current rate of UT2, a version of UT1 smoothed from seasonal variations. Ad hoc phase shifts were used to synchronise the time signals as far as possible. It was determined that the Bureau International de l'Heure should henceforth choose the frequency offsets and coordinate the time steps. It was also decided to use larger jumps, of 50 ms instead of 20 ms.
UTC was officially initiated at the start of 1961 (but the name Coordinated Universal Time was not adopted by the International Astronomical Union until 1967).[17][18] The TAI instant 1 January 1961 00:00:01.422818 exactly was identified as UTC instant 1 January 1961 00:00:00.000000 exactly, and UTC ticked exactly one second for every 1.000000015 s of TAI. Time steps occurred every few months thereafter, and frequency changes at the end of each year. The jumps increased in size to 100 ms, with only one 50 ms jump having ever occurred. This UTC was intended to permit a very close approximation of UT2, within around 0.1 s.
In 1967, the SI second was redefined in terms of the frequency supplied by a caesium atomic clock. The length of second so defined was practically equal to the second of ephemeris time.[16] This was the frequency that had been provisionally used in TAI since 1958. It was soon recognised that having two types of second with different lengths, namely the UTC second and the SI second used in TAI, was a bad idea. It was thought that it would be better for time signals to maintain a consistent frequency, and that that frequency should match the SI second. Thus it would be necessary to rely on time steps alone to maintain the approximation of UT. This was tried experimentally in a service known as "Stepped Atomic Time" (SAT), which ticked at the same rate as TAI and used jumps of 200 ms to stay synchronised with UT2.
There was also dissatisfaction with the frequent jumps in UTC (and SAT). In 1968, Louis Essen, the inventor of the caesium atomic clock, and G. M. R. Winkler both independently proposed that steps should be of 1 s only.[19] This system was eventually approved, along with the idea of maintaining the UTC second equal to the TAI second. At the end of 1971, there was a final irregular jump of exactly 0.107758 TAI seconds, so that 1 January 1972 00:00:00 UTC was 1 January 1972 00:00:10 TAI exactly, making the difference between UTC and TAI an integer number of seconds. At the same time, the tick rate of UTC was changed to exactly match TAI. UTC also started to track UT1 rather than UT2. Some time signals started to broadcast the DUT1 correction (UT1 − UTC) for applications requiring a closer approximation of UT1 than UTC now provided.[20][21]
The first leap second occurred on 30 June 1972. Since then, leap seconds have occurred on average about once every 19 months, always on 30 June or 31 December. As of 1 January 2010, 00:00:00 UTC, there have been 24 leap seconds in total, all positive, putting UTC 34 seconds behind TAI (this is the case since 1 January 2009).[22] It seems unlikely that a negative leap second will ever occur, but there is a small chance of one due to changes in the moment of inertia of the Earth's crust in the 2000s.[citation needed] This acceleration has already led to the longest-ever period without a leap second, from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2005.
Graph showing the difference DUT1 between UT1 and UTC. Vertical segments correspond to leap seconds.
The Earth's rotational speed is very slowly decreasing due to tidal deceleration, causing the mean solar day to increase in length. The length of the SI second was calibrated on the basis of the second of ephemeris time[15][16] and can now be seen to have a relationship with the mean solar day observed between 1750 and 1892, analysed by Simon Newcomb. As a result, the SI second is close to 1/86400 of a mean solar day in around 1820. In earlier centuries the mean solar day was shorter than 86400 SI seconds, and in later centuries it is longer than 86400 seconds. At the end of the 20th century the length of the mean solar day (also known simply as "length of day" or "LOD") was approximately 86,400.002 s. For this reason, UT is now "slower" than TAI.
The excess of the LOD over the nominal 86,400 s accumulates over time, causing the UTC day, initially synchronised with the mean sun, to become desynchronised and run ahead of it. At the end of the 20th century, with the LOD at 2 ms above the nominal value, UTC ran faster than UT by 2 ms per day, getting a second ahead roughly every 500 days. Thus, leap seconds were inserted at approximately this interval, retarding UTC to keep it synchronised in the long term. Note that the actual rotational period varies on unpredictable factors such as tectonic motion and has to be observed, rather than computed.
The insertion of a leap second every 500 days does not indicate that the mean solar day is getting longer by a second every 500 days (just as a leap day every four years does not mean the year is getting longer by one day every four years): it will take approximately 50,000 years for a mean solar day to lengthen by one second (at a rate of 2 ms/cy). This is a mean rate within the range of 1.7–2.3 ms/cy. The rate due to tidal friction alone is about 2.3 ms/cy, but the uplift of Canada and Scandinavia by several metres since the last Ice Age has temporarily reduced this to 1.7 ms/cy over the last 2700 years.[23] The correct reason for leap seconds is not the current difference between actual and nominal LOD, but rather the accumulation of this difference over a period of time: in the late twentieth century, this difference was about 1/500 of a second per day, so it accumulated to 1 second after about 500 days.
For example, assume you start counting the seconds from the Unix epoch of 1970-01-01T00:00:00 UTC with an atomic clock. At midnight on that day (as measured on UTC), your counter registers 0 s. After Earth has made one full rotation with respect to the mean Sun, your counter will register approximately 86400.002 s (the precise value will vary depending on plate tectonic conditions). Based on your counter, you can calculate that the date is 1970-01-02T00:00:00 UT1. After 500 rotations, your counter will register 43,200,001 s. Since 86,400 s × 500 is 43,200,000 s, you will calculate that the date is 1971-05-16T00:00:01 UTC, while it is only 1971-05-16T00:00:00 UT1. If you had added a leap second on December 31, 1970, retarding your counter by 1 s, then the counter would have a value of 43,200,000 s at 1971-05-16T00:00:00 UT1, and allow you to calculate the correct date.
In the graph of DUT1 above, the excess of LOD above the nominal 86,400 s corresponds to the downward slope of the graph between vertical segments. (Note that the slope became shallower in the 2000s, due to a slight acceleration of the Earth's crust temporarily shortening the day.) Vertical position on the graph corresponds to the accumulation of this difference over time, and the vertical segments correspond to leap seconds introduced to match this accumulated difference. Leap seconds are timed to keep DUT1 within the vertical range depicted by this graph. The frequency of leap seconds therefore corresponds to the slope of the diagonal graph segments, and thus to the excess LOD.
As the Earth's rotation continues to slow, positive leap seconds will be required more frequently. The long-term rate of change of LOD is approximately +1.7 ms per century. At the end of the 21st century LOD will be roughly 86,400.004 s, requiring leap seconds every 250 days. Over several centuries, the frequency of leap seconds will become problematic.
Some time in the 22nd century, two leap seconds will be required every year. The current use of only the leap second opportunities in June and December will be insufficient, and the March and September options will have to be used. In the 25th century, four leap seconds will be required every year, so the current quarterly options will be insufficient. Thereafter there will need to be the possibility of leap seconds at the end of any month. In about two thousand years even that will become insufficient, and there will have to be leap seconds that are not at the end of a month.[24]
In a few tens of thousands of years (the timing is uncertain) LOD will exceed 86,401 s, causing the current form of UTC to break down due to requiring more than one leap second per day. It would be possible to then continue with double leaps, but this becomes increasingly untenable.
Both the one-leap-second-per-month and one-leap-second-per-day milestones are considered (by different theorists[who?]) to mark the theoretical limit of the applicability of UTC. The actual number of leap seconds to keep track of time would become unwieldy by current standards well before these, but presumably if UTC were to continue then horological systems would be redesigned to cope with regular leap seconds much better than current systems do.
There is a proposal to redefine UTC and abolish leap seconds, such that sundials would slowly get further out of sync with civil time.[25] The resulting gradual shift of the sun's movements relative to civil time is analogous to the shift of seasons relative to the yearly calendar that results from the calendar year not precisely matching the tropical year length. This would be a major practical change in civil timekeeping, but would take effect slowly over several centuries. An ITU study group was to have voted on this possibility during 2008, possibly leading to official approval by the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2012 and the subsequent cessation of leap seconds.
There is also a proposal that the present form of UTC could be improved to track UT1 more closely, by allowing greater freedom in scheduling leap seconds.[26]
^"Amateur Radio Station Log". Newington, Connecticut: American Radio Relay League. 1985. p. 1. "There is no longer any requirement that radio amateurs keep a record of their operations in a station log book."
^AOPAAviation Time. AOPA's PATH to Aviation. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.
^ abc (equal to 1 part in 1010): Wm. Markowitz(1988) "Comparisons of ET(Solar), ET(Lunar), UT and TDT", in (eds.) A K Babcock & G A Wilkins, The Earth's Rotation and Reference Frames for Geodesy and Geophysics, IAU Symposia #128 (1988), at pp 413–418.
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... that in health care, a fee-for-service model encourages overutilization, which are treatments of inappropriately high volume or cost? 5x expanded by Jesanj (talk). Self nom at 22:19, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
That second comma does not belong there. Should it be replaced by "and" or "of"? -IceCreamAntisocial (talk) 00:19, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
I put "which are" because the end of the sentence defines overutilization. I have a draft (User:Jesanj/Overutilization) that I plan on getting online so it can be a double DYK. (article created) Jesanj (talk) 01:43, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
Comment: While I perfectly agree with this "fact", and it is referenced in that ugly-named article (can't we pipe to the plain English "overuse"?), it's highly politicised, and I'm unsure the data are conclusive. I'd be more comfortable if there were more than one study cited, aside from the JAMA one (even though it's a high-impact journal). Tony(talk) 05:28, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I haven't looked at the article at all (I just went through a spurt of hook copyediting yesterday after reading some poorly written hooks in the queues), but I agree it sounds like a very strong claim for an issue on which I imagine there is not universal agreement. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:11, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't think it would be good to pipe with overuse because that's not verified in the source; overuse is just one part of overutilization. Overuse + overcost = overutilization. Jesanj (talk) 15:34, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
It would be ideal (though not necessary, right?) to have another high-impact journal stating this, but I did look in the three comments (listed here) that the article elicited and I don't remember seeing anyone question that statement. The three comments were more nit-picky. One mentioned the cost of regulation, one made an issue out of physician compensation, and I can't remember the other. Jesanj (talk) 16:51, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
See my reviews all over this page.- AnakngAraw (talk) 00:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
No, it doesn't work to ask others to view 'all over this page'. You have made plenty of nominations, and it is impossible for other editors to keep track if your number of nominations and your number of reviews match. --Soman (talk) 01:06, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
I trimmed the hook ("during the time when" --> "while"). rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:20, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
The article doesn't appear to demonstrate notability. It lists a couple interesting facts about the novel, but as far as I can tell there is no coverage in reliable sources, just a library catalogue entry and a commercial (Amazon-like) website. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:20, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Based on experience, as emphasized by one DYK editor in the past, a book is notable if it has an ISBN. And this novel has the following ISBNs ISBN-10: 9715504213 and ISBN-13: 978-9715504218. - AnakngAraw (talk) 18:41, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
I think you're misreading WP:NBOOK. WP:NBOOK#Threshold standards says "Books should have at a minimum an ISBN (for books published after 1975), be available at a dozen or more libraries and be catalogued by its country of origin's official or de facto national library" (emphasis added). Many non-notable books have ISBNs, including self-published / vanity press books and conference proceedings that are only available in one or two libraries. Just having an ISBN doesn't make a book notable.
Furthermore, that same section says "However, these are exclusionary criteria rather than inclusionary; meeting these threshold standards does not imply that a book is notable, whereas a book which does not meet them, most likely is not." Again, that means that just having an ISBN doesn't mean the book is notable; just that lacking an ISBN means the book is probably not. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:58, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Provided more sources, including the book written by Filipino literary critic Epifanio San Juan, Jr. Apart from this, the novel was republished in 2002 by the Ateneo de Manila University Press, a distinguished university and publisher of Philippine literature. - AnakngAraw (talk) 19:57, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
I agree... the book is sufficiently notable. Rcej (Robert) – talk 07:15, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
The latest San Juan source, at least, is enough to demonstrate notability. For the future, though, I hope you can carefully review the notability guidelines so we can avoid this issue and so you won't end up flooding articles with unhelpful links like library search results. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:50, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
You suggested those above. Let's end the argument here. Please. - AnakngAraw (talk) 04:11, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
The hook fact is not cited in the article, as required by DYK criteria. The article is new and long enough, but the hook fact must be cited. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:47, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Article ok, but please unlink "actress" and "American", per MOSLINK. "Film appearances": could you merge a few paragraphs (might require a touch of re-knitting, might not) so it's not so "bitty"? Tony(talk) 05:40, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Hook is boring. There has to be something better to say than "... that this actress acted". rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:31, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
The new suggestions are okay (I've changed the format a bit) but there are quite a few problems with the article. Generally, you should have at least one citation per paragraph for DYK. Some sections are entirely uncited, and that is not good (especially for a biography of a living person). Also, the personal life should go before the filmography. Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:11, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
I'll let the author of the article know about these concerns. Gamaliel (talk) 14:59, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
I wouldn't recommend going the DYK route with this article just yet. The uncited content is sourced to IMDb, simply expounding on the filmography. I would prefer to find sourcing outside of IMDb. I became ill while working on it and haven't been able to get back to it yet. I wouldn't go with the hook, "... that years after long-time actress Kathleen Cody retired to Florida, she was cast in the Peter Bogdanovich film Illegally Yours when it was filming in her town." She was only cast as an extra in that film, as "Cable-TV Housewife". Also, please make sure to contact User:Ukexpat, since he created it. I simply expanded it during NPP. Another idea for a hook could be:
I restructured it a bit. Please feel free to revise at will. I'm traveling now and will take another look at sourcing this evening. I'll also contact the subject for an image for the article. Thanks, Cind.amuse 00:37, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
From the first sentence of the article, what is "one of the figures of comic wisdom"? I don't really know what that means.
Regarding the hook, I think "the apocryphal" can be removed. In my experience that is used more to describe texts than people, and either way it's an unnecessary detail that distracts from the point being made. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:35, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
I've changed "one of the figures of comic wisdom" to the much clearer "a figure of comic wisdom" instead. Regarding the hook, I've incorporated your suggestion below: ALT1:... that Suleiman the Magnificient supposedly gave İncili Çavuş a pearl to wear to distinguish him from other sergeants? OCNative (talk) 09:32, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
Alternate hook looks good; offline foreign-language source accepted in good faith.--Cúchullaint/c 17:39, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
[edit]Sir William Young, 1st Baronet, Sir William Young, 2nd Baronet
... that although Sir William Young, 1st Baronet left his son his four Caribbean estates after his death in 1788, he passed on debts amounting to £110,000, equivalent to over £11 million today? Created by Dr. Blofeld (talk), Rosiestep (talk). Self nom at 21:31, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Ok, except for 251 char hook, which can be trimmed easily enough. Johnbod (talk) 13:57, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
It's not under the 200 character (including spaces) limit but it's closer, maybe someone else can craft a better hook? Shearonink (talk) 02:46, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
I like your re-crafted hook, Doctor, maybe even?...
ALT2 ... that Sir William Young, 1st Baronet, in his will gave four Caribbean estates to his son, but the father's 1788 death left behind £110,000 in debt, a figure equal to at least £11 million today? --Shearonink (talk) 14:10, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
ALT1:... that the exhaust pipe of the original new Mini Hatch(pictured) was a result of a positive result from a presentation when before at the last minute, it had to be made from a beer can?
The actual hook needs a citation. as its currently without a reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr. Blofeld (talk • contribs) 10:56, 26 June 2011 UTC
Since I nominated this article not created it, wouldn't the reference at the end of that paragraph be where the reference is, it is hard to know since I did not write this article, I think its worth informing the creator about this issue. Donnie Park (talk) 19:31, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
I have now fixed it, alternatively would these source be acceptable [1][2]. Donnie Park (talk) 16:54, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
ARTICLE overlinked. Or it was. See MoS about "USA" and "ly-". Consider W for Western at the start; but it's unclear you mean "a sculptor in the genre of Westerns", or something like that (I'm unsure). Certainly it's no good in the hook (a western-themed sculptor? The theme was his, applied to his sculptures. Buzz me if you need assistance in these re-phrasings. Independent copy-edit would be good ... a quick one (e.g., "to devote full time to his art"). Hook interest ok. Tony(talk) 12:29, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Hook has been revised. Billy Hathorn (talk) 00:48, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
... that the Tzeltal people(Tzeltal child pictured) are the largest indigenous group in the Mexican state of Chiapas? Created by Thelmadatter (talk). Self nom at 02:38, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
REVIEWED Robert Hull Fleming Museum Thelmadatter (talk) 02:45, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Length, date and hook okay. AGF for offline sources. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:16, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Not yet. But I think we could construct a tasty hook based on their connection with Maya people. Lightmouse (talk) 15:00, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Interesting article. The hook seems a little ordinary for a DYK. Is there an extraordinary claim that can be made? If not, perhaps it'd be better to go for GA. Lightmouse (talk) 16:23, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
See my reviews all over this page.- AnakngAraw (talk) 01:17, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Could use some more sources but other than that the hook checks out.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:27, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Please fix: Rule F5: Dashes (WP:DASH). Use button under edit-box, or upload the dash script – for breaks and year ranges. Just paste: importScript("User:GregU/dashes.js"); into your vector.js file or monobook.js file. Expect the button at the same tab as the move-page. Instructions for script acquisition in general are here.
I'm becoming concerned at the number of early-20th-century Filipino novels that are flowing into DYK right now. Can they not be spaced out a bit after this one? The hook is quite good. So I guess the book cover (as in ref. 2) is too copyright-problematic to include in the article? Tony(talk) 04:53, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
I used the "–". - AnakngAraw (talk) 22:45, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure what "during the period" in the hook refers to. --PFHLai (talk) 22:22, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
So how about ALT 1: ... that in the 1911 Philippine novel Ang mga Anak Dalita, author Patricio Mariano explored the industrial and socio-economic upheaval in Manila durin( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:ArtsO
Portal:Arts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Art is the expression of creativity or imagination. The word art comes from the Latin word ars, artis, which means "skill/craft/art". Art is commonly understood as the act of making works (or artworks) which use the human creative impulse and which have meaning beyond simple description. While art is often distinguished from crafts and recreational hobby activities, this boundary can at times be hard to define. The term creative arts denotes a collection of disciplines whose principal purpose is the output of material for the viewer or audience to interpret. As such, art may be taken to include forms ranging from literary forms (prosewriting and poetry); performance-based forms (dance, acting, drama, and music); visual and "plastic arts" (painting, sculpture, photography, illustration); to forms that also have a functional role, such as architecture and fashion design. Art may also be understood as relating to creativity, æsthetics and the generation of emotion.
The Abbey Theatre, also known as the National Theatre of Ireland, is located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on December 27, 1904 and, despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has continued to stage performances more or less continuously to the present day. The Abbey was the first state-subsidised theatre in the English-speaking world; from 1925 onwards it has received an annual subsidy from the Irish Free State. In its early years, the theatre was closely associated with the writers of the Celtic revival, many of whom were involved in its foundation and most of whom had plays staged there. The Abbey served as a nursery for many of the leading Irish playwrights and actors of the 20th century. In addition, through its extensive programme of touring abroad and its high visibility to foreign, particularly North American, audiences, it has become an important part of the Irish tourist industry.
Witold Lutosławski was one of the major European composers of the 20th century, and possibly the most significant Polish composer since Chopin. Lutosławski studied piano and composition in Warsaw, and during World War II he made a living in that city by playing the piano in bars. In the late 1940s and early 1950s his music was banned as formalist by the Stalinist authorities. In the last three decades of the century he became the pre-eminent musician of his country, and was presented with a large number of international honours, awards and prizes. Lutosławski's early compositions were overtly influenced by Polish folk music; from the late 1950s onwards he developed his own characteristically dense harmonies and innovative aleatory techniques. His works include four symphonies and a Concerto for Orchestra; he also composed concertos and song cycles for renowned musicians including Mstislav Rostropovich, Peter Pears, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. He was also a notable conductor of his own music.
... that the sculpture Nature Unveiling Herself Before Science(pictured) depicts what historians have described as "the modern fantasy of (female) nature willingly revealing herself to the (male) scientist"?
“It is not beauty that endears; it’s love that makes us see beauty.”
”
- Leo Tolstoy
“
“"In real art there is nothing accidental. It is mathematics. Everything in it can be calculated, everything can be known beforehand. The artist knows and understands what he wants to convey and his work cannot produce one impression on one man and another impression on another,
presuming, of course, people on one level. It will always, and with mathematical certainty, produce one and the same impression.”
”
- Gurdjieff
(from the book-IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS FRAGMENTS OF AN UNKNOWN TEACHING -P. D. OUSPENSKY(Fragments of an Unknown Teaching is the record of Ouspensky's eight years of work as Gurdjieff's pupil)
“
“"Unless you are a creator, you will never find real blissfulness. It is only by creating that you become part of the great creativity of the universe. But to be a creator, meditation is a basic necessity. Without it you can paint, but that painting has to be burned, it has not to be shown to others. It was good, it helped you unburden, but please, don't burden anybody else. Don't present it to your friends, they are not your enemies.
Objective art is meditative art, subjective art is mind art.”
Imaginary depiction of Cerdic from John Speed's 1611 "Saxon Heptarchy"
The Kingdom of Wessex (/ˈwɛsɨks/) or Kingdom of the West Saxons (Old English: Westseaxna rīce) was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest of 1016, from 1020 to 1066. After the Norman Conquest there was a dissolution of the English earldoms, and Wessex was split among the followers of William the Conqueror.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC), Wessex was founded by Cerdic and Cynric, chieftains of a clan known as "Gewisse". They are said to have landed on the Hampshire coast and conquered the surrounding area, including the Isle of Wight. However, the specific events given by the ASC are in some doubt; archæological evidence points instead to a considerable early Anglo-Saxon presence in the upper Thames valley and Cotswolds area, entered from The Wash along Icknield Way,[1] and the centre of gravity of Wessex in the late sixth and early seventh century seems to have lain further to the north than in later periods, following successful expansion to the south and west. Bede states that the Isle of Wight was settled not by Saxons but Jutes, who also settled on the Hampshire coast, known as the Meonsæte, and that these areas were only acquired by Wessex in the later seventh century. It is therefore possible that the ASC account is a product of the circumstances of the eighth and ninth centuries being projected back into the past to create an origin story of the ruling kinship appropriate to the contemporary form of the kingdom.[2] It may also be noted that the names of some of the early West Saxon leaders appear to be Brythonic in origin, including the dynastic founder Cerdic (being a form of Ceredic or Caradoc) and Cædwalla (from Cadwallon, a Welsh name derived from Caswalawn a Brythonic version of Cassivellaunus). These are interspersed with Old English names such as Ceolwulf, Coenberht and Aescwine. This variation might suggest the early rulers came from a hybrid Anglo-British dynasty or that the rule of early Wessex shifted between more than one royal clan, but this is conjecture.
The two main sources for the names and dates of the kings of Wessex are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and an associated document known as the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List. The Chronicle gives small genealogies in multiple places, under the annals for different years. These sources, however, conflict in various ways, and cannot be fully reconciled. A recent analysis by David Dumville that has produced a set of plausible dates for the West Saxon kings has been used by other scholars but cannot be regarded as definitive. Dumville's dates are used in the historical outline below, with reference to the original sources to highlight some of the conflicts. The later genealogies may have been contrived with the intent of connecting all lineages to Cerdic, and this has introduced additional inconsistencies which cannot all be resolved.
Though the Chronicle gives 495 as the date for Cerdic's arrival in Britain
"495. There came two eaorlmen to Britain, Cerdic and Cynric his son, with five ships, to a place called Cerdicesora, on the same day they fought the Welsh."
F. M. Stenton[3] gives evidence of doubled entries in the Chronicle, which suggests an early sixth-century date for the landing of the ancestor of the Wessex ruling kinship.
Most historians appear agreed that the location of Cerdicesora or "Cerdic's Shore" is somewhere on Southampton Water, perhaps Calshot. After making a beachhead and consolidating their position they next appear to have attacked the area around Southampton at the Battle of Natanleod. The location of this Natanleod has been placed at Netley Marsh.
"508. This year Cerdic and Cynric killed a British king named Natanleod, and five thousand men with him. After that the land was known as Natanleag up to Cerdicesford."
"514. The West-Saxons came to Briton with 3 ships to a place called Cerdicesora and in the same year they fought the Britons and put them to flight."
"519. Cerdic and Cynric received the West-Saxon kingdom, and the same year they fought with the Britons, in a place now called Cerdicesford. The royal line of Wessex ruled from that day."
Despite the repetition there is no reason to presume there were not multiple landings along a coast known to the Saxons as Cerdic's Shore. It is likely that both Winchester and Silchester would have fallen to the West Saxons between the years 508 and 514, but this transition is only suggested by the absence of these important towns in the later annals of the British scribes. A later thrust up the Hampshire Avon towards Old Sarum in 519 appears to have been checked by the Britons at Charford. Albany Major in Early Wars of Wessex makes the case that the borders of the traditional county of Hampshire probably match those of the first West Saxon kingdom established by Cerdic and his son. Evidence of this comes from the border between Hampshire and Berkshire which follows generally the line of the Roman road that ran east and west through Silchester but is deflected in the north in a rough semicircle, in such a way as to include the whole district around the town. He argues that the capture of Silchester, of which no record has been passed down to us, was not the work of MercianAngles but of the West Saxons probably striking north from Winchester and possibly acting in concert with a separate force making its way up the Thames Valley towards Reading. Silchester was left desolate after its fall and it is most improbable that any regard would have been paid to its side of the border had the fixing of the county boundary been made at a later period.[4]
The traditional border between Berkshire and Hampshire showing the buffer zone north of Silchester which is thought to be evidence that the county of Hampshire was created while Silchester was still inhabited by Britons, according to Albany F. Major (1912).
Study of the borders between Hampshire and Wiltshire also seem to suggest the West Saxons' westward advance was checked by about 519AD. The area north of Charford This would corroborate the date given in the Annales Cambriae for the crucial British victory at the Battle of Mons Badonicus in 517AD which is believed to have stopped further Anglo-Saxon encroachments in south-west and midland Britain for at least a generation.
The length of Cerdic's reign is unclear but the throne passed to Cynric in about 554. Cynric is Cerdic's son according to some sources and Cerdic's grandson in others, which name Creoda, son of Cerdic, as Cynric's father. Cynric was in turn succeeded by Ceawlin, who was probably his son, in about 581.
Ceawlin's reign is thought to be more reliably documented than those of the earlier kings, though the Chronicle's dates of 560 to 592 are substantially different from the revised chronology. He overcame pockets of Britons to the northeast in the Chilterns and in Gloucestershire and Somerset the captures of Cirencester, Gloucester and Bath (577), after a long pause caused by the battle of Mons Badonicus, opened the way to the southwest. Ceawlin is one of the seven kings named in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People as holding "imperium" over the southern English; the Chronicle later repeats this claim and refers to Ceawlin as a bretwalda, or "Britain-ruler".
Ceawlin was deposed, perhaps by his successor Ceol, and died the following year. Ceol was the son of Ceawlin's brother, Cutha. Six years later, in about 594, Ceol was succeeded by Ceolwulf, his own brother; and Ceolwulf was succeeded in his turn in about 617 by Cynegils. The genealogies are remarkably inconsistent on Cynegils' pedigree: his father is variously given as Ceola, Ceolwulf, Ceol, Cuthwine, Cutha, and Cuthwulf.
It is in Cynegils' reign that the first event in West Saxon history that can be dated with reasonable certainty occurs: the baptism of Cynegils by Birinus, which happened at the end of the 630s, perhaps in 640. Birinus was then established as bishop of the West Saxons, with his seat at Dorchester-on-Thames. This was the first conversion to Christianity by a West Saxon king, but it was not accompanied by the immediate conversion of all the West Saxons: Cynegils' successor (and probably his son), Cenwealh, who came to the throne in about 642, was a pagan at his accession. However, he too was baptised only a few years later and Wessex became firmly established as a Christian kingdom. Cynegils's godfather was King Oswald of Northumbria and his conversion may have been connected with an alliance against King Penda of Mercia, who had previously attacked Wessex.
These attacks marked the beginning of sustained pressure from the expanding kingdom of Mercia. In time this would deprive Wessex of its territories north of the Thames and the Avon, encouraging the kingdom's reorientation southwards. Cenwealh married Penda's daughter, and when he repudiated her, Penda again invaded and drove him into exile for some time, perhaps three years. The dates are uncertain but it was probably in the late 640s or early 650s. He spent his exile in East Anglia, and was converted to Christianity there. After his return, Cenwealh faced further attacks from Penda's successor Wulfhere, but was able to expand West Saxon territory in Somerset at the expense of the Britons. He established a second bishopric at Winchester, while the one at Dorchester was soon abandoned as Mercian power pushed southwards. Winchester would eventually develop into the effective capital of Wessex.
After Cenwealh's death in 673, his widow, Seaxburh, held the throne for a year; she was followed by Aescwine, who was apparently descended from another brother of Ceawlin. This was one of several occasions on which the kingship of Wessex is said to have passed to a remote branch of the royal family with an unbroken male line of descent from Cerdic; these claims may be genuine, or may reflect the spurious assertion of descent from Cerdic to legitimise a new dynasty. Aescwine's reign only lasted two years, and in 676 the throne passed back to the immediate family of Cenwealh with the accession of his brother Centwine. Centwine is known to have fought and won battles against the Britons, but the details have not survived.
Centwine was succeeded by another supposed distant relative, Caedwalla, who claimed descent from Ceawlin. Caedwalla reigned for just two years, but achieved a dramatic expansion of the kingdom's power, conquering the kingdoms of Sussex, Kent and the Isle of Wight, although Kent regained its independence almost immediately and Sussex followed some years later. His reign ended in 688 when he went on pilgrimage to Rome, where he was baptised by the Pope and died soon afterwards.
His successor was Ine, who also claimed to be a descendant of Cerdic through Ceawlin, but again through a long-separated line of descent. Ine was the most durable of the West Saxon kings, reigning for 38 years. He issued the oldest surviving English code of laws apart from those of the kingdom of Kent, and established a second West Saxon bishopric at Sherborne, covering the territories west of Selwood Forest. Near the end of his life he followed in Caedwalla's footsteps by abdicating and making a pilgrimage to Rome. The throne then passed to a series of other kings who claimed descent from Cerdic but whose supposed genealogies and relationship to one another are unknown.
During the 8th century Wessex was overshadowed by Mercia, whose power was then at its height, and the West Saxon kings may at times have acknowledged Mercian overlordship. They were, however, able to avoid the more substantial control which Mercia exerted over smaller kingdoms. During this period Wessex continued its gradual advance to the west, overwhelming the British kingdom of Dumnonia and absorbing Devon. As a result of the Mercian conquest of the northern portion of its early territories in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, the Thames and the Avon now probably formed the northern boundary of Wessex, while its heartland lay in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Dorset and Somerset. The system of shires which was later to form the basis of local administration throughout England (and eventually, Ireland, Wales and Scotland as well) originated in Wessex, and had been established by the mid-eighth century.
In 802 the fortunes of Wessex were transformed by the accession of Egbert who came from a cadet branch of the ruling dynasty that claimed descent from Ine's brother Ingild. With his accession the throne became firmly established in the hands of a single lineage. Early in his reign he conducted two campaigns against the "West Welsh", first in 813 and then again at "Gafulford" in 822. During the course of these campaigns he conquered the western Britons still in Devon and reduced those beyond the River Tamar, now Cornwall, to the status of a vassal.[5] In 825 he overturned the political order of England by decisively defeating King Beornwulf of Mercia at Ellendun and seizing control of Surrey, Sussex, Kent and Essex from the Mercians, while with his help East Anglia broke away from Mercian control. In 829 he conquered Mercia, driving its King Wiglaf into exile, and secured acknowledgment of his overlordship from the king of Northumbria. He thereby became the Bretwalda, or high king of Britain. This position of dominance was short-lived, as Wiglaf returned and restored Mercian independence in 830, but the expansion of Wessex across south-eastern England proved permanent.
Egbert's later years saw the beginning of DanishViking raids on Wessex, which occurred frequently from 835 onwards. In 851 a huge Danish army, said to have been carried on 350 ships, arrived in the Thames estuary. Having defeated King Beorhtwulf of Mercia in battle, the Danes moved on to invade Wessex, but were decisively crushed by Egbert's son and successor King Aethelwulf in the exceptionally bloody Battle of Aclea. This victory postponed Danish conquests in England for fifteen years, but raids on Wessex continued.
In 855-6 Aethelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome and his eldest surviving son Aethelbald took advantage of his absence to seize his father's throne. On his return, Aethelwulf agreed to divide the kingdom with his son to avoid bloodshed, ruling the new territories in the east while Aethelbald held the old heartland in the west. Aethelwulf was succeeded by each of his four surviving sons ruling one after another: the rebellious Aethelbald, then Ethelbert, who had previously inherited the eastern territories from his father and who reunited the kingdom on Aethelbald's death, then Aethelred, and finally Alfred the Great. This occurred because the first two brothers died in wars with the Danes without issue, while Aethelred's sons were too young to rule when their father died.
In 865 another enormous Danish army arrived in England. Over the following years this army overwhelmed the kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia. Wessex was invaded in 871, and although Aethelred and Alfred won some victories and succeeded in preventing the conquest of their kingdom, a number of defeats, heavy losses of men and the arrival of a fresh Danish army in England compelled Alfred to pay the Danes to leave Wessex. The Danes spent the next few years subduing Mercia and some of them settled in Northumbria, but the rest returned to Wessex in 876. Alfred responded effectively and was able with little fighting to bring about their withdrawal in 877. A portion of the Danish army settled in Mercia, but at the beginning of 878 the remaining Danes mounted a winter invasion of Wessex, taking Alfred by surprise and overrunning much of the kingdom. Alfred was reduced to taking refuge with a small band of followers in the marshes of the Somerset Levels, but after a few months he was able to gather an army and defeated the Danes at the Battle of Edington, bringing about their final withdrawal from Wessex to settle in East Anglia.
Over the following years Alfred carried out a dramatic reorganisation of the government and defences of Wessex, building warships, organising the army into two shifts which served alternately and establishing a system of fortified burhs across the kingdom. This system is recorded in a 10th century document known as the Burghal Hidage, which details the location and garrisoning requirements of thirty-three forts, whose positioning ensured that no one in Wessex was more than a long day's ride from a place of safety.[6] In the 890s these reforms helped him to repulse the invasion of another huge Danish army – which was aided by the Danes settled in England – with minimal losses.
Alfred also reformed the administration of justice, issued a new law code and championed a revival of scholarship and education. He gathered scholars from around England and elsewhere in Europe to his court, and with their help translated a range of Latin texts into English, doing much of the work in person, and orchestrated the composition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. As a result of these literary efforts and the political dominance of Wessex, the West Saxon dialect of this period became the standard written form of Old English for the rest of the Anglo-Saxon period and beyond.
The Danish conquests had destroyed the kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia and divided Mercia in half, with the Danes settling in the north-east while the south-west was left to the English king Ceolwulf, allegedly a Danish puppet. When Ceolwulf's rule came to an end he was succeeded as ruler of "English Mercia" not by another king but by a mere ealdorman named Aethelred, who acknowledged Alfred's overlordship and married his daughter Ethelfleda. The process by which this transformation of the status of Mercia took place is unknown, but it left Alfred as the only remaining English king.
[edit]The unification of England and the Earldom of Wessex
After the invasions of the 890s Wessex and English Mercia continued to be attacked by the Danish settlers in England and by small Danish raiding forces from overseas, but these incursions were usually defeated, while there were no further major invasions from the continent. The balance of power tipped steadily in favour of the English. In 911 Ealdorman Aethelred died, leaving his widow, Alfred's daughter Aethelflaed, in charge of Mercia. Alfred's son and successor Edward the Elder, then annexed London, Oxford and the surrounding area, probably including Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, from Mercia to Wessex. Between 913 and 918 a series of English offensives overwhelmed the Danes of Mercia and East Anglia, bringing all of England south of the Humber under Edward's power. In 918 Aethelflaed died and Edward took over direct control of Mercia, extinguishing what remained of its independence and ensuring that thenceforth there would be only one Kingdom of the English. In 927 Edward's successor Athelstan conquered Northumbria, bringing the whole of England under one ruler for the first time. The Kingdom of Wessex had thus been transformed into the Kingdom of England.
Although Wessex had now effectively been subsumed into the larger kingdom which its expansion had created, like the other former kingdoms it continued for a time to have a distinct identity which periodically found renewed political expression. After the death of King Eadred in 955, England was divided between his two sons, with the elder Edwy ruling in Wessex while Mercia passed to his younger brother Edgar. However, in 959 Edwy died and the whole of England came under Edgar's control.
After the conquest of England by the Danish king Cnut in 1016, he established earldoms based on the former kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia, but initially administered Wessex personally. Within a few years, however, he had created an earldom of Wessex, encompassing all of England south of the Thames, for his English henchman Godwin. For almost fifty years the vastly wealthy holders of this earldom, first Godwin and then his son Harold, were the most powerful men in English politics after the king. Finally, on the death of Edward the Confessor in 1066, Harold became king, reuniting the earldom of Wessex with the crown. No new earl was appointed before the ensuing Norman Conquest of England, and as the Norman kings soon did away with the great earldoms of the late Anglo-Saxon period, 1066 marks the extinction of Wessex as a political unit.
Both Henry of Huntingdon and Matthew of Westminster talk of a golden dragon being raised at the Battle of Burford in AD 752 by the West Saxons. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts a fallen golden dragon, as well as a red/golden/white dragon at the death of King Harold II, who was previously Earl of Wessex. However, dragon standards were in fairly wide use in Europe at the time, being derived from the ensign of the Roman cohort, and there is no evidence that it identified Wessex.[7]
A panel of 18th century stained glass at Exeter Cathedral indicates that the association of a dragon with the kingdom of Wessex pre-dates the Victorians. Nevertheless, the association was popularised in the 19th century, particularly in the writings of E A Freeman. By the time of the grant of armorial bearings by the College of Arms to Somerset County Council in 1911, a (red) dragon had become the accepted heraldic emblem of the former kingdom.[8] This precedent was followed in 1937 when Wiltshire County Council was granted arms.[9] Two gold Wessex dragons were later granted as supporters to the arms of Dorset County Council in 1950.[10]
When Sophie, Countess of Wessex was granted arms, the sinister supporter assigned was a blue wyvern, described by the College of Arms as "an heraldic beast which has long been associated with Wessex".[11]
The Wessex Society have promoted the use of a flag, designed by William Crampton, which features an heraldic golden wyvern on a red background.
A coat of arms was attributed by medieval heralds to the Kings of Wessex. These arms appear in a manuscript of the thirteenth century, and are blazoned as Azure, a cross patonce between four martletsOr.[12] The assigning of arms to the West Saxon kings is prochronistic as heraldry did not develop until the twelfth century. These arms continued to be used to represent the kingdom for centuries after their invention.[13]
The English author Thomas Hardy used a fictionalised Wessex as a setting for many of his novels, reviving the term Wessex for South West England. His Wessex included all the counties mentioned in the previous paragraph apart from Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire (although the city of Oxford, renamed "Christminster", is visited as part of Wessex in Jude the Obscure), along with Devon. He gave the counties the following fictionalised names: Berkshire = North Wessex; Devon = Lower Wessex; Dorset = South Wessex; Hampshire = Upper Wessex; Somerset = Outer Wessex; Wiltshire = Mid-Wessex. Neighbouring Cornwall was described as Off-Wessex or Lyonesse.
There is a movement in modern day south-central England to create a regional cultural and political identity in Wessex. This consists of three distinct but interlinked organisations. The Wessex Regionalist Party is a registered political party which contests elections. The Wessex Constitutional Convention is an all-party pressure group in which those sympathetic to Wessex devolution who are not members of the Wessex Regionalist Party can also be represented. The Wessex Society is a cultural society which promotes a cultural identity for Wessex while remaining neutral on questions of political devolution. The Wessex Constitutional Convention and the Wessex Regionalist Party do not consider Cornwall to be part of Wessex.
The boundaries of Wessex were unclear and subject to dispute. The Wessex Constitutional Convention and Wessex Society add Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire to Hardy's list; and the Wessex Regionalists, who currently use Hardy's definition of Wessex, are likely to follow suit in the near future. Most definitions exclude Cornwall.
This definition of Wessex has been criticised from a number of quarters. Some people regard Hardy's definition as correct on the grounds that the counties north of the Thames, along with Berkshire and north-east Somerset, were part of Mercia for most of the Anglo-Saxon period. There are also a few in Hampshire who argue that southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight were once a Jutish province in their own right and deserve to be treated differently to the rest of Wessex.[citation needed]
The Wessex regionalist movements justify their eight-shire definition of Wessex in terms both of history and of modern regional geography and point to the impossibility of pleasing everyone as an argument against change at the present time, though they do not rule out the possibility of change in the future if the popular will demands it.
^Hampshire and Wiltshire, well covered by archaeologists, are "singularly unproductive in finds suggestive of early Anglo-Saxon settlement" (H. R. Loyn, Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman conquest, 2nd ed. 1991:34).
^ Loyn 1991:34: "The Chronicle relates the story of a ruling kin, while the archaeologist reveals the mass of settlement".
^ Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England 19-25, noted in Loyn 1991:34 note 54.
^ Major, Albany F Early Wars of Wessex (1912, 1978) p.17
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Charles Babbage begins the conceptual design of an "analytical engine", a mechanical forerunner of the modern computer. It will not be built in his lifetime.[2][3]
Thomas Davenport, the inventor of the first American DC electrical motor, installs his motor in a small model car, creating one of the first electric cars.
The Parrett's main tributaries include the Rivers Tone, Isle, and Yeo, and the River Cary via the King's Sedgemoor Drain. The 37-mile (60 km) long river is tidal for 27 miles (43 km) up to Oath. Because the fall of the river between Langport and Bridgwater is only 1 foot per mile (0.2 m/km),[3] it is prone to frequent flooding in winter and during high tides. Many approaches have been tried since at least the medieval period to reduce the incidence and effect of floods and to drain the surrounding fields.
In Anglo-Saxon times the river formed a boundary between Wessex and Dumnonia. It later served the Port of Bridgwater, and enabled cargoes to be transported inland. The arrival of the railways led to a decline and commercial shipping and the only remaining docks are at Dunball. Man's influence on the river has left a legacy of bridges and industrial artefacts. The Parrett along with its connected waterways and network of drains supports an ecosystem that includes several rare species of flora and fauna. The River Parrett Trail has been established along the banks of the river.
The River Parrett is 37 miles (60 km) long, flowing roughly south to north from Dorset through Somerset. Its source is in the Thorney Mills springs in the hills around Chedington,[4][5] 2.5 miles (4 km) from that of the River Axe, in nearby Beaminster, which runs in the opposite direction to the English Channel at Axmouth in Devon. The two rivers give their names to Parrett and Axe Parish Council.[6]
Further downstream the river passes the village of Huntworth before flowing under the M5 motorway at Dunwear. As it enters Bridgwater it passes under Somerset and Hamp Bridges, and past Bridgwater Castle which had a tidal moat up to 65 feet (20 m) wide in places, fed by water from the river.[14] From Bridgwater to the sea is approximately 6 miles (9.7 km). The King's Sedgemoor Drain drains into the River Parrett next to the wharf at Dunball; it enters via a clyce (or clyse), which is a local word for a sluice. The clyce has been moved about 0.3 miles (500 m) downstream from its original position and now obstructs the entrance to the small harbour next to the wharf.[15]
The course of the river below Bridgwater is now somewhat straighter than in former times. The village of Combwich lies adjacent to a channel in the river known as "Combwich Reach"; from here the Parrett flows to the Bristol Channel past the Steart Peninsula. Cartographic evidence indicates that in the early 18th century the peninsula was longer than present.[16] A "neck" started to form in the peninsula and by 1802 the tip had broken off to form Stert Island.[16] Fenning Island also broke away but has rejoined the peninsula.[16] Much of the peninsula's northern end eroded away or now exists as "islands" visible at low tides within an intertidal area of mud known as the Stert Flats.[16]
The mouth at Burnham-on-Sea is a nature reserve where the river flows into Bridgwater Bay on the Bristol Channel. In addition to the rivers Parrett, Brue and Washford, several of the man-made drainage ditches, including the River Huntspill from the Somerset Levels, and the Cannington Brook from the "Pawlett Hams", also discharge into the bay.[17]
The Parrett has only one gauging station, at Chiselborough, fairly close to the source. It measures flow from the first 29 square miles (75 km2) of the drainage basin, or about 4.3 per cent of the total. The mean flow measured by the Environment Agency at Chiselborough was 42 cubic feet per second (1.19 m3/s), with a peak of 6,100 cubic feet per second (173 m3/s) on 30 May 1979 and a minimum of 2.5 cubic feet per second (0.07 m3/s) over a seven day period in August 1976. Tributaries of the Parrett with gauging stations include the Yeo, Isle, Cary, and Tone.[18]
The lower Parrett has a fall of only 1 foot per mile (0.2 m/km) between Langport and Bridgwater;[3] and it drains into the Bristol Channel. To the northeast of the River Parrett's mouth, the Bristol Channel becomes the Severn Estuary, which has a tidal range of 14 metres (46 ft).[19] The rate and direction of flow of the Parrett is therefore dependent on the state of the tide on the River Severn. In common with the lower reaches of the River Severn, the Parrett experiences a tidal bore. Certain combinations of the tides funnel the rising water into a wave that travels upstream at about 6 miles per hour (10 km/h), against the river's current.[20]
The origin of the name Parrett is unclear, but several derivations from the Celtic languages used in Wales have been suggested. Priestley-Evans suggests "Parrett has been said to be a form of the Welshpared, a partition, and that it was the name which the Welsh people of Somerset and Devon gave to that river because it was at one time the dividing line between themselves and the Saxons".[21] Another spelling parwydydd is also translated as partition.[22] Another explanation from Welsh Peraidd meaning the sweet or delicious river, has also been suggested.[23] An alternative explanation, based on Old English, is a derivation from Pedair or Pedride from pedr meaning four and the Old CornishRit meaning flow, which in this case would relate to the four flows or streams: the Tone, Yeo, Isle and Parrett.[24] This is based on the explanation given in Ekwall's 1928 book English River Names.[25] Whichever derivation is correct, the name Parrett and its spelling variations have been in use since the Anglo-Saxon era, as evidenced by the addition of -tun onto river names as seen in the local towns North Petherton and South Petherton.[26]
The River Parrett, the Bristol Channel and the Severn Estuary are believed to have been used for riverine bulk transportation of people and supplies in Somerset under Roman and later Anglo-Saxon and Norman occupation.[27] Roman Somerset, which lasted for over 250 years until around the beginning of the 5th century,[28] had various settlements, including Bath (Aquae Sulis), Ilchester (Lindinis) and lead mines at Charterhouse;[29] and four roads surrounding the Somerset Levels. There is evidence of two Roman ports on the Parrett. The port, at Combwich on the west bank, was ill-recorded before its destruction by quarrying and erosion. The other at Crandon Bridge on the east bank near where the current King's Sedgemoor Drain enters the Parrett,[30][31] was in use between the first and the fourth centuries.[32] Evidence of an extensive site with storehouses was found in the mid 1970s, during motorway construction works.[30] The Crandon Bridge site may have been linked by a probable Roman road over the Polden Hills to the Fosse Way, at Ilchester.[30][32][33] Ilchester, the largest Roman town in Somerset, was a port with large granaries, sited where the Fosse Way crossed the Ilchester Yeo by means of a paved ford.[34] The Yeo was navigable by small craft all the way to the Parrett allowing military supplies to be brought by boat directly to Ilchester; however, disembarkation at Crandon Bridge and use of the Polden Hills roadway allowed more rapid movement to Ilchester. The Yeo may already have been straightened and canalised before Roman occupation.[33]
The Parrett was established as the border between the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex and the Brythonic kingdom of Dumnonia in 658, following the Dumnonians' defeat at the Battle of Peonnum that year.[35][36] This natural border endured for almost a century until further fighting between the Anglo-Saxons and Britons in the mid-8th century, when the border shifted west to its current location between the modern ceremonial counties of Somerset and Devon.[37] It is thought a ford, usable only at low tide, crossed the river near its mouth, between Combwich and Pawlett (east bank). This crossing, at the western end of the Polden Hills, was known since Roman times and lay on the route of a Saxon herepath.[38] It was here, or in the immediate vicinity, that Hubba, the Danish raider, was defeated and killed by Odda of Devon in 878.[39] In the Domesday Book Combwich was known as Comich, which means "the settlement by the water", from the Old Englishcumb and wic. The ford was later replaced by a ferry, one was in operation from at least the 13th century.[38] In the 15th century the ferry was regarded as part of the King's Highway; and both passengers and cattle were carried in the 16th and 17th centuries.[38][40] Records of the joint Manorial ownership and costs of the ferry exist for 1589 and 1810.[40] The White House Inn, a licensed victualler and part-owner of the ferry, traded on the Pawlett bank from 1655 to 1897; and the building was retained as a farm dwelling for another 20 years.[40] The Combwich river crossing, which was a main route up to the 18th century, fell out of use due to turnpike trusts improving what were to become the A38 and A39 roads, and traffic went via Bridgwater; the former inn was demolished c. 1930.[40][41]
After the departure of the Romans, the low-lying Somerset Levels appear to have been abandoned, as the archaeological record shows that they were flooded and the former Roman landscape covered with a thick layer of alluvial deposits.[42] Recovery of the levels involved both the construction of sea walls and the containment of the Parrett.[42]Celtic Christianity came to the remoter areas of the Somerset Levels, making use of "island" sites. Glastonbury Abbey, possibly founded in the 7th century (or earlier), was nearby and had undertaken extensive water management to enable it to bring materials by boat to Glastonbury, albeit not via the Parrett. Muchelney Abbey, founded in the mid 8th century,[43] was sited at the confluence of the Parrett and its tributaries, the rivers Isle and Yeo; and Athelney Abbey lay on another tributary, the River Tone.[33] These three abbeys together with the Bishop of Bath and Wells were major landowners with fishing and riparian rights, often conflicting, on these rivers. They gained financially from improvements to land and waterways due to the improved fertility of their lands and the increased rents that they were able to change their tenants.[33][44]
Continuing land reclamation and control of the Parrett was a long-running cycle of neglect followed by improvement. Work was carried out on the upper River Parrett basin in the medieval period by Glastonbury Abbey.[44] Abbot Michael's survey of 1234 showed 722 acres (292 ha) of meadow recovered around the "island" of Sowy; and, from the accounts in the Abbey's rent books, this had increased to 972 acres (393 ha) by 1240.[44] Flooding of adjacent moor land was partially addressed in the 13th century by building a number of embankment walls to contain the Parrett. These included Southlake Wall, Burrow Wall and Lake Wall.[44] The River Tone was also diverted by the Abbot of Athelney, and other land owners, into a new embanked channel, joining the Parrett upstream from its original confluence.[33][44] After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, in the 16th century, much of the former abbey lands came under the control of the Crown, particularly King's Sedgemoor which had been wholly owned by Glastonbury Abbey; with the Court of Sewers made responsible for maintaining existing drainage, and various Commissions responsible for land improvements.[45] Further reclamation work was carried out over the next 500 years. In 1597, 50 acres (20 ha) of land were recovered near the Parrett estuary; a few years later 140 acres (57 ha) near Pawlett were recovered by means of embankments; and three further reclamations, totalling 110 acres (45 ha), were undertaken downstream of Bridgwater by 1660.[45] Kings James I, Charles I and Charles II continued to improve King's Sedgemoor.[45]
Attempts were also made to improve navigation on the lower river. Between 1677 and 1678, Sir John Moulton cut a new channel at "Vikings Creek" on the Horsey Levels to remove a large meander; the old river bed soon silted up providing 120 acres (49 ha) of new land.[45][46] A further scheme was proposed in 1723 to improve navigation, shorten the journey time for boats and recover land, by obtaining an Act of Parliament to make an artificial cut across the Steart Peninsula.[45] Eventually after much debate, the cut was not made due to lack of land owner support and concerns over costs and risks.[45] The English Civil War put a stop to most reclamation work; however, in 1764 a clyse was built at Dunball to contain tidal influences on a run-off stream near King's Sedgemoor.[45] Extensive land recovery was undertaken in the Somerset Levels by land owners between 1770 and the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, as part of a general scheme of agricultural improvements.[47] This included improvements to the Brue Valley and to King's Sedgemoor.[47] The latter involved the connection of various drainage schemes into a new hand-dug channel connected to the clyse at Dunball – the King's Sedgemoor Drain.[47] Further drainage improvements were needed in the 19th century which involved the use of mechanical pumping engines, originally steam powered (see Westonzoyland Pumping Station Museum), but later powered by electricity.[48] In January 1940, further improvements were funded by the Ministry of Supply, during the Second World War, as "Priority War Work" during the construction of Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) Bridgwater. This involved doubling the width of the King's Sedgemoor Drain at its western end; and the excavation of the Huntspill River. In the longer-term this was done to drain the Brue valley, but in war time the scheme provided a guaranteed daily supply of 4,500,000 imperial gallons (20,500 m3) of water for the ROF.[49]
The town of Bridgwater, from Brigewaltier (place at) the bridge held by Walter (of Douai),[50] or alternatively "Brugie" from Old English brycg meaning gang plank between ships, or from Old Norsebrygja meaning quay,[51] was founded as a new borough about 1200; it had a castle and a market and became a port in its own right.[52] It was the major port for Somerset which, around the Quantocks, the Brendon Hills and the Tone valley, was mainly agricultural, producing arable crops and vegetables to supply the new industrial towns.[53] Combwich was the traditional River Parrett pilots' harbour from at least the 14th century.[52][54] It also served as a port for the export of local produce and the import of timber from the 15th century. Until the late 1930s, when the creek silted up, coastal shipping served Combwich's local brick and coal yard.[55]
In the medieval era the river was used to transport Hamstone from the quarry at Ham Hill for the construction of churches throughout the county.[56] Later, in the 19th century, coal from south Wales, for heating, Bath bricks, bricks and tiles would be carried.[57] Brick making, which had been carried out intermittently in Bridgwater from the 17th century, by the late 18th century had expanded into an industry based on permanent brickyards in the Bridgwater area adjacent to the Parrett.[58] The brick and tile industry made use of the local alluvial clays and the Parrett's coastal trade, using ketches mostly based at Bridgwater to transport their products, which were heavy and bulky, and to bring in coal to heat the kilns.[58] The 19th-century Industrial Revolution opened up mass markets leading to further expansion of the industry: in particular, from 1850 when the duty (tax) on bricks was abolished.[58] Brick and tile works, making use of river transport, were opened in the 1840s and 1850s south of Bridgwater at North Petherton and Dunwear; in Bridgwater itself; and downstream at Chilton Trinity, Combwich, Puriton and Pawlett.[58][59] Numerous brickworks were also opened elsewhere in Somerset, but many of them used the railways to transport their products; some 264 sites are listed in Somerset Industrial Archaeological Society's Gazetteer of sites.[60] Silt was also dredged from the river over a 2-mile (3.2 km) stretch between Somerset Bridge and Castle Fields, Bridgwater, to make Bath bricks, an early abrasive cleaning material patented in 1827.[36][61]
Bridgwater was part of the Port of Bristol until the Port of Bridgwater was created in 1348, covering 80 miles (130 km) of the Somerset coast line, from the Devon border to the mouth of the River Axe.[62][63] Under an 1845 Act of Parliament the Port of Bridgwater extends from Brean Down to Hinkley Point in Bridgwater Bay, and includes parts of the River Parrett (to Bridgwater), River Brue and the River Axe.[64]
Historically, the main port on the river was at Bridgwater, where a span crossed the river from 1200 AD onwards.[65]Quays were built at Bridgwater in 1424; with another quay, the Langport slip, being built in 1488 upstream of the Town Bridge.[65] A Customs House was sited at Bridgwater, on West Quay; and a dry dock, launching slips and a boat yard on East Quay.[66][67] Bridgwater also built some 167 ships; the last one being the Irene launched in 1907.[67]
The river was navigable, with care, to Bridgwater Town Bridge by 400-to-500-tonne (440 to 550 short tons) vessels.[68] By trans-shipping goods into barges at the Town Bridge the Parrett was navigable as far as Langport and (via the River Yeo) to Ilchester. After 1827, it was also possible to transport goods to Taunton via the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal at Huntworth.[69] A floating harbour, known as the "docks" was constructed between 1837–1841 and the canal was extended through Bridgwater to the floating harbour.[70] The dock area contained flour mills, timber yards and chandlers.[70]
Shipping to Bridgwater expanded with the construction of the docks, which opened on 25 March 1841,[71] and reached a peak in the 19th century between 1880 and 1885; with an average of 3,600 ships per year entering the port.[72] Peak tonnage occurred in 1857, with 142 vessels totalling 17,800 tonnes (19,600 short tons).[73] In the short term, the opening of the docks increased the profitability of the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal, which carried 81,650 tonnes (90,000 short tons) of cargo in 1840.[74] This peaked in 1847 at 88,000 tonnes (97,000 short tons) of cargo; however, by the mid 1850s the canal was bankrupt due to competition from the railways.[74]
Combwich Pill, a small creek near the mouth of the river, had been used for shipping since the 14th century. From the 1830s, with the development of the brick and tile industry in the Combwich area, the wharf was used by two local brickyards to import coal and export tiles to Wales and parts of Gloucestershire.[75] This traffic ceased in the 1930s; and in the late 1950s the wharf was taken over and upgraded by the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) to bring in heavy materials for the Hinkley Point nuclear power stations.[75] Construction of Hinkley Point A nuclear power station was ordered in 1957, with a scheduled completion date of 1960, but was not completed until 1965.[76] This was followed by Hinkley Point B nuclear power station which began operation in 1976.[77]
Dunball Wharf. To the right is Dunball clyce where the King's Sedgemoor Drain flows into the River Parrett
.
Dunball wharf was built in 1844 by Bridgwater coal merchants,[78] and was formerly linked to the Bristol and Exeter Railway by a rail track which crossed the A38. The link was built in 1876 by coal merchants, and was originally operated as a horse-drawn tramway. In 1875, the local landowner built The Dunball Steam Pottery & Brick & Tile Works adjacent to the wharf.[79]
The Bridgwater and Taunton Canal, which been bought out by the Bristol and Exeter Railway in 1866 and subsequently passed into the control of the Great Western Railway had, by the beginning of the First World War, fallen into disrepair due to lack of trade. This, particularly the Wales-Somerset traffic with the opening of the Severn Tunnel in 1886, had been lost to the railways; although the canal was still used as a source of water.[80] In the mid 1950s, the Port of Bridgwater was importing some 80,050 to 106,800 tonnes (88,240 to 117,700 short tons) of cargo; mainly sand and coal by tonnage, followed by timber and flour.[81] It was also exporting some 7,300 tonnes (8,000 short tons) of bricks and tiles.[81] By then, Bridgwater's brick and tile industry was in terminal decline. In the 1960s, British Railways, the owner of the docks, which were limited by the size of its locks to boats of maximum size 180 by 31 feet (55 by 9.4 m),[82] decided that they were commercially non-viable.[83] British Railways offered to sell the docks to any buyer; however, there were no takers, so the dock was closed to river traffic.[83]
Although ships no longer dock in the town of Bridgwater, 90,213 tonnes (99,443 short tons) of cargo were handled within the port authority's area in 2006, most of which was stone products via the wharf at Dunball.[84] It is no longer linked to the railway system. The link was removed as part of the railway closures made as a result of the Beeching Report in the 1960s. Dunball railway station, which had opened in 1873, was closed to both passengers and goods in 1964.[85] All traces of the station, other than "Station Road" have been removed. The wharf is now used for landing stone products, mainly marine sand and gravels dredged in the Bristol Channel.[86] Marine sand and gravel accounted for 55,754 tonnes (61,458 short tons) of the total tonnage of 90,213 tonnes (99,443 short tons) using the Port facilities in 2006, with salt products accounting for 21,170 tonnes (23,340 short tons) in the same year,[87] while the roll-on roll-off berth at Combwich is used occasionally for the transfer of heavy goods for the two existing Hinkley Point nuclear power stations. With the possible future construction of the two Hinkley Point C nuclear power stations by EDF Energy, it is proposed that Combwich wharf be employed to transfer heavy goods to the sites.[88] Combwich Pill is the only site where recreational moorings are available in the estuary.[64]
Sedgemoor District Council acts as the Competent Harbour Authority for the port, and has provided pilotage services for all boats over 98 feet (30 m) using the river since 1998, when it took over the service from Trinity House. Pilotage is important because of the constant changes in the navigable channel resulting from the large tidal range, which can exceed 39 feet (11.9 m) on spring tides. Most commercial shipping travels upriver as far as Dunball wharf, which handles bulk cargoes.[64]
February 18 – The first official air mail flight takes place from Allahabad, India to Naini, India, when Henri Pequet carries 6,500 letters a distance of 13 km.
June 12 – The United States Senate votes to provide for the direct election of it's members by the public. Up until now senators are chosen by the individual state legislatures.
June 17 – 50,000 supporters of the Women's Sufferage movement march through the centre of London. Some of the marchers dress in costumes depicting heroic female figures from the past such as Joan of Arc and Queen Bodicea.
November 1 – World's first combat aerial bombing mission takes place in Libya during the Italo-Turkish War. Second Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti of Italy drops several small bombs.
This is a guide to starting your first encyclopedia article. We will explain some of the DOs and DON'Ts, then show you how to create an article. When you're ready to start writing, consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles – it will walk you through these steps. Here are some tips that may help you along the way:
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Gather references both to use as source(s) of the information you will include and also to demonstrate notability of your article's subject matter. References to blogs, personal websites, MySpace and YouTube don't count—we need reliable sources. The best advice for a relevant source of information is to find information that was from a site that includes something with a .gov, .org, or .edu ending to it or a reliable news article. In other words, it is best to have it from the "horse's mouth". Extra care should be taken to make sure that articles on living persons have sources -- articles about living people without sources may be deleted.
Consider requesting feedback. You can request feedback on articles you would like to create in a number of places, including the talk page of a related WikiProject or the Drawing Board.
Consider creating the article first in your user space. As a registered user, you have your own user space. You can start the new article there, on a subpage; you can get it in shape, take your time, ask other editors to help work on it, and only move it into the "live" Wikipedia once it is ready to go. To create your own subpage, see here. When the new article is ready for "prime time", you can move it into the main area. (Notes. The Article Wizard has an option to create these kinds of draft pages. Even in user space, unacceptable articles (see below) are liable to be nominated for deletion.)
Remember that if the article is not acceptable, it will be deleted quickly. Wikipedia has a new pages patrol division where people check your new articles shortly after you create them.
Wikipedia already has 3,676,508 articles. Before creating an article, try to make sure there is not already an article, perhaps under a slightly different name. Search for the article, and check the Wikipedia naming conventions before creating your first article. If an article on your topic is there, but you think people are likely to look for it under some different name or spelling, learn how to add a redirect with that name; adding needed redirects is a good way to help Wikipedia. Also, remember to check the article's deletion log in order to avoid creating an article that has already been deleted.
If a search does not find your article, consider broadening your search to find existing articles that might include the subject of your article. For example, if you want to write an article about a band member, you might search for the band and then add information about your subject to that broader article.
Gather sources to the information for your article. To be worth including in the encyclopedia, a subject must be sufficiently notable, and that notability must be verifiable through references to reliable sources.
These sources must be reliable; that is, they must be sources that exercise some form of editorial control. Print sources (and web-based versions of those sources) tend to be the most reliable, though many web-only sources are also reliable. Some examples include (but are not limited to) books published by major publishing houses, newspapers, magazines, peer-reviewed scholarly journals, websites of any of the above, professional bloggers, and other websites that meet the same requirements as a reputable print-based source.
In general, sources with no editorial control are not reliable. These include (but are also not limited to) books published by vanity presses, self-published zines, blogs, web forums, usenet discussions, BBSes, fan sites, vanity websites that permit the creation of self-promotional articles, and other similar venues. If anyone at all can post information without anyone else checking that information, it is probably not reliable.
To put it simply, if there are reliable sources (such as newspapers, journals, or books) with extensive information published over an extended period about a subject, then that subject is notable and you must cite such sources as part of the process of creating (or expanding) the Wikipedia article. If you cannot find reliable sources (such as newspapers, journals, or books) that provide extensive and comprehensive information about your proposed subject, then the subject is not notable or verifiable and almost certainly will be deleted. So your first job is to go find references.
Once you have references for your article, you can learn to place the references into the article by reading Wikipedia:Citing sources. But do not worry too much about formatting them properly. It would be great if you do that, but the main thing is to get references into the article even if they are not well formatted.
Articles about yourself, your friends, your website, a band you're in, your teacher, a word you made up, or a story you wrote
If you are worthy of inclusion in the encyclopedia, let someone else add an article for you. Putting your friends in an encyclopedia may seem like a nice surprise or an amusing joke, but articles like this are likely to be removed. In this process, feelings may be hurt and you may be blocked from editing if you repeatedly make attempts to re-create the article. These things can be avoided by a little forethought on your part. The article might remain if you have enough humility to make it neutral and you really are notable, but even then it's best to submit a draft for approval and consensus of the community instead of just posting it up, as unconscious biases may still exist of which you may not be aware.
Non-notable topics
People frequently add pages to Wikipedia without considering whether the topic is really notable enough to go into an encyclopedia. Because Wikipedia does not have the space limitations of paper-based encyclopedias, our notability policies and guidelines allow a wide range of articles – however, they do not allow every topic to be included. A particularly common special case of this is pages about people, companies, or groups of people, that do not substantiate the notability or importance of their subject with reliable sources, so we have decided that such pages may be speedily deleted under our WP:SPEEDY policy. This can offend – so please consider whether your chosen topic is notable enough for Wikipedia, and then substantiate the notability or importance of your subject by citing those reliable sources in the process of creating your article. Wikipedia is not a directory of everything in existence.
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Personal essays or original research
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As a general rule, do not copy-paste text from other websites. (There are a few limited exceptions, and a few words as part of a properly cited and clearly attributed quotation is OK.)
1. have a reputation for reliability: they are reliable sources
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Good research and citing your sources
Articles written out of thin air may be better than nothing, but they are hard to verify, which is an important part of building a trusted reference work. Please research with the best sources available and cite them properly. Doing this, along with not copying large amounts of the text, will help avoid any possibility of plagiarism. We welcome good short articles, called "stubs", that can serve as launching pads from which others can take off. If you do not have enough material to write a good stub, you probably should not create the article. At the end of a stub, you should include a "stub template" like this: {{stub}}. (Other Wikipedians will appreciate it if you use a more specific stub template, like {{art-stub}}. See the list of stub types for a list of all specific stub templates.) Stubs help track articles that need expansion.
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Organization
Make sure there are incoming links to the new article from other Wikipedia articles (click "What links here" in the toolbox) and that the new article is included in at least one appropriate category (see help:category). Otherwise it will be difficult for readers to find the article.
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Breaking news events
While Wikipedia accepts articles about notable recent events, articles about breaking news events with no enduring notability are not appropriate for our project. Consider writing such articles on our sister project Wikinews. See Wikipedia:Notability (events) for further information.
Editing on the wrong page
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How to create a page
Only logged in users can create an article. If you have written an article but have no account you can submit your article for review and publishing at Articles for Creation.
Title for your new article
In the search box below, type the title of your article, then click Go. If the Search page reports "You may create the page" followed by the article name in red, then you can click the red article name to start editing your article.
Is it new?
Type, then click "Go (try title)"
There may or may not be an article with the same title as the one you wish to create.
If there is no article with the exact title, this does not necessarily mean such an article does not exist. As mentioned above, a search can help reveal this.
Sometimes there is already an article under your chosen title, but on a different topic. In this case, the titles must be distinguished from one another. The process of distinguishing identical or similar titles with distinct meanings is called "disambiguation." This can be confusing for newcomers: if necessary, create your page as a userspace draft, then ask at the new contributors' help page for help on sorting out the disambiguation.
There are three main ways disambiguation is done, depending on how many topics there are and whether there's one which is much more important than the rest:
Disambiguation page. For example, when you enter the word "Salsa," you will be brought to a page known as a disambiguation page that will list all the subjects named "Salsa," including Salsa (sauce), Salsa music, and several other meanings of the word Salsa.
Primary usage. In some cases, the title by itself will be used for the most common meaning of the term (the "primary usage"), and all other uses will be found on a disambiguation page. For example, when you enter Mouse, you will be brought to the article about the animal. All other uses, such as Mouse (computing), are listed on the disambiguation page.
Just two topics. Or in some cases, if there are only two meanings of a title, the plain title will be used for one meaning (the more common one), and a message on the top of that page, known as a hatnote, will be used to direct readers to the other. For example, if you enter Avocado, you will be brought to the article about the plant. A hatnote will direct you to a town called Avocado, California.
Entering references
The very first thing you should write in your article is a list of the source(s) for your information. For now, just enter them like this (and they will automatically turn into links):
Later, you'll learn how to format them to appear as footnotes.
If you know that it will take you a few edits to properly list references, put the template {{newpage}} on top of the page to signify to other editors that you are working on it. Even better is to create your article in a subpage of your user page, take as long as you need to make it a good article, then move it to the main article space. You can create your personal sandbox for article development by clicking this link. However, even in user space articles on unacceptable topics are liable to be nominated for deletion.
Categorizing
Every article should be in one or more Wikipedia categories. To find categories for your article, go to Category:Articles and click on any relevant subcategories, then keep following relevant subcategory links as far as you can. Follow all relevant subcategory chains, and add a category declaration, written [[Category:your category]], at the bottom of your article for each relevant category that has no relevant subcategories of its own.
Final step
After you have entered your article, click Show preview to check for errors, then click Save page.
And then what?
Now that you have created the page, there are still several things you can do.
Keep making improvements
Wikipedia is not finished. Generally, an article is nowhere near being completed the moment it is created. There is a long way to go. In fact, it may take you several edits just to get it started.
If you have so much interest in the article you just created, you may learn much more about it in the future, and therefore, have more to add. This may be later today, tomorrow, or several months from now. Anytime, go ahead.
Improve formatting
To format your article correctly (and expand it, and possibly even make it featured!), see
Others can freely contribute to the article when it has been saved. The creator does not have special rights to control the later content. See Wikipedia:Ownership of articles.
Also, before you get frustrated or offended about the way others modify or remove your contributions, see Wikipedia:Don't be ashamed.
Avoid orphans
An orphaned article is an article that has few or no other articles linking to it. The main problem with an orphan is that it'll be unknown to others, and may get fewer readers if it is not de-orphaned.
Most new articles are orphans from the moment they are created, but you can work to change that. This will involve editing one or more other articles. Try searching Wikipedia for other pages referring to the subject of your article, then turn those references into links by adding double brackets to either side: "[[" and "]]". If another article has a word or phrase that has the same meaning as your new article, but not expressed in the same words as the title, you can link that word or phrase as follows: "[[title of your new article|word or phrase found in other article]]." Or in certain cases, you could create that word or phrase as a redirect to your new article.
One of the first things you want to do after creating a new article is to provide links to it so it will not be an orphan. You can do that right away, or if you find that exhausting, you can wait a while, provided that you have in mind to get it done.
If the term is ambiguous (meaning there are multiple pages using that or a similar title), see if there is a disambiguation page for articles bearing that title. If so, add it to that page.
Try to read actual encyclopedia articles to get the layout, style, tone, and other elements of encyclopedic content. It is suggested if you plan to write articles for an encyclopedia, you should have some background knowledge on formal writing, as well as about the topic at hand. A composition class in your high school or college is recommended before you start writing encyclopedia articles.
The World Book is a good place to start. The goal of Wikipedia is to create an up to the moment encyclopedia on every subject imaginable. Pretend this will be published into a paper encyclopedia.
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Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy.[1][2] Anarchists seek to diminish or even abolish authority in the conduct of human relations,[3] but widely disagree on what additional criteria are essential to anarchism. According to The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, "there is no single defining position that all anarchists hold, and those considered anarchists at best share a certain family resemblance."[4]
"In broad terms, anarchism is the rejection of coercion and domination in all forms, including that of the priests and the plutocrats.... The anarchist...abominates all forms of authoritarianism, and he is the enemy of parasitism, exploitation, and oppression. The anarchist frees himself from all that is sacred and carries out a vast program of desecration."[5]
The term anarchism derives from the Greek ἄναρχος, anarchos, meaning "without rulers",[26][27] from the prefix ἀν- (an-, "without") + ἀρχή (archê, "sovereignty, realm, magistracy")[28] + -ισμός (-ismos, from the suffix -ιζειν, -izein "-izing"). There is some ambiguity with the use of the terms "libertarianism" and "libertarian" in writings about anarchism. Since the 1890s from France,[29] the term "libertarianism" has often been used as a synonym for anarchism and was used almost exclusively in this sense until the 1950s in the United States;[30] its use as a synonym is still common outside the United States.[31] Accordingly, "libertarian socialism" is sometimes used as a synonym for socialist anarchism,[32][33] to distinguish it from "individualist libertarianism" (individualist anarchism). On the other hand, some use "libertarianism" to refer to individualistic free-market philosophy only, referring to free-market anarchism as "libertarian anarchism".[34][35]
William Godwin, "the first to formulate the political and economical conceptions of anarchism, even though he did not give that name to the ideas developed in his work".[36]
Anarchist themes can be found in the works of Taoist sages Laozi,[36]Zhuangzi and Bao Jingyan [8]. Zhuangzi wrote, "A petty thief is put in jail. A great brigand becomes a ruler of a Nation,"[37] while Bao Jingyan said that as soon as "the relationship between lord and subject is established, hearts become daily filled with evil designs, until the manacled criminals sullenly doing forced labour in the mud and the dust are full of mutinous thoughts." Diogenes of Sinope and the Cynics, their contemporary Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, also introduced similar topics.[36][38]
The term "anarchist" first entered the English language in 1642, during the English Civil War, as a term of abuse, used by Royalists against their Roundhead opponents.[39] By the time of the French Revolution some, such as the Enragés, began to use the term positively,[40] in opposition to Jacobin centralisation of power, seeing "revolutionary government" as oxymoronic.[39] By the turn of the 19th century, the English word "anarchism" had lost its initial negative connotation.[39]
Modern anarchism sprang from the secular or religious thought of the Enlightenment, particularly Jean-Jacques Rousseau's arguments for the moral centrality of freedom.[41] From this climate William Godwin developed what many consider the first expression of modern anarchist thought.[42] Godwin was, according to Peter Kropotkin, "the first to formulate the political and economical conceptions of anarchism, even though he did not give that name to the ideas developed in his work",[36] while Godwin attached his anarchist ideas to an early Edmund Burke.[43]Benjamin Tucker instead credits Josiah Warren, an American who promoted stateless and voluntary communities where all goods and services were private, with being "the first man to expound and formulate the doctrine now known as Anarchism."[44] The first to describe himself as an anarchist was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,[39] a French philosopher and politician, which led some to call him the founder of modern anarchist theory.[45]
The anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque was the first person to describe himself as "libertarian"[46]. Unlike Proudhon, he argued that, "it is not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature."[47][48]
Anarchism as a social movement has regularly endured fluctuations in popularity. Its classical period, which scholars demarcate as from 1860 to 1939, is associated with the working-class movements of the 19th century and the Spanish Civil War-era struggles against fascism.[49]
Collectivist anarchist Mikhail Bakunin opposed the Marxist aim of dictatorship of the proletariat in favour of universal rebellion, and allied himself with the federalists in the First International before his expulsion by the Marxists.[39]
In Europe, harsh reaction followed the revolutions of 1848, during which ten countries had experienced brief or long-term social upheaval as groups carried out nationalist uprisings. After most of these attempts at systematic change ended in failure, conservative elements took advantage of the divided groups of socialists, anarchists, liberals, and nationalists, to prevent further revolt.[50] In 1864 the International Workingmen's Association (sometimes called the "First International") united diverse revolutionary currents including French followers of Proudhon,[51]Blanquists, Philadelphes, English trade unionists, socialists and social democrats.
Due to its links to active workers' movements, the International became a significant organization. Karl Marx became a leading figure in the International and a member of its General Council. Proudhon's followers, the mutualists, opposed Marx's state socialism, advocating political abstentionism and small property holdings.[52][53]
In 1868, following their unsuccessful participation in the League of Peace and Freedom (LPF), Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin and his collectivist anarchist associates joined the First International (which had decided not to get involved with the LPF).[54] They allied themselves with the federalist socialist sections of the International,[55] who advocated the revolutionary overthrow of the state and the collectivization of property.
At first, the collectivists worked with the Marxists to push the First International in a more revolutionary socialist direction. Subsequently, the International became polarised into two camps, with Marx and Bakunin as their respective figureheads.[56] Bakunin characterised Marx's ideas as centralist and predicted that, if a Marxist party came to power, its leaders would simply take the place of the ruling class they had fought against.[57][58]
In 1872, the conflict climaxed with a final split between the two groups at the Hague Congress, where Bakunin and James Guillaume were expelled from the International and its headquarters were transferred to New York. In response, the federalist sections formed their own International at the St. Imier Congress, adopting a revolutionary anarchist program.[59]
The anti-authoritarian sections of the First International were the precursors of the anarcho-syndicalists, seeking to "replace the privilege and authority of the State" with the "free and spontaneous organization of labor."[60] In 1886, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (FOTLU) of the United States and Canada unanimously set 1 May 1886, as the date by which the eight-hour work day would become standard.[61]
In response, unions across the United States prepared a general strike in support of the event.[61] On 3 May, in Chicago, a fight broke out when strikebreakers attempted to cross the picket line, and two workers died when police opened fire upon the crowd.[62] The next day, 4 May, anarchists staged a rally at Chicago's Haymarket Square.[63] A bomb was thrown by an unknown party near the conclusion of the rally, killing an officer.[64] In the ensuing panic, police opened fire on the crowd and each other.[65] Seven police officers and at least four workers were killed.[66] Eight anarchists directly and indirectly related to the organisers of the rally were arrested and charged with the murder of the deceased officer. The men became international political celebrities among the labour movement. Four of the men were executed and a fifth committed suicide prior to his own execution. The incident became known as the Haymarket affair, and was a setback for the labour movement and the struggle for the eight hour day. In 1890 a second attempt, this time international in scope, to organise for the eight hour day was made.The event also had the secondary purpose of memorializing workers killed as a result of the Haymarket affair.[67] Although it had initially been conceived as a once-off event, by the following year the celebration of International Workers' Day on May Day had become firmly established as an international worker's holiday.[61]
A sympathetic engraving by Walter Crane of the executed "Anarchists of Chicago" after the Haymarket affair. The Haymarket affair is generally considered the most significant event for the origin of international May Day observances
In 1907, the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam gathered delegates from 14 different countries, among which important figures of the anarchist movement, including Errico Malatesta, Pierre Monatte, Luigi Fabbri, Benoît Broutchoux, Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rocker, and Christiaan Cornelissen. Various themes were treated during the Congress, in particular concerning the organisation of the anarchist movement, popular education issues, the general strike or antimilitarism. A central debate concerned the relation between anarchism and syndicalism (or trade unionism). Malatesta and Monatte were in particular disagreement themselves on this issue, as the latter thought that syndicalism was revolutionary and would create the conditions of a social revolution, while Malatesta did not consider syndicalism by itself sufficient.[68] He thought that the trade-union movement was reformist and even conservative, citing as essentially bourgeois and anti-worker the phenomenon of professional union officials. Malatesta warned that the syndicalists aims were in perpetuating syndicalism itself, whereas anarchists must always have anarchy as their end and consequently refrain from committing to any particular method of achieving it.[69]
The Spanish Workers Federation in 1881 was the first major anarcho-syndicalist movement; anarchist trade union federations were of special importance in Spain. The most successful was the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour: CNT), founded in 1910. Before the 1940s, the CNT was the major force in Spanish working class politics, attracting 1.58 million members at one point and playing a major role in the Spanish Civil War.[70] The CNT was affiliated with the International Workers Association, a federation of anarcho-syndicalist trade unions founded in 1922, with delegates representing two million workers from 15 countries in Europe and Latin America. In Latin America in particular "The anarchists quickly became active in organizing craft and industrial workers throughout South and Central America, and until the early 1920s most of the trade unions in Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina were anarcho-syndicalist in general outlook; the prestige of the Spanish C.N.T. as a revolutionary organization was undoubtedly to a great extent responsible for this situation. The largest and most militant of these organizations was the Federación Obrera Regional Argentina...it grew quickly to a membership of nearly a quarter of a million, which dwarfed the rival socialdemocratic unions."[24]
Italian-American anarchist Luigi Galleani. His followers, known as Galleanists, carried out a series of bombings and assassination attempts from 1914 to 1932 in what they saw as attacks on 'tyrants' and 'enemies of the people'
Some anarchists, such as Johann Most, advocated publicizing violent acts of retaliation against counter-revolutionaries because "we preach not only action in and for itself, but also action as propaganda."[73] By the 1880s, the slogan "propaganda of the deed" had begun to be used both within and outside of the anarchist movement to refer to individual bombings, regicides and tyrannicides. From 1905 onwards, the Russian counterparts of these anti-syndicalist anarchist-communists become partisans of economic terrorism and illegal ‘expropriations’."[74]Illegalism as a practice emerged and within it "The acts of the anarchist bombers and assassins ("propaganda by the deed") and the anarchist burglars ("individual reappropriation") expressed their desperation and their personal, violent rejection of an intolerable society. Moreover, they were clearly meant to be exemplary , invitations to revolt.".[75] France's Bonnot Gang was the most famous group to embrace illegalism.
However, as soon as 1887, important figures in the anarchist movement distanced themselves from such individual acts. Peter Kropotkin thus wrote that year in Le Révolté that "a structure based on centuries of history cannot be destroyed with a few kilos of dynamite".[76] A variety of anarchists advocated the abandonment of these sorts of tactics in favor of collective revolutionary action, for example through the trade union movement. The anarcho-syndicalist, Fernand Pelloutier, argued in 1895 for renewed anarchist involvement in the labor movement on the basis that anarchism could do very well without "the individual dynamiter."[77]
State repression (including the infamous 1894 French lois scélérates) of the anarchist and labor movements following the few successful bombings and assassinations may have contributed to the abandonment of these kinds of tactics, although reciprocally state repression, in the first place, may have played a role in these isolated acts. The dismemberment of the French socialist movement, into many groups and, following the suppression of the 1871 Paris Commune, the execution and exile of many communards to penal colonies, favored individualist political expression and acts.[78]
Numerous heads of state were assassinated between 1881 and 1914 by members of the anarchist movement. For example, U.S. President McKinley's assassin Leon Czolgosz claimed to have been influenced by anarchist and feministEmma Goldman. Bombings were associated in the media with anarchists because international terrorism arose during this time period with the widespread distribution of dynamite. This image remains to this day.
Propaganda of the deed was abandoned by the vast majority of the anarchist movement after World War I (1914–1918) and the 1917 October Revolution.
Anarchists participated alongside the Bolsheviks in both February and October revolutions, and were initially enthusiastic about the Bolshevik revolution.[79] However, the Bolsheviks soon turned against the anarchists and other left-wing opposition, a conflict that culminated in the 1921 Kronstadt rebellion which the new government repressed. Anarchists in central Russia were either imprisoned, driven underground or joined the victorious Bolsheviks; the anarchists from Petrograd and Moscow fled to the Ukraine.[80] There, in the Free Territory, they fought in the civil war against the Whites (a grouping of monarchists and other opponents of the October Revolution) and then the Bolsheviks as part of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno, who established an anarchist society in the region for a number of months.
Expelled American anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were amongst those agitating in response to Bolshevik policy and the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising, before they left Russia. Both wrote accounts of their experiences in Russia, criticizing the amount of control the Bolsheviks exercised. For them, Bakunin's predictions about the consequences of Marxist rule that the rulers of the new "socialist" Marxist state would become a new elite had proved all too true.[57][81]
The victory of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the resulting Russian Civil War did serious damage to anarchist movements internationally. Many workers and activists saw Bolshevik success as setting an example; Communist parties grew at the expense of anarchism and other socialist movements. In France and the United States, for example, members of the major syndicalist movements of the CGT and IWW left the organizations and joined the Communist International.[82]
In the 1920s and 1930s, the rise of fascism in Europe transformed anarchism's conflict with the state. Italy saw the first struggles between anarchists and fascists. Italian anarchists played a key role in the anti-fascist organisation Arditi del Popolo, which was strongest in areas with anarchist traditions, and achieved some success in their activism, such as repelling Blackshirts in the anarchist stronghold of Parma in August 1922.[85] The veteran Italian anarchist, Luigi Fabbri, was one of the first critical theorists of fascism, describing it as "the preventive counter-revolution." [9] In France, where the far right leagues came close to insurrection in the February 1934 riots, anarchists divided over a united front policy.[86]
In Spain, the CNT initially refused to join a popular front electoral alliance, and abstention by CNT supporters led to a right wing election victory. But in 1936, the CNT changed its policy and anarchist votes helped bring the popular front back to power. Months later, the former ruling class responded with an attempted coup causing the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).[87] In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of Barcelona and of large areas of rural Spain where they collectivised the land.[88] But even before the fascist victory in 1939, the anarchists were losing ground in a bitter struggle with the Stalinists, who controlled the distribution of military aid to the Republican cause from the Soviet Union. Stalinist-led troops suppressed the collectives and persecuted both dissident Marxists and anarchists.[89]
Anarchists in France[90] and Italy[91] were active in! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978ۏ
March 2 – Soyuz 28 (Aleksei Gubarev, Vladimir Remek) is launched on a rendezvous with Salyut 6, with the first cosmonaut from a third country (besides the Soviet Union and United States) – Czechoslovak citizen Vladimír Remek.
March 26 – The control tower and some other facilities of New Tokyo International Airport, which was scheduled to open on March 31, are illegally occupied and damaged by terrorist attack by New Left activists, being forced to reschedule its opening date to May 20.
April 7 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter decides to postpone production of the neutron bomb – a weapon which kills people with radiation but leaves buildings relatively intact.
April 9 – Somalimilitary officers stage an unsuccessful coup against the government of Siad Barre; security forces thwart the attempt within hours, and several conspirators are arrested.
The One Love Peace Concert is held at National Heroes Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica. Bob Marley unites 2 opposing political leaders at this concert, bringing peace to the civil war-ridden streets of the city.
May 12 – In Zaire, rebels occupy the city of Kolwezi, the mining centre of the province of Shaba. The Zairean government asks the U.S., France and Belgium to restore order.
June 9 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints extends the priesthood and temple blessings to 'all worthy males', ending a general policy of excluding 'Canaanites' from Priesthood ordination and temple ordinances.
June 12 – Serial killer David Berkowitz, the "Son of Sam," is sentenced to 365 years in prison.
June 20 – A magnitude 6.5 earthquake hits Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city, killing 45 people, injuring hundreds and damaging some of the city's Byzantine landmarks.
Giuseppe Verdi's opera Otello makes its first appearance on Live from the Met, in a complete production of the opera starring Jon Vickers. This is the first complete television broadcast of the opera in the U.S. since the historic 1948 one.
November 2 – RTÉ 2 went on air in 1978 at 8:00 pm and the channel renamed in 1988 as Network 2, later RTÉ Network Two in 1995, later N2 in 1997 and finally, RTÉ Two in 2004 and still on air.
December 16 – Train 87 from Nanjing to Xining collides with train 368 from Xi'an to Xuzhou near Yangzhuang railway station in China, killing 106, injuring 218.
In this Vietnamese name, the family name is "Ngô", but is often simplified to "Ngo" in English-language text. According to Vietnamese custom, this person should properly be referred to by the given name "Diệm".
Ngô Đình Diệm (Vietnamese: Ngô Đình Diệm, pronounced [ŋo ɗîɲ zjə̂ˀm], Saigon: [ɗîn jə̃ˀm](listen)), (January 3, 1901 – November 2, 1963) was the first President of South Vietnam (1955–1963). In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a 1955 plebiscite that was widely considered fraudulent. Proclaiming himself the Republic's first President, he demonstrated considerable political skill in the consolidation of his power, and his rule proved authoritarian, elitist, nepotistic, and corrupt. A Roman Catholic, Diệm pursued policies that rankled and oppressed the Republic's Montagnard natives and its Buddhist majority. Amid religious protests that garnered worldwide attention, Diệm lost the backing of his U.S. patrons and was assassinated by Nguyễn Văn Nhung, the aide of ARVN General Dương Văn Minh on November 2, 1963, during a coup d'état that deposed his government.
Ngô Đình Diệm was born in Huế, the original capital of the Nguyễn Dynasty of Vietnam. Diệm came from the village of Phu Cam in central Vietnam. Portuguese missionaries had converted his family to Roman Catholicism in the 17th century so Diệm was also given a saint's name, following the custom of the Catholic Church. Diệm's full name, becoming Jean Baptiste Ngô Đình Diệm. Diệm would often claim that he had descended from a blue-blooded family of mandarins who were so revered that people believed that it was a great honour and good luck to be buried alongside his ancestors. Most historians dismiss this as false and believe that his family were of low rank until his father passed the imperial examinations.[citation needed]
His father, Ngô Đình Khả, scrapped plans to become a Roman Catholic priest and became a mandarin and counselor to Emperor Thành Thái during the French colonisation. He rose to become the minister of the rites and chamberlain, and keeper of the eunuchs. Khả had six sons and three daughters by his second wife, whom he married after his first died childless. Devoutly Roman Catholic, Khả took his entire family to Mass every morning. The third of six sons, Diệm was christened Jean-Baptiste in the cathedral in Huế. In 1907, the French deposed the emperor on the pretext of insanity because of his complaints about the colonisation. Khả retired in protest and became a farmer. Diệm laboured in the family’s rice fields while studying at a French Catholic school, and later entered a private school started by his father. Aged fifteen, he followed his elder brother, Ngô Đình Thục, later to become Vietnam’s highest ranking Catholic bishop, into a monastery. After a few months, he left, finding monastic life too rigorous.
At the end of his secondary schooling, his examination results at the French lycée in Huế saw him offered a scholarship to Paris but declined to contemplate becoming a priest. He dropped the idea, believing it to be too rigorous. He moved to Hanoi to study at the School of Public Administration and Law, a French school that trained Vietnamese bureaucrats. It was there that he had the only romantic relationship of his life when he fell in love with one of his teacher’s daughters. After she herself persisted with her vocation entering a convent, he remained celibate.[1][2]
After graduating at the top of his class in 1921, Diệm followed in the footsteps of his eldest brother, Ngô Ðình Khôi, joining the civil service. Starting from the lowest rank of mandarin, Diệm steadily rose. He first served at the royal library in Huế, and within one year was the district chief, presiding over seventy villages. Diệm was promoted to be a provincial chief at the age of 25, overseeing 300 villages. Diệm's rise was helped by Khôi's marriage to the daughter of Nguyễn Hữu Bài, the Catholic head of the Council of Ministers. Bài was highly regarded among the French and Diệm's religious and family ties impressed him. The French were impressed by his work ethic but were irritated by his frequent calls to grant more autonomy to Vietnamese. Diệm said that he contemplated resigning but encouragement from the populace convinced him to persist. He first encountered communists distributing propaganda while riding horseback through the region near Quảng Trị. Diệm involved himself in anti-communist activities for the first time, printing his own pamphlets.
In 1929, he helped to round up communist agitators in his administrative area. He was rewarded with the promotion to the governorship of Binh Thuan Province, and in 1930 and 1931 suppressed the first peasant revolts organised by the communists, in collaboration with French forces. During the violent events, many villagers were raped and murdered.[3] In 1933, with the return of Bảo Đại to ascend the throne, Diệm was appointed by the French to be his interior minister following lobbying by Bài. After calling for the French to introduce a Vietnamese legislature, he resigned after three months in office when this was rejected. He was stripped of his decorations and titles and threatened with arrest.[1][4]
For the next decade, Diệm lived as a private citizen with his family, although he was kept under surveillance. He was to have no formal job for 21 years. He spent his time on reading, meditating, attending church, gardening, hunting and amateur photography. Being a conservative, Diệm was not a believer in revolutions and confined his nationalist activities to occasional trips to Saigon to meet with Phan Bội Châu. With the start of the Second World War in the Pacific, he attempted to persuade the invading Japanese forces to declare independence for Vietnam in 1942 but was ignored. He founded a secret political party, the Association for the Restoration of Great Vietnam. When its existence was discovered in the summer of 1944, the French declared Diệm to be a subversive and ordered his arrest. He fled to Saigon disguised as a Japanese officer. In 1945, the Japanese offered him the premiership of a puppet regime under Bảo Đại which they organised upon leaving the country. He declined initially, but regretted his decision and attempted to reclaim the offer. Bảo Đại had already given the post to another candidate and Diệm avoided the stigma of being a collaborationist. In September 1945 after the Japanese withdrawal, Hồ Chí Minh proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, his Việt Minh began fighting the French. Diệm attempted to travel to Huế to dissuade Bảo Đại from joining Hồ, but was arrested by the Việt Minh along the way and exiled to a highland village near the border. He might have died of malaria, dysentery and influenza had the local tribesmen not nursed him back to health. Six months later, he was taken to meet Hồ in Hanoi, but refused to join the Việt Minh, assailing Hồ for the death of his brother Khoi. Khoi had been buried alive by Việt Minh cadres.[1][4]
Diệm continued to attempt to gather support for himself on an anti-Vietminh platform. Despite having little success, Ho was sufficiently irritated to order his arrest. Diem narrowly evaded arrest but was given respite in November 1946 when clashes between the French and Vietminh escalated into full scale war, forcing to Vietminh to divert their resources to fighting. Diem then moved south to the Saigon region to live with Thuc. Diem then jointly founded the Vietnam National Alliance, which called for France to grant Vietnam dominion status similar to the Commonwealth of Nations. The alliance was sufficient to generate support to fund newspapers in Hanoi and Saigon respectively. Both were shut down; the editor in Hanoi was arrested and hit men were hired to kill his Saigon counterpart. Diem's activities had gained him substantial publicity and when France decided to make concessions to placate nationalist agitators, they asked him to lobby Bảo Đại to join them. Diem gave up when Bảo Đại made a deal which he felt to be soft, and returned to Huế. In the meantime, the French had started the State of Vietnam and Diem refused Bảo Đại's offer to become the Prime Minister. He then published a new manifesto in newspapers proclaiming a third force different to communism and French colonialism, but raised little interest. In 1950, the Vietminh lost patience sentenced him to death in absentia, and the French refused to protect him. Ho's cadres tried to kill him while he was traveling to visit his elder brother Ngo Dinh Thuc in the Mekong Delta, where he was the bishop of the Vĩnh Long diocese. Diem then left Vietnam in 1950.[1][4]
Diem applied for permission to travel to Rome for the Holy Year celebrations at the Vatican. After gaining French permission he left in August with Thuc, apparently destined to become a politically irrelevant figure. Before going to Europe, Diem went to Japan, where he intended to meet Cường Để to enlist support to seize power. Neither this nor an attempt to woo help from General Douglas MacArthur, the American supreme commander in occupied Japan, yielded meetings.[citation needed]
A friend managed to organise a meeting with Wesley Fishel, an American academic who had done consultancy work for the US government. Fishel was a proponent of the anti-colonial, anti-communist third force doctrine in Asia and was impressed with Diem. He helped Diem to organise contacts and meetings in the United States to enlist support.[5] It was an opportune time for Diem, with the outbreak of the Korean War and McCarthyism helping to make Vietnamese anti-communists a sought after commodity in America. Diem was given a reception at the State Department with the Acting Secretary of State James Webb. Possibly intimidated, he gave a weak performance in which Thuc did much of the talking.
As a result, no further audiences with notable officials were afforded to him. However, he did meet Cardinal Francis Spellman, regarded as the most politically powerful cleric of his time. Spellman had studied with Thuc in Rome in the 1930s and was to become one of Diem's most powerful advocates. Diem obtained an audience with Pope Pius XII in Rome before further lobbying across Europe. Diem also attempted to convince Bảo Đại to make him the Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam but was turned down. Diệm returned to the United States to continue lobbying and in 1951 was able to secure an audience with Secretary of State Dean Acheson. During the next three years he lived at Spellman's Maryknoll seminary in Lakewood Township, New Jersey and occasionally at another seminary in Ossining, New York.[6]
Cardinal Spellman helped Diệm to garner support among right-wing and Catholic circles. Diem toured the East Coast, speaking at universities, arguing that Vietnam could only be saved for the "free world" if the US sponsored a government of nationalists who were opposed to both the Vietminh and the French. He was appointed as a consultant to Michigan State University's Government Research Bureau, where Fishel worked. MSU was administering government-sponsored assistance programs for cold war allies, and Diệm helped Fishel to lay the foundation for a program later implemented in South Vietnam, the Michigan State University Vietnam Advisory Group. As French power in Vietnam declined, Diệm's support in America made his stock rise.[7]
With the fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 to the Vietminh, French control of Vietnam collapsed and Bảo Đại needed foreign help to sustain his State of Vietnam. Realising Diệm's popularity among American policymakers, he chose Diệm's youngest brother Ngo Dinh Luyen, who was studying in Europe at the time, to be part of his delegation at the 1954 Geneva Conference to determine the future of Indochina. Luyen represented Bảo Đại in his dealings with the Americans, who understood this to be an expression of interest in Diệm. With the backing of the Eisenhower administration, Bảo Đại named Diệm as the Prime Minister. The appointment was widely condemned by French officials, who felt that Diệm was incompetent, with the Prime Minister Mendes-France declaring Diệm to be a "fanatic".[citation needed]
The Geneva accords resulted in Vietnam being partitioned temporarily at the 17th parallel, pending elections in 1956 to reunify the country. The Vietminh controlled the north, while the French backed State of Vietnam controlled the south with Diệm as the Prime Minister. French Indochina was to be dissolved at the start of 1955. Diệm's South Vietnamese delegation chose not to sign the accords, refusing to have half the country under communist rule, but the agreement went into effect regardless.[8]
Diệm arrived at Tan Son Nhut airport in Saigon on June 26, where only a few hundred people turned out to greet him, mainly Catholics. He managed only one wave after getting into his vehicle and did not smile. He was not a man of the people and did not intend to become one, being more interested in commanding respect than popular affection.[9]
The accords allowed for freedom of movement between the two zones until October 1954; this was to put a large strain on the south. Diệm had only expected 10,000 refugees, but by August, there were over 200,000 waiting in Hanoi and Haiphong to be evacuated; the migration helped to strengthen Diệm's political base of support. Before the partition, the majority of Vietnam's Catholic population lived in the north. After the borders were sealed, this majority was now under Diệm's rule. The US Navy program Operation Passage to Freedom saw up to one million North Vietnamese move south, most of them Catholics. The CIA's Edward Lansdale, who had been posted to help Diệm strengthen his rule,[10] led a propaganda campaign to encourage as many refugees to move south as possible. This effort was twofold: to strengthen the Catholic population specifically and the population generally to help win the 1956 reunification elections. This included sending South Vietnamese agents into the north to spread rumours of impending doom, such as Chinese invasion and pillaging, hiring soothsayers to predict disaster under communism, and claiming that the Americans would use nuclear weapons on North Vietnam. Diệm also used slogans such as "Christ has gone south" and "the Virgin Mary had departed from the North", alleging anti-Catholic persecution under Ho Chi Minh. Over 60% of northern Catholics moved to Diệm's South Vietnam, providing him with a source of loyal support.[citation needed]
Diệm's position at the time was weak; Bảo Đại disliked Diệm and appointed him mainly to political imperatives. The French saw him as hostile and hoped that his rule would collapse. At the time, the French Expeditionary Corps was the most powerful military force in the south; Diệm's Vietnamese National Army was essentially organised and trained by the French. Its officers were installed by the French and the chief of staff General Nguyen Van Hinh was a French citizen; Hinh loathed Diệm and frequently disobeyed him. Diệm also had to contend with two religious sects, the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao, who wielded private armies in the Mekong Delta, with the Cao Dai estimated to have 25,000 men. The Vietminh was also estimated to have control over a third of the country. The situation was worse in the capital, where the Binh Xuyen organised crime syndicate boasted an army of 40,000 and controlled a vice empire of brothels, casinos, extortion rackets, and opium factories unparalleled in Asia. Bảo Đại had given the Binh Xuyen control of the national police for 1.25 m USD, creating a situation that the Americans likened to Chicago under Al Capone in the 1920s. In effect, Diệm's control did not extend beyond his palace.[citation needed]
In August, Hinh launched a series of public attacks on Diệm, proclaiming that South Vietnam needed a "strong and popular" leader; Hinh bragged that he was preparing a coup. This was thwarted when Lansdale arranged overseas holiday invitations for Hinh's officers. Fearing Diệm's collapse, nine members of his government resigned during Hinh's abortive bid for power. Despite its failure, the French continued to encourage Diệm's enemies in an attempt to destabilize him.
Diệm's appointment came after the French had been defeated at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and were ready to withdraw from Indochina. At the start of 1955, French Indochina was dissolved, leaving Diệm in temporary control of the south.[11] A referendum was scheduled for October 23, 1955 to determine the future direction of the south. It was contested by Bảo Đại, the Emperor, advocating the restoration of the monarchy, while Diệm ran on a republican platform. The elections were held, with Diệm's brother and confidant Ngô Đình Nhu, the leader of the family's Can Lao Party, which supplied Diệm's electoral base, organising and supervising the elections.[12][13] Campaigning for Bảo Đại was prohibited, and the result was rigged, with Bảo Đại supporters attacked by Nhu's workers. Diệm recorded 98.2% of the vote, including 605,025 votes in Saigon, where only 450,000 voters were registered. Diệm's tally also exceeded the registration numbers in other districts.[12][14] Three days later, Diệm proclaimed the formation of the Republic of Vietnam, naming himself President.
Under the 1954 Geneva Accords, Vietnam was to undergo elections in 1956 to reunify the country. Diệm, noting that South Vietnam was not a party to the convention, canceled these. Criticising the Communists, he justified the electoral cancellation by claiming that the 1956 elections would be "meaningful only on the condition that they are absolutely free", despite his numerically impossible tally in the 1955 contest.[15]
After coming under pressure from within the country and the United States, Diệm agreed to hold legislative elections in August 1959 for South Vietnam. Newspapers were not allowed to publish names of independent candidates or their policies, and political meetings exceeding five people were prohibited. Candidates were disqualified for petty reasons such as acts of vandalism against campaign posters. In the rural areas, candidates who ran were threatened using charges of conspiracy with the Vietcong, which carried the death penalty. Phan Quang Dan, the government's most prominent critic, was allowed to run. Despite the deployment of 8,000 ARVN plainclothes troops into his district to vote, Dan still won with a 6–1 ratio. The busing of soldiers occurred across the country, and when the new assembly convened, Dan was arrested.[16][17]
Diệm's rule was authoritarian and nepotistic. His most trusted official was his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, leader of the primary pro-Diệm Can Lao political party, who was an opium addict and admirer of Adolf Hitler. He modeled the Can Lao secret police's marching style and torture styles on Nazi designs.[18]Ngô Đình Cẩn, his younger brother, was put in charge of the former Imperial City of Huế. Although neither Cẩn or Nhu held any official role in the government, they ruled their regions of South Vietnam, commanding private armies and secret police.
Diệm's rule was also pervaded by family corruption. Can was widely believed to be involved in illegal smuggling of rice to North Vietnam on the black market and opium throughout Asia via Laos, as well as monopolising the cinnamon trade, amassing a fortune stored in foreign banks.[21][22] With Nhu, Can competed for U.S. contracts and rice trade.[23] Thuc, the most powerful religious leader in the country, was allowed to solicit "voluntary contributions to the Church" from Saigon businessmen, which was likened to "tax notices".[24] Thuc also used his position to acquire farms, businesses, urban real estate, rental property and rubber plantations for the Catholic Church. He also used Army of the Republic of Vietnam personnel to work on his timber and construction projects. The Nhus amassed a fortune by running numbers and lottery rackets, manipulating currency and extorting money from Saigon businesses. Luyen became a multimillionaire by speculating in piasters and pounds on the currency exchange using inside government information.[25]
Madame Nhu, the wife of his brother Nhu, was South Vietnam's First Lady, and a Catholic convert herself, led the way in Diệm's programs to reform Saigon society in accordance with Catholic values. Brothels and opium dens were closed, divorce and abortion made illegal, and adultery laws strengthened. Diệm also won a street war with the private army of the Binh Xuyen organised crime syndicate of the Cholon brothels and gambling houses who had enjoyed special favors under the French and Bảo Đại. He further dismantled the private armies of the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects, which controlled parts of the Mekong Delta. Diệm was also passionately anti-Communist. Tortures and killings of "communist suspects" were committed on a daily basis. The death toll was put at around 50,000 with 75,000 imprisonments, and Diệm's effort extended beyond communists to anti-communist dissidents and anti-corruption whistleblowers.[26]
As opposition to Diệm's rule in South Vietnam grew, a low-level insurgency began to take shape there in 1957. Finally, in January 1959, under pressure from southern cadres who were being successfully targeted by Diệm's secret police, Hanoi's Central Committee issued a secret resolution authorizing the use of armed struggle in the South. On December 20, 1960, under instruction from Hanoi, southern communists established the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam in order to overthrow the government of the south. The NLF was made up of two distinct groups: South Vietnamese intellectuals who opposed the government and were nationalists; and communists who had remained in the south after the partition and regrouping of 1954 as well as those who had since come from the north, together with local peasants. While there were many non-communist members of the NLF, they were subject to the control of the party cadres and increasingly side-lined as the conflict continued; they did, however, enable the NLF to portray itself as a primarily nationalist, rather than communist, movement.[citation needed]
The cornerstone of Diệm's counterinsurgency effort was the Strategic Hamlet Program, which called for the consolidation of 14,000 villages of South Vietnam into 11,000 secure hamlets, each with its own houses, schools, wells, and watchtowers. The hamlets were intended to isolate the NLF from the villages, their source of recruiting soldiers, supplies and information.[citation needed]
The communists in southern Vietnam resolved that "if we are able to kill Ngo Dinh Diem, the leader of the current fascists dictatorial puppet government, the situation would develop along lines more favourable to our side."[27] Accordingly, on February 22, 1957, when Diem made a visit to an economic fair in Ban Me Thuot, a communist cadre named Ha Minh Tri carried out a directive to assassinate the president. He approached Diem and fired a pistol from close range, but missed, hitting the Secretary of Agrarian Reform's left arm. The weapon jammed and security overpowered Tri before he was able to fire another shot. Diem was unmoved by the incident.[28] There was a further attempt to assassinate Ngo (as well as his family) in 1962 when two air force officers —acting in unison —bombed the presidential palace.
During the 1946–54 war against the French Union forces, the Vietminh, having gained control of parts of southern Vietnam, initiated land reform. During the period of war, rent collection, which hovered at around 50–70%, was impossible in some parts of the country, or the Vietminh had compelled landlords to seek safety in the city and confiscated their land, distributing it to the peasants. When Diệm came to power, he reversed these reallocations as upper-class landowners were part of his ideological support base. In the Mekong Delta, 0.025% of landowners owned 40% of the land; most of the land was owned by absentee landlords and worked by tenant farmers.[citation needed]
This generated resentment among the populace, as land ownership was highly valued by Vietnamese society. Diệm declared that landlords could collect no more than 25%, but this was not enforced and in some cases the rent levels were higher than those under French colonisation. Under U.S. pressure, in 1956, he limited individual land holdings to 1.15 km², and reimbursed the landlords for the excess, which he sold to peasants. Many landlords evaded the redistribution by transferring the property to the name of family members.[citation needed]
Additionally, the ceiling limit was more than 30 times that allowed in South Korea and Taiwan, and the 370,000 acres (1,500 km2) of Catholic Church land were exempted. As a result, only 13% of the South Vietnam's land was redistributed, and by the end of his regime, only 10% of the tenants had received any land, at a high cost. This policy failure generated anger, and in turn sympathy to the Vietminh who had given the peasants free land. At the end of Diệm's rule, 10% of the population owned 55% of the land.[29]
Believing that the central highlands may be of strategic importance to the Vietcong or in a potential invasion by North Vietnam, Diệm decided to construct a Maginot Line of settlements. The area, inhabited by Montagnard indigenous people, had been largely allowed local autonomy in previous times, and the locals distrusted ethnic Vietnamese. Diệm initiated a program of internal migration where 210,000 Vietnamese, mainly Catholics, were moved to Montagnard land in fortified settlements.[30] When the Montagnards protested, Diệm's forces confiscated their spears and bows, which they used to hunt for daily sustenance.[31] Since then, and to the present day, Vietnam has been faced with a Montagnard insurgent separatist movement.[32]
In a country where surveys of the religious composition estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent,[33][34][35][36][37][38][39]
Diệm's policies generated claims of religious bias. As a member of the Catholic Vietnamese minority, he is widely regarded by historians as having pursued pro-Catholic policies that antagonized many Buddhists. Specifically, the government was regarded as being biased towards Catholics in public service and military promotions, as well as the allocation of land, business favors and tax concessions.[40] Diệm also once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that he was a Buddhist, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Catholicism in the belief that their military prospects depended on it.[41]
Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias intended to repel Vietcong guerrillas saw weapons only given to Catholics, with Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Catholicism.[42] Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies,[43] and in some areas forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of pagodas occurred.[44] Some Buddhist villages converted en masse in order to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime.[45]
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country, and the "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm.[46] The land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform.[47] Catholics were also de facto exempt from the corvée labor that the government obliged all citizens to perform; U.S. aid was disproportionately distributed to Catholic majority villages. Under Diệm, the Catholic Church enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and in 1959, Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary.[48] The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam.[49] U.S. Aid supplies tended to go to Catholics, and the newly constructed Hue and Dalat universities were placed under Catholic authority to foster a Catholic-skewed academic environment.[50]
The regime's relations with the U.S. worsened during 1963, as discontent among South Vietnam's Buddhist majority was simultaneously heightened. In May, in the central city of Huế, where Diệm's elder brother was the archbishop, Buddhists were prohibited from displaying Buddhist flags during Vesak celebrations commemorating the birth of Gautama Buddha when the government cited a regulation prohibiting the display of non-government flags.[51] A few days earlier, Catholics were allowed to fly religious flags at another celebration where the regulation was not enforced. This led to a protest led by Thich Tri Quang against the government, which was suppressed by Diệm's forces, killing nine unarmed civilians. Diệm and his supporters blamed the Vietcong for the deaths and claimed that the protesters were responsible for the violence.[52][53] Although the provincial chief expressed sorrow for the killings and offered to compensate the victims' families, they resolutely denied that government forces were responsible for the killings and blamed the Vietcong. [54]
The Buddhists pushed for a five point agreement: freedom to fly religious flags, an end to arbitrary arrests, compensation for the Huế victims, punishment for the officials responsible and religious equality. Diệm labeled the Buddhists as "damn fools" for demanding something that, according to him, they already enjoyed. He banned demonstrations, and ordered his forces to arrest those who engaged in civil disobedience. On June 3, 1963, protesters attempted to march towards Tu Dam Pagoda. Six waves of ARVN tear gas and attack dogs failed to disperse the crowds, and finally brownish-red liquid chemicals were doused on praying protesters, resulting in 67 being hospitalised for chemical injuries. A curfew was subsequently enacted.
The turning point came in June when a Buddhist monk, Thích Quảng Đức, set himself on fire in the middle of a busy Saigon intersection in protest of Diệm's policies; photos of this event were disseminated around the world, and for many people these pictures came to represent the failure of Diệm's government.[55] A number of other monks publicly self-immolated, and the U.S. grew increasingly frustrated with the unpopular leader's public image in both Vietnam and the United States. Diệm used his conventional anti-communist argument, identifying the dissenters as communists.
As demonstrations against his government continued throughout the summer, the special forces loyal to Diệm's brother Nhu conducted an August raid of the Xa Loi Pagoda in Saigon. The Pagodas were vandalised, monks beaten, the cremated remains of Thích Quảng Đức, which included a heart which did not disintegrate, were confiscated.[56] Simultaneous raids were carried out across the country, with the Tu Dam Pagoda in Huế being looted, the statue of Gautama Buddha demolished and a body of a deceased monk confiscated.[57] When the populace came to the defense of the monks, the resulting clashes saw 30 civilians killed and 200 wounded.[57] In all 1400 monks were arrested, and some thirty were injured across the country. The U.S. indicated their disapproval of Diệm's administration when ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge visited the Pagoda ex post facto.[58] No further mass Buddhist protests occurred during the remainder of Diệm's rule.[59]
During this time, Madame Nhu, a former Buddhist herself, who had converted to Catholicism, who was the de facto first lady because of Diệm's bachelor life, inflamed the situation by mockingly applauding the suicides, referring to them as "barbecues" while Nhu, stated "If the Buddhists want to have another barbecue, I will be glad to supply the gasoline."[60] The pagoda raids stoked widespread public disquiet in the previously apolitical Saigon public. Students at Saigon University boycotted classes and rioted, which led to arrests, imprisonments and the closure of the university; this was repeated at Huế's University. When high school students demonstrated, Diệm arrested them as well; over 1,000 students from Saigon's leading high school, most of them children of Saigon public servants, were sent to re-education camps. Children as young as five were also sent to these camps on charges of anti-government graffiti.
Diệm's foreign minister Vu Van Mau resigned, shaving his head like a Buddhist monk in protest.[61] When he attempted to leave the country on a religious pilgrimage, Diệm had him jailed.
On orders from U.S. PresidentJohn F. Kennedy, Henry Cabot Lodge, the American ambassador to South Vietnam, refused to meet with Diệm. Upon hearing that a coup d'état was being designed by ARVN generals led by General Dương Văn Minh, the United States gave secret assurances to the generals that the U.S. would not interfere. Dương Văn Minh and his co-conspirators overthrew the government on November 1, 1963. The coup was very swift. On November 1, with only the palace guard remaining to defend President Diệm and his younger brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, the generals called the palace offering Diệm exile if he surrendered. However, that evening, Diệm and his entourage escaped via an underground passage to Cholon, where they were captured the following morning, November 2. The brothers were executed in the back of an armoured personnel carrier by Captain Nguyen Van Nhung while en route to the Vietnamese Joint General Staff headquarters.[62] Diệm was buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery next to the house of the U.S. ambassador.[63]
Upon learning of Diệm's ouster and death, Ho Chi Minh reportedly said, "I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid."[64] The North Vietnamese Politburo was more explicit, predicting: "The consequences of the 1 November coup d'état will be contrary to the calculations of the U.S. imperialists ... Diệm was one of the strongest individuals resisting the people and Communism. Everything that could be done in an attempt to crush the revolution was carried out by Diệm. Diệm was one of the most competent lackeys of the U.S. imperialists ... Among the anti-Communists in South Vietnam or exiled in other countries, no one has sufficient political assets and abilities to cause others to obey. Therefore, the lackey administration cannot be stabilized. The coup d'état on 1 November 1963 will not be the last."[64]
After Diệm's assassination, South Vietnam was unable to establish a stable government and numerous coups took place during the first several years after his death. While the U.S. continued to influence South Vietnam's government, the assassination bolstered North Vietnamese attempts to characterize the South Vietnamese as supporters of colonialism.[65]
^"The Beleaguered Man", Time (magazine), April 4, 1955. Accessed March 27, 2008. "For the best part of two years (1951-53) he made his home at the Maryknoll Junior Seminary in Lakewood, N.J. often going down to Washington to buttonhole State Department men and Congressmen and urge them not to support French colonialism."
Gettleman, Marvin E. (1966). Vietnam: History, Documents, and Opinions on a Major World Crisis. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books.
Jacobs, Seth (2006). Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN0-7425-4447-8.
Topmiller, Robert J. (2006). The Lotus Unleashed: The Buddhist Peace Movement in South Vietnam. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN0813122600.
Tucker, Spencer C. (2000). Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social and Military History. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN1576070409.
Warner, Denis (1964). The Last Confucian: Vietnam, South-East Asia, and the West. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.2011 Wimbledon Championships – Men's Singles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Djokovic won his first Wimbledon title. Upon reaching the final, he gained the World No.1 ranking as a result. This marks the first time that neither Roger Federer nor Rafael Nadal is ranked No. 1 since 2 February 2004, as well as the first time since 2002 that neither Federer nor Nadal is the singles champion.
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Mathematics, from the Greek: μαθηματικά or mathēmatiká, is the study of patterns. Such patterns include quantities (numbers) and their operations, interrelations, combinations and abstractions; and of space configurations and their structure, measurement, transformations, and generalizations. Mathematics evolved through the use of abstraction and logicalreasoning, from counting, calculation, measurement, and the systematic study of positions, shapes and motions of abstract objects. Mathematicians explore such concepts, aiming to formulate new conjectures and establish their truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions.
Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to the GreekmathematicianEuclid of Alexandria. Euclid's text Elements was the first systematic discussion of geometry. It has been one of the most influential books in history, as much for its method as for its mathematical content. The method consists of assuming a small set of intuitively appealing axioms, and then proving many other propositions (theorems) from those axioms. Although many of Euclid's results had been stated by earlier Greek mathematicians, Euclid was the first to show how these propositions could fit together into a comprehensive deductive and logical system.
For over two thousand years, the adjective "Euclidean" was unnecessary because no other sort of geometry had been conceived. Euclid's axioms seemed so intuitively obvious that any theorem proved from them was deemed true in an absolute sense. Today, however, many other self-consistent geometries are known, the first ones having been discovered in the early 19th century. It also is no longer taken for granted that Euclidean geometry describes physical space. An implication of Einstein's theory of general relativity is that Euclidean geometry is only a good approximation to the properties of physical space if the gravitational field is not too strong.
...that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type the complete works of William Shakespeare?
... that there are 115,200 solutions to the ménage problem of permuting six couples at a twelve-person table so that men and women alternate and are seated away from their partners?
This article is about the kingdom in Southwestern Britain. For Brythonic colony of the same name in Brittany, see Domnonée. For the kingdom in northern Britain, see Damnonii.
Dumnonia is the Latinised name for the Brythonic kingdom in sub-Roman Britain between the late 4th and late 8th centuries, located in the farther parts of the south-west peninsula of Great Britain. It was centred in the area later known as Devon, but also included parts of Somerset and possibly Dorset, its eastern boundary changing over time.
Some historians interpreted it as including Cornubia or Cornwall, although the kingdom of Cornwall was based on a sub-tribe, the Cornovii, and appears to have been at least semi-independent at times, certainly retaining its independence after parts of Dumnonia came under Anglo-Saxon control between the 7th and 10th centuries.[1]
Celtic tribes of southern Britain at the start of the Roman period
The kingdom is named after the Dumnonii, a BritishCeltic tribe living in the southwest when the Romans arrived in Britain, according to Ptolemy's Geography. Variants of the name Dumnonia include Domnonia and Damnonia, the latter being used by Gildas in the 6th century as a pun on "damnation" to deprecate the area's contemporary ruler Constantine.[2] The name has etymological origins in the proto-Celtic root word *dubno-, meaning both "deep" and "world". Groups with similar names existed in Scotland (Damnonii) and Ireland (Fir Domnann).[2] Later, the area became known to the English of neighbouring Wessex as the kingdom of West Wales, and its inhabitants were also known to them as Defnas (i.e. men of Dumnonia). In Welsh, and similarly in the native Brythonic language, it was Dyfneint and this is the form which survives today in the name of the county of Devon (Modern Welsh: Dyfnaint, Cornish: Dewnans).
After emigration from southwestern Britain to northern Armorica, a sister kingdom also called Domnonia (Breton: Dumnonea, French: Domnonée) was established on the continental north Atlantic coast in what became known as Brittany (Breton: Breizh, French Bretagne, "Britain"), the name of which derives from the French Grande-Bretagne coined to distinguish the island from Bretagne. The main period of emigration from Dumnonia to Armorica is believed to have been in the 5th and 6th centuries, and it is speculated that the Dumnonii saw the end of the Roman empire as an opportunity to establish control in new areas.[3]
Before the arrival of the Romans, the Dumnonii seem to have inhabited the southwest peninsula of Britain as far east as the River Parrett in Somerset and the River Axe in Dorset, judging by the coin distributions of the Dobunni and Durotriges.[4] In the Roman period there was a provincial boundary between the area governed from Exeter and those governed from Dorchester and Ilchester.
In the post Roman period the eastern boundary of Dumnonia is unclear. The boundary may have been formed by the West Wansdyke, Selwood Forest and Bokerly Dyke. Thus Dumnonia would have included later Cornwall, Devon, most of Somerset and most of Dorset. If so Dumnonia would have included places such as Glastonbury and South Cadbury. With the expansion of Wessex, the boundary was gradually pushed westward, see below.
The cultural connections of the pre-Roman Dumnonii, as expressed in their ceramics, are thought to have been with the peninsula of Armorica across the Channel, and with Wales and Ireland, rather than with the southeast of Britain.[3][5][6] The people of Dumnonia are likely to have spoken a Brythonic dialect similar to the ancestor of modern Cornish and Breton. Irish immigrants, the Déisi, are evidenced by the Ogham-inscribed stones [7]:[8] they have left behind, confirmed and supplemented by place-name studies. Apart from fishing and agriculture, the main economic resource of the Dumnonii was tin mining, the tin having been exported since ancient times from the port of Ictis[9] (St Michael's Mount or Mount Batten). Tin working continued throughout Roman occupation and appears to have reached a peak during the 3rd century AD.[10] The area maintained trade links with Gaul and the Mediterranean after the Roman withdrawal, and it is likely that tin played an important part in this trade.[2] Post-Roman imported pottery has been excavated from many sites across the region. An apparent surge in late 5th century Mediterranean and/or Byzantine imports is yet to be explained satisfactorily.[11]
Christianity seems to have survived in Dumnonia after the Roman departure from Britain, with a number of late Roman Christian cemeteries extending into the post-Roman period.[3] In the 5th and 6th centuries the area was allegedly evangelized by the children of Brychan and saints from Ireland, like Saint Piran; and Wales, like Saint Petroc or Saint Keyne. There were important monasteries at Bodmin and Glastonbury; and also Exeter where 5th century burials discovered near the cathedral probably represent the cemetery of the foundation attended by St. Boniface (although whether this was Saxon or Brythonic is somewhat controversial). Sporadically, Cornish bishops are named in various records until they submitted to the See of Canterbury in the mid-9th century. Parish organisation was a later development of fully Normanised times.[12]
In pre-Roman times the Dumnonii had mostly a subsistence economy with no dominant elites, and many individual farms. Around AD 55, the Romans established a legionary fortress at Isca Dumnoniorum, modern Exeter, but west of Exeter the area remained largely un-Romanized.[9] Most of Dumnonia is notable for its lack of a villa system though there were substantial numbers south of Bath and around Ilchester, and for its many settlements that have survived from the Romano-British period. As in other Brythonic areas, Iron Agehillforts, such as Cadbury Castle, were refortified in Post-Roman times for the use of chieftains or kings, and other high-status settlements such as Tintagel seem to have been reconstructed during the period. Local archaeology has revealed that the isolated enclosed farmsteads known locally as rounds seem to have survived the Roman departure from Britain, but were subsequently replaced, in the 6th and 7th centuries, by unenclosed farms taking the Brythonictoponymictre-.[1][13]
Exeter, known to the British as Caer Uisc, was later the site of an important Saxon minster, but was still partially inhabited by Dumnonian Britons up until the 10th century when Athelstan expelled them.[3][14] By the mid-9th century, the royal seat may have been relocated further west, during the West Saxon advance, to Lis-Cerruyt (modern Liskeard). Cornish earls in the 10th century were said to have moved to Lostwithiel after Liskeard was seized.[15] It has been suggested that the rulers of Dumnonia were itinerant, stopping at various royal residences, such as Tintagel and Cadbury Castle, at different times of the year, possibly simultaneously holding lands in Brittany across the Channel. There is textual and archaeological evidence that districts such as Trigg were used as martially points for 'war hosts' from across the region,[16] likely to have also included troops from overseas evidenced by corresponding place names in Brittany - a recurring motif of BrythonicArthurian myth originating in this period, such as Tristan and Iseult.
Although subjugated by about AD 78, the local population could have retained strong local control, and Dumnonia may have been self-governed under Roman rule.[14]Geoffrey of Monmouth stated that the ruler of Dumnonia, perhaps about the period c290–c305, was Caradoc (Caractacus), who was said to have been the trusted advisor of Eudaf Hen (Octavius the Old). If not an entirely legendary figure, Caradoc would not have been a king in the true sense but may have held a powerful office within the Roman administration.[17] It is possible that the "Caratacus Stone"[18] on Withypool Common near Dulverton, inscribed Carataci nepus--- ("relative of Caradoc"), records one of his co-lateral descendants.
King Arthur is often said to have been a member of the royal house of Dumnonia, his traditional grandfather, Constantine, being identified with the Constantine denounced by Gildas as the "tyrant whelp of the filthy lioness of Damnonia".[3][5]Geoffrey of Monmouth said that Arthur was conceived at Tintagel Castle.[20]Erbin and his son, Geraint (or Gerren), appear in the Arthurian tale of Geraint and Enid as ruling "on the far side of Severn" (from Caerleon). There is debate about where Arthur's great victory at the Battle of Mount Badon, where the Brythonic Dumnonians fought off Anglo-Saxons, took place. Most historians, however, believe this battle was fought elsewhere, such as at Bath. Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed that Arthur's final Battle of Camlann, was fought in Cornwall; tradition points to Slaughter Bridge near Camelford.[21]
The Britons in Dumnonia were cut off from their allies in Wales by Ceawlin of Wessex's victory at Dyrham in 577, but as sea travel was easier than travel by land, the blow may not have been severe; principal trade routes were apparently maintained via the sea ports of neighbouring Brittany, since absorbed into France.[5]Clemen is thought to have been king when the Britons fought the Battle of Beandun (possibly Bindon near Axmouth in Devon[22]) in 614. However, Bampton in Oxfordshire has also been identified as the site of the battle.[23] The former battle site suggests that the Dumnonian army was invading Wessex using the Roman road eastward from Exeter to Dorchester and was intercepted by a West Saxon garrison marching south.[24]
The Flores Historiarum, attributed incorrectly to Matthew of Westminster, states that the Britons were still in possession of Exeter in 632, when it was bravely defended against Penda of Mercia until relieved by Cadwallon, who engaged and defeated the Mercians with "great slaughter to their troops".[25] However this is based on Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-history.[26]
Around 652 Cenwalh of Wessex made a breakthrough against the Dumnonian defensive lines at the battle of Bradford-upon-Avon. The West Saxon victory at the Battle of Peonnum (possibly modern Penselwood in east Somerset), around 658, resulted in the Saxons capturing "as far as the Parrett" and the eastern part of Dumnonia being permanently annexed by Wessex. The Saxons may have expanded westward from eastern Somerset after a battle in 661 at Posentesburh, possibly Posbury near Crediton in Devon. In 682 they "advanced as far as the sea", but it is unclear where this was. In 705 a bishopric was set up in Sherborne for the Saxon area west of Selwood. In 710 a battle was fought between Geraint of Dumnonia and King Ine of Wessex.
The Annales Cambriae claim a heavy defeat of a Saxon force in Cornwall in 722. By about 755, the territory of the "Defnas" was coming under significant pressure from the Saxon army. The campaigns of Egbert of Wessex in Devon between 813 and 822 probably signalled the conquest of insular Dumnonia leaving a rump state in what is today called Cornwall.[27] The Cornish bishop of Bodmin acknowledged the authority of Canterbury in 870 and the last known Cornish King, Dunyarth, died in 875. The east bank of the Tamar was fixed by Æthelstan as the boundary between Cornwall and Devon in 936.
[edit]Possible Dumnonian continuity in Cornwall and Brittany
Dumnonia was sufficiently part of the known world for Aldhelm, later bishop of Sherborne, to address a letter around 680, to its king Geraint regarding the date of Easter, and though Geraint was defeated by Ine of Wessex around 710, the kingdom survived.[5] However, by about 813, Dumnonia was so compressed by the inroads made by Wessex that it had effectively ceased to exist as such. The remaining British territory became known as Cerniu, Cernyw, or Kernow, and to the Anglo-Saxons as Cornwall or "West Wales".
Egbert of Wessex had further victories in the area in 813.[28] In 822 a battle was fought between the "Welsh", presumably those of Cornwall, and the Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states:- "The Westwealas (Cornish) and the men of Defnas (Devon) fought at Gafulforda" (perhaps Galford in west Devon). However, there is no mention of who won or who lost, or whether the men of Cornwall and Devon were fighting each other or on the same side. A further rebellion in 838, when the "West Welsh" were supported by Danish forces, was crushed by Egbert at Hingston Down, located either near Gunnislake or alternatively near Moretonhampstead.[5] By the 880s Wessex had gained control of at least part of Cornwall, where Alfred the Great had estates.[29] In 927, according to William of Malmesbury writing around 1120, Athelstan evicted the Cornish from Exeter and perhaps the rest of Devon: "Exeter was cleansed of its defilement by wiping out that filthy race".[30] In 936 he set the border between England and Cornwall as the east bank of the River Tamar.[31]
Although the chronology of Wessex expansion into all of Dumnonia is unclear, Devon had long been absorbed into England by the reign of Edward the Confessor.[32][33] In the period up to the Norman Conquest of 1066 there are references to a ruler Cadoc of Cornwall. This last native Earl of Cornwall was deposed by William the Conqueror, effectively bringing to a close the last vestiges of the Dumnonian kings in Britain. However, Cornwall showed a very different type of settlement pattern to that of Wessex and places continued, even after 1066, to be named in the Celtic Cornish tradition with Saxon architecture being uncommon in Cornwall. The earliest record for any Anglo Saxon place names west of the Tamar is around 1040.[30]
The region of Cornouaille (Br. Kernev) in modern France is assumed to owe its name to descendants originating in insular Cornwall - the medieval kingdom of Domnonea, cognate to ancient Dumnonia, has however been lost to modern departemente boundaries.
^Jones, Barri; Mattingly, David (1990), "Britain Before the Conquest: Urbanization", An Atlas of Roman Britain, Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers (published 2007), pp. 47–55, ISBN9781842170670
^ Cunliffe, Barry (2005) Iron Age Communities in Britain: an Account of England, Scotland and Wales from the Seventh Century BC Until the Roman Conquest, 4th ed. pp. 201-206.
^ Thomas, Charles (1994) And Shall These Mute Stones Speak? Post-Roman Inscriptions in Western Britain Cardiff
^ The stones are sometimes inscribed in Latin, sometimes in both: Thomas (1994). University of Wales Press
^ Webster, Graham (1991) The Cornovii (Peoples of Roman Britain series)
^ *Thomas, Charles (1993) English Heritage Book of Tintagel: Arthur and archaeology. London: B. T. Batsford; pp. 23-28
^ Slaughterbridge is said to take its name from two battles which reputedly took place nearby during the Early Middle Ages ( http://www.slaughterbridgedig.blogspot.com/ Archeologist Nick Hanks' website ). As 'slaughter' is an Old English word for 'marsh' it provides no evidence that battles were fought here (see Galford for the battle of Gafulford).
^ Jenkins, Alexander (1806) The History and Description of the City of Exeter. Exeter: P. Hedgeland; p. 11
^ Giles, J. A. (1848) Six Old English Chronicles. London: Henry G. Bohn; p. 284
^ Major, Albany (1913) Early Wars of Wessex, pp. 92-98. Cambridge: University Press (reissued by: Blandford Press. ISBN 0713720689)
^ Major, Albany (1913) Early Wars of Wessex, pp. 95. Blandford Press. ISBN 0713720689.
^ Keynes, Simon; Lapidge, Michael (tr.) (1983) Alfred the Great - Asser's Life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources, London, Penguin, p. 175; cf. ibid, p. 89.
Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II, which brought to an end in 1945 by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament called the Diet.
The English word Japan is an exonym. The Japanese names for Japan are Nippon(にっぽん?)listen (help·info) and Nihon(にほん?)listen (help·info); both names are written using the kanji日本. The Japanese name Nippon is used for most official purposes, including on Japanese yen, postage stamps, and for many international sporting events. Nihon is a more casual term and is used in contemporary speech. Japanese people refer to themselves as Nihonjin(日本人?) and to their language as Nihongo(日本語?). Both Nippon and Nihon mean "sun-origin" and are often translated as Land of the Rising Sun. This nomenclature comes from Japanese missions to Imperial China and refers to Japan's eastward position relative to China. Before Nihon came into official use, Japan was known as Wa(倭?) or Wakoku(倭国?).[16]
The English word for Japan came to the West via early trade routes. The early Mandarin or possibly Wu Chinese (吳語) word for Japan was recorded by Marco Polo as Cipangu. In modern Shanghainese, a Wu dialect, the pronunciation of characters 日本 'Japan' is Zeppen[zəʔpən]. The old Malay word for Japan, Jepang, was borrowed from a Chinese language, and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders in Malacca in the 16th century. It is thought the Portuguese traders were the first to bring the word to Europe. It was first recorded in English in a 1565 letter, spelled Giapan.[17]
A Paleolithic culture around 30,000 BC constitutes the first known habitation of Japan. This was followed from around 14,000 BC (the start of the Jōmon period) by a Mesolithic to Neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer culture, who include ancestors of both the contemporary Ainu people and Yamato people,[18][19] characterized by pit dwelling and rudimentary agriculture.[20] Decorated clay vessels from this period are some of the oldest surviving examples of pottery in the world. Around 300 BC, the Yayoi people began to enter the Japanese islands, intermingling with the Jōmon.[21] The Yayoi period, starting around 500 BC, saw the introduction of practices like wet-rice farming,[22] a new style of pottery,[23] and metallurgy, introduced from China and Korea.[24]
The Japanese first appear in written history in the Chinese Book of Han. According to the Records of Three Kingdoms, the most powerful kingdom on the archipelago during the 3rd century was called Yamataikoku. Buddhism was first introduced to Japan from Baekje, but the subsequent development of Japanese Buddhism was primarily influenced by China.[25] Despite early resistance, Buddhism was promoted by the ruling class and gained widespread acceptance beginning in the Asuka period (592-710).[26]
The Nara period (710-784) of the 8th century marked the emergence of a strong Japanese state, centered on an imperial court in Heijō-kyō (modern Nara). The Nara period is characterized by the appearance of a nascent literature as well as the development of Buddhist-inspired art and architecture.[27] The smallpox epidemic of 735–737 is believed to have killed as much as one-third of Japan's population.[28] In 784, Emperor Kammu moved the capital from Nara to Nagaoka-kyō before relocating it to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto) in 794.
Buddhism began to spread during the Heian era through chiefly two major sect, Tendai by Saichō, and Shingon by Kūkai. Pure Land Buddhism greatly becomes popular in the latter half of the 11th century.
Ashikaga Takauji establishes the shogunate in Muromachi, Kyoto. It is a start of Muromachi Period (1336-1573). The Ashikaga shogunate receives glory in the age of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, and the culture based on Zen Buddhism (art of Miyabi) has prospered. It evolves to Higashiyama Culture, and has prospered until the 16th century. On the other hand, the succeeding Ashikaga shogunate failed to control the feudal warlords (daimyo), and a civil war (the Ōnin War) began in 1467, opening the century-long Sengoku period ("Warring States").[31]
During the 16th century, traders and Jesuitmissionaries from Portugal reached Japan for the first time, initiating direct commercial and cultural exchange between Japan and the West. Oda Nobunaga conquered many other daimyo using European technology and firearms; after he was assassinated in 1582, his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified the nation in 1590. Hideyoshi invaded Korea twice, but following defeats by Korean and Ming Chinese forces and Hideyoshi's death, Japanese troops were withdrawn in 1598.[32] This age is called Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1573-1603).
Tokugawa Ieyasu served as regent for Hideyoshi's son and used his position to gain political and military support. When open war broke out, he defeated rival clans in the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Ieyasu was appointed shogun in 1603 and established the Tokugawa shogunate at Edo (modern Tokyo).[33] The Tokugawa shogunate enacted measures including buke shohatto, as a code of conduct to control the autonomous daimyo;[34] and in 1639, the isolationist sakoku ("closed country") policy that spanned the two and a half centuries of tenuous political unity known as the Edo period (1603-1868).[35] The study of Western sciences, known as rangaku, continued through contact with the Dutch enclave at Dejima in Nagasaki. The Edo period also gave rise to kokugaku ("national studies"), the study of Japan by the Japanese.[36]
Modern era
On March 31, 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry and the "Black Ships" of the United States Navy forced the opening of Japan to the outside world with the Convention of Kanagawa. Subsequent similar treaties with Western countries in the Bakumatsu period brought economic and political crises. The resignation of the shogun led to the Boshin War and the establishment of a centralized state nominally unified under the Emperor (the Meiji Restoration).[37] Adopting Western political, judicial and military institutions, the Cabinet organized the Privy Council, introduced the Meiji Constitution, and assembled the Imperial Diet. The Meiji Restoration transformed the Empire of Japan into an industrialized world power that pursued military conflict to expand its sphere of influence. After victories in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), Japan gained control of Taiwan, Korea, and the southern half of Sakhalin.[38] Japan's population grew from 35 million in 1873 to 70 million in 1935.[39]
Japan is a constitutional monarchy where the power of the Emperor is very limited. As a ceremonial figurehead, he is defined by the constitution as "the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people". Power is held chiefly by the Prime Minister of Japan and other elected members of the Diet, while sovereignty is vested in the Japanese people.[51]Akihito is the current Emperor of Japan; Naruhito, Crown Prince of Japan, stands as next in line to the throne.
Japan's legislative organ is the National Diet, a bicameral parliament. The Diet consists of a House of Representatives with 480 seats, elected by popular vote every four years or when dissolved, and a House of Councillors of 242 seats, whose popularly-elected members serve six-year terms. There is universal suffrage for adults over 20 years of age,[2] with a secret ballot for all elected offices.[51] In 2009, the social liberal Democratic Party of Japan took power after 54 years of the liberal conservative Liberal Democratic Party's rule.[52] The Prime Minister of Japan is the head of government and is appointed by the Emperor after being designated by the Diet from among its members. The Prime Minister is the head of the Cabinet and appoints and dismisses the Ministers of State. Naoto Kan was designated by the Diet to replace Yukio Hatoyama as the Prime Minister of Japan on June 2, 2010.[53] Although the Prime Minister is formally appointed by the Emperor, the Constitution of Japan explicitly requires the Emperor to appoint whoever is designated by the Diet. Emperor Akihito formally appointed Kan as the country's 94th Prime Minister on June 8.[54]
Historically influenced by Chinese law, the Japanese legal system developed independently during the Edo period through texts such as Kujikata Osadamegaki.[55] However, since the late 19th century the judicial system has been largely based on the civil law of Europe, notably Germany. For example, in 1896, the Japanese government established a civil code based on a draft of the German Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch; with post–World War II modifications, the code remains in effect.[56] Statutory law originates in Japan's legislature and has the rubber stamp of the Emperor. The Constitution requires that the Emperor promulgate legislation passed by the Diet, without specifically giving him the power to oppose legislation.[51] Japan's court system is divided into four basic tiers: the Supreme Court and three levels of lower courts.[57] The main body of Japanese statutory law is called the Six Codes.[58]
Japan is a member of the G8, APEC, and "ASEAN Plus Three", and is a participant in the East Asia Summit. Japan signed a security pact with Australia in March 2007[59] and with India in October 2008.[60] It is the world's third largest donor of official development assistance after the United States and France, donating US$9.48 billion in 2009.[61]
Japan has close economic and military relations with the United States; the US-Japan security alliance acts as the cornerstone of the nation's foreign policy.[62] A member state of the United Nations since 1956, Japan has served as a non-permanent Security Council member for a total of 19 years, most recently for 2009 and 2010. It is one of the G4 nations seeking permanent membership in the Security Council.[63]
Japan maintains one of the largest military budgets of any country in the world.[66] Japan contributed non-combatant troops to the Iraq War but subsequently withdrew its forces.[67] The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is a regular participant in RIMPAC maritime exercises.[68]
Japan's military is restricted by Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which renounces Japan's right to declare war or use military force in international disputes. Japan's military is governed by the Ministry of Defense, and primarily consists of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF), the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) and the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF). The forces have been recently used in peacekeeping operations; the deployment of troops to Iraq marked the first overseas use of Japan's military since World War II.[67]Nippon Keidanren has called on the government to lift the ban on arms exports so that Japan can join multinational projects such as the Joint Strike Fighter.[69]
Japan consists of forty-seven prefectures, each overseen by an elected governor, legislature and administrative bureaucracy. Each prefecture is further divided into cities, towns and villages.[70] The nation is currently undergoing administrative reorganization by merging many of the cities, towns and villages with each other. This process will reduce the number of sub-prefecture administrative regions and is expected to cut administrative costs.[71]
Japan has a total of 6,852 islands extending along the Pacific coast of Asia. The country, including all of the islands it controls, lies between latitudes 24° and 46°N, and longitudes 122° and 146°E. The main islands, from north to south, are Hokkaidō, Honshū, Shikoku and Kyūshū. The Ryūkyū Islands, including Okinawa, are a chain to the south of Kyūshū. Together they are often known as the Japanese Archipelago.[72] About 73 percent of Japan is forested, mountainous, and unsuitable for agricultural, industrial, or residential use.[2][73] As a result, the habitable zones, mainly located in coastal areas, have extremely high population densities. Japan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world.[74]
The islands of Japan are located in a volcanic zone on the Pacific Ring of Fire. They are primarily the result of large oceanic movements occurring over hundreds of millions of years from the mid-Silurian to the Pleistocene as a result of the subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate beneath the continental Amurian Plate and Okinawa Plate to the south, and subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Okhotsk Plate to the north. Japan was originally attached to the eastern coast of the Eurasian continent. The subducting plates pulled Japan eastward, opening the Sea of Japan around 15 million years ago.[75] Japan has 108 active volcanoes. Destructive earthquakes, often resulting in tsunami, occur several times each century.[76] The 1923 Tokyo earthquake killed over 140,000 people.[77] More recent major quakes are the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, a 9.0-magnitude[78] quake which hit Japan on March 11, 2011, and triggered a large tsunami.[50]
The MPs (although not Lord Hanningfield) successful applied the Supreme Court for permission to appeal the decision. The Supreme Court, comprising nine judges to reflect the importance of the matter, heard arguments over two days in October 2010 before unanimously rejecting the submission that Parliamentary privilege under either the common law or the Bill of Rights 1689 protected the defendants from prosecution.
As a consequence, each case was referred back to the Crown Court. Chaytor and Morley pleaded guilty to dishonesty offences and Devine was found guilty at trial. Each received sentences of between 16 and 18 months imprisonment in relation to their expenses claims.[1][2][3]
Each charge was brought in relation to allegations that each defendant had misused the Parliamentary expenses system and dishonestly claimed substantial sums of money which they were not entitled to during their terms in Parliament.[5]
Each defendant was separately committed for trial at the Crown Court and separately raised the argument that proceedings could not be brought against them due to the protection of Parliamentary privilege. A single hearing was held to determine the matter in which Saunders J ruled that the politicians were not afforded protection by Parliamentary privilege. The four defendants appealed to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division).
Agriculture is a major business in the county. Farming of sheep and cattle, including for wool and the county's famous cheeses (most notably Cheddar), are traditional and contemporary, as is the more unusual cultivation of willow for basketry. Apple orchards were once plentiful, and to this day Somerset is known for the production of strong cider. Unemployment is lower than the national average, and the largest employment sectors are retail, manufacturing, tourism, and health and social care. Population growth in the county is higher than the national average.
The name derives from Old EnglishSumorsǣte, which is short for Sumortūnsǣte, meaning "the people living at or dependent upon Sumortūn."[2] The first known use of the name Somersæte was in 845, after the region fell to the Saxons.[3] Sumortūn is modern Somerton and may mean "summer settlement," a farmstead occupied during the summer but abandoned in the winter.[4] However, Somerton is not down on the levels—lower ground, where only summer occupation was possible because of flooding—but on a hill where winter occupation would have been feasible. An alternative suggestion is that the name derives from Seo-mere-saetan meaning "settlers by the sea lakes."[5] The people of Somerset are first mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's entry for 845 AD, in the inflected form "Sumursætum," but the county is first mentioned in the entry for 1015 using the same name. The archaic county name Somersetshire is first mentioned in the Chronicle's entry for 878. Although "Somersetshire" had been in common use as an alternative name for the county, it went out of fashion in the late 19th century, and is no longer used. This is possibly due to the adoption of "Somerset" as the official name for the county through the establishment of the County Council in 1889. However, as with other counties not ending in "shire," this suffix was superfluous, as there was no need to differentiate between the county and a town within it.
The Old English name continues to be used in the motto of the county, Sumorsǣte ealle, meaning "all the people of Somerset." Adopted as the motto in 1911, the phrase is taken from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Somerset was a part of the Anglo-Saxonkingdom of Wessex, and the phrase refers to the wholehearted support the people of Somerset gave to King Alfred in his struggle to save Wessex from the Viking invaders.[6][7][8]
Somerset is Gwlad yr Haf in Welsh, Gwlas an Hav in Cornish and Bro an Hañv in Breton, which all mean "Land of Summer."
Somerset settlement names are mostly Anglo-Saxon in origin, but a few hill names include Celtic elements. For example, an Anglo-Saxon charter of 682 concerning Creechborough Hill defines it as "the hill the British call Cructan and we call Crychbeorh"[9] ("we" being the Anglo-Saxons). Some modern names are Brythonic in origin, such as Tarnock, while others have both Saxon and Brythonic elements, such as Pen Hill.[10]
The caves of the Mendip Hills were settled during the Palaeolithic period[11] onward and contain extensive archaeological sites such as those at Cheddar Gorge. Bones from Gough's Cave have been dated to 12,000 BC while a complete skeleton, known as Cheddar man, dates from 7150 BC. Examples of cave art have been found in caves such as Aveline's Hole. Occupation of some caves continued until modern times, including Wookey Hole.
On the authority of the future emperor Vespasian, as part of the ongoing expansion of the Roman presence in Britain, the Second Legion Augusta invaded Somerset from the south-east in AD 47. The county remained part of the Roman Empire until around AD 409, when the Roman occupation of Britain came to an end.[1] A variety of Roman remains have been found, including Pagans Hill Roman Temple in Chew Stoke,[18]Low Ham Roman Villa and the Roman Baths which gave their name to the city of Bath.[19]
After the Romans left, Britain was invaded by Anglo-Saxon peoples, who had established control over much of what is now England by A.D. 600 but Somerset was still in British hands. The native British held back Saxon advance in the southwest for some time longer, but by the early eighth century King Ine of Wessex had pushed the boundaries of the West Saxon kingdom far enough west to include Somerset.[20] The Saxon royal palace in Cheddar was used several times in the 10th century to host the Witenagemot.[21] After the Norman Conquest, the county was divided into 700 fiefs, and large areas were owned by the crown,[3] with fortifications such as Dunster Castle used for control and defence. Somerset contains HMP Shepton Mallet, England's oldest prison still in use, which opened in 1610.[22] In the English Civil War Somerset was largely Parliamentarian.[23] In 1685 the Monmouth Rebellion was played out in Somerset and neighbouring Dorset.[24] The rebels landed at Lyme Regis and travelled north, hoping to capture Bristol and Bath, but they were defeated in the Battle of Sedgemoor at Westonzoyland, the last pitched battle fought in England.[25]Arthur Wellesley took his title, Duke of Wellington from the town of Wellington;[26] he is commemorated on a nearby hill by a large, spotlit obelisk, known as the Wellington Monument.
The 18th century was largely one of peace in Somerset, but the Industrial Revolution in the Midlands and Northern England spelled the end for most of Somerset's cottage industries. Farming continued to flourish, however, and the Bath and West of England Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures and Commerce was founded in 1777 to improve farming methods. Despite this, 20 years later John Billingsley conducted a survey of the county's agriculture in 1795 and found that agricultural methods could still be improved.[27]Coal mining was an important industry in north Somerset during the 18th and 19th centuries, and by 1800 it was prominent in Radstock.[28] The Somerset coalfield reached its peak production by the 1920s, but all the pits have now been closed, the last in 1973.[29] Most of the surface buildings have been removed, and apart from a winding wheel outside Radstock Museum, little evidence of their former existence remains. Further west, the Brendon Hills were mined for iron ore in the late 19th century; this was taken by rail to Watchet Harbour for shipment to the furnaces at Ebbw Vale.
Many Somerset soldiers died during the First World War, with the Somerset Light Infantry suffering nearly 5,000 casualties.[30] War memorials were put up in most of the county's towns and villages; only nine, described as the Thankful Villages, had none of their residents killed. During the Second World War the county was a base for troops preparing for the D-Day landings. Some of the hospitals which were built for the casualties of the war remain in use. The Taunton Stop Line was set up to repel a potential German invasion. The remains of its pill boxes can still be seen along the coast, and south through Ilminster and Chard.[31]
A number of decoy towns were constructed in Somerset in World War II to protect Bristol and other towns, at night. They were designed to mimic the geometry of "blacked out" streets, railway lines, and Bristol Temple Meads railway station, to encourage bombers away from these targets.[32] One, on the radio beam flight path to Bristol, was constructed on Beacon Batch.[32][33] It was laid out by Shepperton Film Studios, based on aerial photographs of the city's railway marshalling yards.[32] The decoys were fitted with dim red lights, simulating activities like the stoking of steam locomotives. Burning bales of straw soaked in creosote were used to simulate the effects of incendiary bombs dropped by the first wave of Pathfinder night bombers; meanwhile, incendiary bombs dropped on the correct location were quickly smothered, wherever possible. Drums of oil were also ignited to simulate the effect of a blazing city or town, with the aim of fooling subsequent waves of bombers into dropping their bombs on the wrong location.[32] The Chew Magna decoy town was hit by half-a-dozen bombs on 2 December 1940, and over a thousand incendiaries on 3 January 1941.[32] The following night the Uphill decoy town, protecting Weston-super-Mare's airfield, was bombed; a herd of dairy cows was hit, killing some and severely injuring others.[32]
Somerton took over from Ilchester as the county town in the late thirteenth century,[34] but it declined in importance and the status of county town transferred to Taunton about 1366.[35] The county has two cities, Bath and Wells, and only a small number of towns. In many cases there are villages which are larger than their neighbouring towns; the village of Cheddar, for example, has three times the population of the nearby town of Axbridge. Many settlements developed because of their strategic importance in relation to geographical features, such as river crossings or valleys in ranges of hills. Examples include Axbridge on the River Axe, Castle Cary on the River Cary, North Petherton on the River Parrett, and Ilminster, where there was a crossing point on the River Isle. Midsomer Norton lies on the River Somer; while the Wellow Brook and the FossewayRoman road run through Radstock, which, along with Midsomer Norton, is now designated as a part of Norton Radstock. Chard is the most southerly town in Somerset, and at an altitude of 121 m (397 ft) it is also the highest.[36]
To the north-east of the Somerset Levels, the Mendip Hills are moderately high limestone hills. The central and western Mendip Hills was designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1972 and covers 198 km2 (76 sq mi).[38] The main habitat on these hills is calcareous grassland, with some arable agriculture. The Somerset coalfield is part of a larger coalfield which stretches into Gloucestershire. To the north of the Mendip hills is the Chew Valley and to the south, on the clay substrate, are broad valleys which support dairy farming and drain into the Somerset Levels.
There is an extensive network of caves, including Wookey Hole, underground rivers, and gorges, including the Cheddar Gorge and Ebbor Gorge.[39] The county has many rivers, including the Axe, Brue, Cary, Parrett, Sheppey, Tone and Yeo. These both feed and drain the flat levels and moors of mid and west Somerset.[40] In the north of the county the River Chew flows into the Bristol Avon. The Parrett is tidal almost to Langport, where there is evidence of two Roman wharfs.[41] At the same site during the reign of King Charles I, river tolls were levied on boats to pay for the maintenance of the bridge.[41]
The Somerset Levels (or Somerset Levels and Moors as they are less commonly but more correctly known) are a sparsely populated wetland area of central Somerset, between the Quantock and Mendip hills. They consist of marine clay levels along the coast, and the inland (often peat based) moors. The Levels are divided into two by the Polden Hills; land to the south is drained by the River Parrett while land to the north is drained by the River Axe and the River Brue. The total area of the Levels amounts to about 647.5 square kilometres (160,000 acres)[42] and broadly corresponds to the administrative district of Sedgemoor but also includes the south west of Mendip district. Approximately 70% of the area is grassland and 30% is arable.[42] Stretching about 32 kilometres (20 mi) inland, this expanse of flat land barely rises above sea level. Before it was drained, much of the land was under a shallow brackish sea in winter and was marsh land in summer. Drainage began with the Romans, and was restarted at various times: by the Anglo-Saxons; in the Middle Ages by the Glastonbury Abbey, from 1400–1770; and during the Second World War, with the construction of the Huntspill River. Pumping and management of water levels still continues.[43]
The 64 km (40 mi) coastline of the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary forms part of the northern border of Somerset.[47] The Bristol Channel has the second largest tidal range in the world. At Burnham-on-Sea, for example, the tidal range of a spring tide is over 12 metres (39 ft).[48] Proposals for the construction of a Severn Barrage aim to harness this energy. The main coastal towns are, from the west to the north-east, Minehead, Watchet, Burnham-on-Sea, Weston-super-Mare, Clevedon and Portishead. The coastal area between Minehead and the eastern extreme of the administrative county's coastline at Brean Down is known as Bridgwater Bay, and is a National Nature Reserve.[49] North of that, the coast forms Weston Bay and Sand Bay whose northern tip, Sand Point, marks the lower limit of the Severn Estuary.[50] In the mid and north of the county the coastline is low as the level wetlands of the levels meet the sea. In the west, the coastline is high and dramatic where the plateau of Exmoor meets the sea, with high cliffs and waterfalls.[51]
Along with the rest of South West England, Somerset has a temperate climate which is generally wetter and milder than the rest of the country.[52] The annual mean temperature is approximately 10 °C (50.0 °F). Seasonal temperature variation is less extreme than most of the United Kingdom because of the adjacent sea temperatures. The summer months of July and August are the warmest with mean daily maxima of approximately 21 °C(69.8 °F). In winter mean minimum temperatures of 1 °C(33.8 °F) or 2 °C(35.6 °F) are common.[52] In the summer the Azores high pressure affects the south-west of England, however convective cloud sometimes forms inland, reducing the number of hours of sunshine. Annual sunshine rates are slightly less than the regional average of 1,600 hours.[52] In December 1998 there were 20 days without sun recorded at Yeovilton. Most the rainfall in the south-west is caused by Atlantic depressions or by convection. Most of the rainfall in autumn and winter is caused by the Atlantic depressions, which is when they are most active. In summer, a large proportion of the rainfall is caused by sun heating the ground leading to convection and to showers and thunderstorms. Average rainfall is around 700 mm (28 in). About 8–15 days of snowfall is typical. November to March have the highest mean wind speeds, and June to August have the lightest winds. The predominant wind direction is from the south-west.[52]
Climate data for Yeovilton, England (1971 - 2000) data
Somerset has few industrial centres, but it does have a variety of light industry and high technology businesses, along with traditional agriculture and an increasingly important tourism sector, resulting in an unemployment rate of 2.5%.[53]Bridgwater was developed during the Industrial Revolution as the West Country's leading port. The River Parrett was navigable by large ships as far as Bridgwater. Cargoes were then loaded onto smaller boats at Langport Quay, next to the Bridgwater Bridge, to be carried further up river to Langport;[54] or they could turn off at Burrowbridge and then travel via the River Tone to Taunton.[41] The Parrett is now only navigable as far as Dunball Wharf. Bridgwater, in the 19th and 20th centuries, was a centre for the manufacture of bricks and clay roof tiles, and later cellophane, but those industries have now closed.[54] With its good links to the motorway system, Bridgwater has developed as a distribution hub for companies such as Argos, Toolstation and Gerber Juice. AgustaWestland manufactures helicopters in Yeovil,[55] and Normalair Garratt, builder of aircraft oxygen systems, is also based in the town.[56] Many towns have encouraged small-scale light industries, such as Crewkerne's Ariel Motor Company, one of the UK's smallest car manufacturers.
Somerset is an important supplier of defence equipment and technology. A Royal Ordnance Factory, ROF Bridgwater was built at the start of the Second World War, between the villages of Puriton and Woolavington,[57] to manufacture explosives. The site was decommissioned and closed in July 2008.[58]Templecombe has Thales Underwater Systems,[59] and Taunton presently has the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office and Avimo, which became part of Thales Optics. It has been announced twice, in 2006 and 2007, that manufacturing is to end at Thales Optics' Taunton site,[60] but the Trade Unions and Taunton Deane District Council are working to reverse or mitigate these decisions. Other high-technology companies include the optics company Gooch and Housego, at Ilminster. There are Ministry of Defence offices in Bath, and Norton Fitzwarren is the home of 40 Commando Royal Marines. The Royal Naval Air Station in Yeovilton, is one of Britain's two active Fleet Air Arm bases and is home to the Royal Navy's Lynx helicopters and the Royal Marines Commando Westland Sea Kings. Around 1,675 service and 2,000 civilian personnel are stationed at Yeovilton and key activities include training of aircrew and engineers and the Royal Navy's Fighter Controllers and surface-based aircraft controllers.
Somerset scrumpy cider
Agriculture and food and drink production continue to be major industries in the county, employing over 15,000 people.[61] Apple orchards were once plentiful, and Somerset is still a major producer of cider. The towns of Taunton and Shepton Mallet are involved with the production of cider, especially Blackthorn Cider, which is sold nationwide, and there are specialist producers such as Burrow Hill Cider Farm and Thatchers Cider. Gerber Products Company in Bridgwater is the largest producer of fruit juices in Europe, producing brands such as "Sunny Delight" and "Ocean Spray." Development of the milk-based industries, such as Ilchester Cheese Company and Yeo Valley Organic, have resulted in the production of ranges of desserts, yoghurts and cheeses,[62] including Cheddar cheese—some of which has the West Country Farmhouse CheddarPDO.
Traditional willow growing and weaving is not as extensive as it used to be but is still carried out on the Somerset Levels and is commemorated at the Willows and Wetlands visitor centre.[63] Fragments of willow basket were found near the Glastonbury Lake Village, and it was also used in the construction of several Iron Age causeways.[64] The willow was harvested using a traditional method of coppicing, where a tree would be cut back to the main stem. During the 1930s more than 3600 hectares (9000 acres) of willow were being grown commercially on the Levels. Largely due to the displacement of baskets with plastic bags and cardboard boxes, the industry has severely declined since the 1950s. By the end of the 20th century only about 140 hectares (350 acres) were grown commercially, near the villages of Burrowbridge, Westonzoyland and North Curry.[42] The Somerset Levels is now the only area in the UK where basket willow is grown commercially.
Towns such as Castle Cary and Frome grew around the medieval weaving industry. Street developed as a centre for the production of woollen slippers and, later, boots and shoes, with C&J Clark establishing its headquarters in the town. C&J Clark's shoes are no longer manufactured there as the work was transferred to lower-wage areas, such as China and Asia.[65] Instead, in 1993, redundant factory buildings were converted to form Clarks Village, the first purpose-built factory outlet in the UK. C&J Clark also had shoe factories, at one time at Bridgwater and Minehead, to provide employment outside the main summer tourist season, but those satellite sites were closed in the late 1980s, before the main site at Street. Dr. Martens shoes were also made in Somerset, by the Northampton-based R. Griggs Group, using redundant skilled shoemakers from C&J Clark; that work has also been transferred to Asia.
Stone quarries are still a major employer in Somerset
The county has a long tradition of supplying freestone and building stone. Quarries at Doulting supplied freestone used in the construction of Wells Cathedral. Bath stone is also widely used. Ralph Allen promoted its use in the early 18th century, as did Hans Price in the 19th century, but it was used long before then. It was mined underground at Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines, and as a result of cutting the Box Tunnel, at locations in Wiltshire such as Box.[66][67][68] Bath stone is still used on a reduced scale today, but more often as a cladding rather than a structural material.[66] Further south, Hamstone is the colloquial name given to stone from Ham Hill, which is also widely used in the construction industry. Blue Lias has been used locally as a building stone and as a raw material for lime mortar and Portland cement. Until the 1960s, Puriton had Blue Lias stone quarries, as did several other Polden villages. Its quarries also supplied a cement factory at Dunball, adjacent to the King's Sedgemoor Drain. Its derelict, early 20th century remains were removed when the M5 motorway was constructed in the mid-1970s.[69] Since the 1920s, the county has supplied aggregates. Foster Yeoman is Europe's large supplier of limestone aggregates, with quarries at Merehead Quarry. It has a dedicated railway operation, Mendip Rail, which is used to transport aggregates by rail from a group of Mendip quarries.[70]
Washington, D.C. (/ˈwɒʃɪŋtənˌdiːˈsiː/), formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790. The U.S. Constitution allows for the creation of a special district to serve as the permanent national capital. The District is therefore not a part of any U.S. state and is instead directly overseen by the federal government. Within the District, a new capital city was founded in 1791 and named in honor of George Washington. The City of Washington, along with Georgetown and outlying areas within the federal district, were combined under a single, unified government in 1871, which formed Washington, D.C. as it exists today. The city shares its name with the U.S. state of Washington located on the country's Pacific coast.
The District is located on the north bank of the Potomac River and is bordered by the states of Virginia to the southwest and Maryland to the other sides. The city has a resident population of 601,723; because of commuters from the surrounding suburbs, its population rises to over one million during the workweek. The Washington Metropolitan Area, of which the District is a part, has a population of nearly 5.6 million, the seventh-largestmetropolitan area in the country.
An Algonquian-speaking people known as the Nacotchtank inhabited the area around the Anacostia River when the first Europeans arrived in the 17th century;[3] however, Native American people had largely relocated from the area by the early 18th century.[4] The Province of Maryland chartered a settlement at Georgetown on the north bank of the Potomac River in 1751. The busy port town would be included within the new federal territory established nearly 40 years later.[5] The City of Alexandria, Virginia, founded in 1749, was also originally included within the District.[6]
In his "Federalist No. 43", published January 23, 1788, James Madison argued that a new national capital would need to be distinct from the states in order to provide for its own maintenance and security.[7] Five years earlier while meeting in Philadelphia, the Congress was besieged by a mob of angry soldiers, but the state government refused to use its militia to disperse the protesters. Known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the situation emphasized the need for the federal government to not rely on any particular state for security.[8] Therefore, Article One, Section Eight of the United States Constitution grants Congress the authority to establish a "District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States".[9] The Constitution does not, however, specify a location for the new capital. In what later became known as the Compromise of 1790, Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson came to an agreement that the federal government would assume war debt carried by the states, on the condition that the new national capital would be located in the Southern United States.[a]
On July 16, 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a new national capital to be located on the Potomac River, the exact area to be selected by President Washington.[b] The initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles (16 km) on each side, totaling 100 square miles (260 km2), formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia. During 1791–92, Andrew Ellicott and several assistants, including Benjamin Banneker, surveyed the borders of the new federal district and placed boundary stones at every mile point. Many of the stones are still standing.[10] A new "federal city" was then constructed on the north bank of the Potomac, to the east of the established settlement at Georgetown. On September 9, 1791, the federal city was named in honor of George Washington and the district itself was named Columbia, which was a poetic name for the United States in use at that time.[11][c] Congress held its first session in Washington on November 17, 1800.[12]
Shortly after arriving in the new capital, Congress passed the Organic Act of 1801, which officially organized the District of Columbia and placed the entire area, including the cities of Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria, under the exclusive control of the federal government. Further, the unincorporated territory within the District was organized into two counties: the County of Washington to the east of the Potomac and the County of Alexandria to the west.[13] Following the passage of this Act, citizens located in the District were no longer considered residents of Maryland or Virginia, which therefore ended their representation in Congress.[14]
On August 24–25, 1814, in a raid known as the Burning of Washington, British forces invaded the capital during the War of 1812, following the sacking and burning of York (modern-day Toronto). The Capitol, Treasury, and White House were burned and gutted during the attack.[15] Most government buildings were quickly repaired, but the Capitol, which was at the time largely under construction, was not completed in its current form until 1868.[16]
Since 1800, various proposals have been offered to return the land donated to form the District back to the states of Maryland and Virginia. This process is known as retrocession.[17] In the 1830s, the District's southern county of Alexandria went into economic decline partly due to neglect by Congress.[17] Alexandria had been a major market in the American slave trade and rumors circulated that abolitionists in Congress were attempting to end slavery in the District; such an action would have further depressed Alexandria's slavery-based economy.[18] In 1840, Alexandria residents began to petition for the retrocession of the District's southern territory to Virginia. The state legislature voted in February 1846 to accept the return of Alexandria and on July 9, 1846, Congress agreed to return all the District's territory south of the Potomac River back to Virginia.[17]
Confirming the fears of pro-slavery Alexandrians, the Compromise of 1850 outlawed the slave trade in the District, though not slavery itself.[19] By 1860, approximately 80% of the city's African American residents were free blacks. The outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 led to notable growth in the District's population due to the expansion of the federal government and a large influx of freed slaves.[20] In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act, which ended slavery in the District of Columbia and freed about 3,100 enslaved persons, nine months prior to the Emancipation Proclamation.[21] By 1870, the District's population had grown to nearly 132,000.[22] Despite the city's growth, Washington still had dirt roads and lacked basic sanitation; the situation was so bad that some members of Congress proposed moving the capital elsewhere.[23]
With the passage of the Organic Act of 1871, Congress created a new government for the entire federal district. This Act combined the City of Washington, Georgetown, and Washington County into a single municipality named the District of Columbia, which effectively formed present-day Washington, D.C.[24] Congress also appointed a Board of Public Works charged with modernizing the city.[25] In 1873, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed the board's most influential member, Alexander Robey Shepherd, to the new post of governor. That year, Shepherd spent $20 million on public works ($357 million in 2007),[26] which modernized the capital but also bankrupted the city. In 1874, Congress abolished Shepherd's office in favor of direct rule.[23] Additional projects to renovate the city were not executed until the McMillan Plan in 1901.[27]
The District's population remained relatively stable until the Great Depression in the 1930s when President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation expanded the bureaucracy in Washington. World War II further increased government activity, adding to the number of federal employees in the capital;[28] by 1950, the District's population reached its peak of 802,178 residents.[29] The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1961, granting the District three votes in the Electoral College for the election of President and Vice President, but still no voting representation in Congress.
After the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968, riots broke out in the District, primarily in the U Street, 14th Street, 7th Street, and H Street corridors, centers of black residential and commercial areas. The riots raged for three days until over 13,000 federal and national guard troops managed to quell the violence. Many stores and other buildings were burned; rebuilding was not complete until the late 1990s.[30]
The District has a total area of 68.3 square miles (177 km2), of which 61.4 square miles (159 km2) is land and 6.9 square miles (18 km2) (10.16%) is water.[35] The District is no longer 100 square miles (260 km2) due to the retrocession of the southern portion of the District back to the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1846. The District's current area consists only of territory ceded by the state of Maryland. Washington is therefore surrounded by the states of Maryland to the southeast, northeast, and northwest and Virginia to the southwest. The District has three major natural flowing streams: the Potomac River and its tributaries the Anacostia River and Rock Creek.[36]Tiber Creek, a watercourse that once passed through the National Mall, was fully enclosed underground during the 1870s.[37]
Contrary to the urban legend, Washington was not built on reclaimed swampland.[38] While wetlands did cover areas along the two rivers and other natural streams, the majority of the District's territory consisted of farmland and tree-covered hills.[39] The highest natural point in the District of Columbia is Point Reno, located in Fort Reno Park in the Tenleytown neighborhood, at 409 feet (125 m) above sea level.[40] The lowest point is sea level at the Potomac River. The geographic center of Washington is located near the intersection of 4th and L Streets NW.[41]
Washington is located in the humid subtropical climate zone (Köppen: Cfa), exhibiting four distinct seasons.[47] Its climate is typical of Mid-Atlantic U.S. areas removed from bodies of water. The District is located in plant hardiness zone 8a near downtown, and zone 7b elsewhere in the city, indicating a temperate climate.[48] Spring and fall are warm, while winter is cool with annual snowfall averaging 14.7 inches (37 cm). Winter temperatures average around 38 °F(3.3 °C) from mid-December to mid-February.[49] Blizzards affect Washington on average once every four to six years. The most violent storms are called "nor'easters", which typically feature high winds, heavy rains, and occasional snow. These storms often affect large sections of the U.S. East Coast.[50]
Summers are hot and humid with a July daily average of 79.2 °F(26.2 °C) and average daily relative humidity around 66%, which can cause medium to moderate personal discomfort.[49][51] The combination of heat and humidity in the summer brings very frequent thunderstorms, some of which occasionally produce tornadoes in the area.[52] While hurricanes (or their remnants) occasionally track through the area in late summer and early fall, they have often weakened by the time they reach Washington, partly due to the city's inland location. Flooding of the Potomac River, however, caused by a combination of high tide, storm surge, and runoff, has been known to cause extensive property damage in Georgetown.[53]
The highest recorded temperature was 106 °F(41 °C) on July 20, 1930, and August 6, 1918, while the lowest recorded temperature was −15 °F(−26 °C) on February 11, 1899, during the Great Blizzard of 1899.[50] Over the year, the city averages 37 days hotter than 90 °F(32.2 °C) and 64 nights at or below freezing.[49]
Washington, D.C. is a planned city. The design for the City of Washington was largely the work of Pierre (Peter) Charles L’Enfant, a French-born architect, engineer, and city planner who first arrived in the colonies as a military engineer with Major General Lafayette during the American Revolutionary War.[d] In 1791, President Washington commissioned L'Enfant to plan the layout of the new capital city.[27] At L’Enfant’s request, Thomas Jefferson provided plans of cities such as Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, Karlsruhe and Milan, which he had brought back from Europe in 1788.[55] The plan for Washington was modeled in the Baroque style and incorporated avenues radiating out from rectangles, providing room for open space and landscaping.[27] L'Enfant's design also envisioned a garden-lined "grand avenue" approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) in length and 400 feet (120 m) wide in the area that is now the National Mall.[56]
In March 1792, President Washington dismissed L'Enfant due to his insistence on micromanaging the city's planning, which had resulted in conflicts with the three commissioners appointed by Washington to supervise the capital's construction. Andrew Ellicott, who had worked with L'Enfant surveying the city, was then commissioned to complete the plans. Though Ellicott made revisions to the original plans, including changes to some street patterns, L'Enfant is still credited with the overall design of the city.[57] The City of Washington was bounded by what is now Florida Avenue to the north, Rock Creek to the west, and the Anacostia River to the east.[27]
By the start of the 20th century, L'Enfant's vision of a capital with open parks and grand national monuments had become marred by slums and randomly placed buildings, including a railroad station on the National Mall.[27] In 1900, Congress formed a joint committee, headed by Senator James McMillan, charged with beautifying Washington's ceremonial core. What became known as the McMillan Plan was finalized in 1901. It included the re-landscaping of the Capitol grounds and the Mall, constructing new Federal buildings and monuments, clearing slums, and establishing a new citywide park system. Architects recruited by the committee kept much of the city's original layout, and their work is thought to be largely in keeping with L'Enfant's intended design.[27]
After the construction of the twelve-story Cairo Apartment Building in 1894, Congress passed the Heights of Buildings Act, which limited building heights in the city. The Act was amended in 1910 to restrict building height to the width of the adjacent street plus 20 feet (6.1 m).[58] Despite popular belief, no law has ever limited buildings to the height of the United States Capitol or the Washington Monument.[59][60] Today the skyline remains low and sprawling, in keeping with Thomas Jefferson's wishes to make Washington an "American Paris" with "low and convenient" buildings on "light and airy" streets.[58] As a result, the Washington Monument remains the District's tallest structure.[61] However, Washington's height restriction has been assailed as a primary reason why the city has limited affordable housing and traffic problems as a result of urban sprawl.[58] Not subject to the District's height restriction, a number of taller buildings close to downtown have been constructed across the Potomac River in Rosslyn, Virginia.[62]
The District is divided into four quadrants of unequal area: Northwest (NW), Northeast (NE), Southeast (SE), and Southwest (SW). The axes bounding the quadrants radiate from the U.S. Capitol building.[63] All road names include the quadrant abbreviation to indicate their location, and house numbers are assigned based on the approximate number of blocks away from the Capitol. In most of the city, the streets are set out in a grid pattern with east–west streets named with letters (e.g., C Street SW) and north–south streets with numbers (e.g., 4th Street NW).[63] Some Washington streets are particularly noteworthy, such as Pennsylvania Avenue, which connects the White House with the U.S. Capitol, and K Street, which houses the offices of many lobbying groups.[64] Washington hosts 176 foreign embassies, 59 of which are located on a section of Massachusetts Avenue informally known as Embassy Row.[65]
Outside downtown Washington, architectural styles are even more varied. Historic buildings are designed primarily in the Queen Anne, Châteauesque, Richardsonian Romanesque, Georgian revival, Beaux-Arts, and a variety of Victorian styles. Rowhouses are especially prominent in areas developed after the Civil War and typically follow Federalist and late Victorian designs.[68] Since Georgetown was established before the city of Washington, the neighborhood features the District's oldest architecture. Georgetown's Old Stone House was built in 1765, making it the oldest-standing original building in the city.[69] The majority of current homes in the neighborhood, however, were not built until the 1870s and reflect late Victorian designs of the period. Founded in 1789, Georgetown University is more distinct from the neighborhood and features a mix of Romanesque and Gothic Revival architecture.[67] The Ronald Reagan Building is the largest building in the District with a total area of approximately 3.1 million square feet (288,000 m2).[70]
The 2010 United States Census found that the District has a population of 601,657 residents,[1] continuing a trend of population growth in the city since the 2000 Census, which recorded 572,059 residents.[71] During the workweek, however, the number of commuters from the suburbs into the city swells the District's population by over 70%, to a daytime population of over one million people.[72] The Washington Metropolitan Area, which includes the District and surrounding localities, is the seventh-largest metropolitan area in the United States with approximately 5.6 million residents as of the 2010 Census.[2] When the Washington area is included with Baltimore and its suburbs, the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area had a population exceeding 8.5 million residents in 2010, the fourth-largestcombined statistical area in the country.[73]
According to the 2010 Census, the population distribution of Washington, D.C. is 50.7% Black or African American, 38.5% White, 3.5% Asian, and 0.3% American Indian. Individuals from other races made up 4.1% of the District's population while individuals from two or more races made up 2.9%. In addition, Hispanics of any race made up 9.1% of the District's population.[74] There were also an estimated 74,000 foreign immigrants living in Washington, D.C. in 2007.[75] Major sources of immigration include individuals from El Salvador, Vietnam, and Ethiopia, with some concentration of Salvadorans in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood.[76]
Unique among cities with a high percentage of African Americans, Washington has had a significant black population since the city's creation. This is partly a result of the manumission of slaves in the Upper South after the American Revolutionary War. The free black population in the region climbed from an estimated 1% before the war to 10% by 1810.[77] In the District, black residents composed about 30% of the population between 1800 and 1940.[29]
Washington's black population reached a peak of 70% of the city's residents by 1970. Since then, however, the District's black population has steadily declined due to many African Americans leaving the city for the surrounding suburbs.[78] Some older African American residents have returned South because of family ties and lower housing costs.[79] At the same time, the city's white population has steadily increased, in part due to effects of gentrification in many of Washington's traditionally black neighborhoods. This is evident in a 11.5% decrease in the black population and a 31.4% increase in the non-Hispanic white population since 2000.[78] However, some African Americans, particularly college-educated professionals, are moving to Washington, D.C. seeking increased job opportunities as part of a New Great Migration.[79]
The 2000 census revealed that an estimated 33,000 adults in the District of Columbia identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, about 8.1% of the city's adult population.[80] Given the city's sizable LGBT population and liberal political climate, a same-sex marriage bill passed the Council of the District of Columbia and was signed by the mayor in December 2009. The District began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in March 2010.[81]
A report in the year 2007 found that about one-third of District residents are functionally illiterate, compared to a national rate of about one in five. This is attributed in part to immigrants who are not proficient in English.[82] A 2005 study shows that 85.16% of Washington, D.C.'s residents age five and older speak only English at home and 8.78% speak Spanish. French is the third-most-spoken language at 1.35%.[83] In contrast to the high rate of functional illiteracy, nearly 46% of D.C.'s residents have at least a four-year college degree.[84] About 23% of Washington D.C.'s residents were below the age of 18 in 2009.[85] According to data from 2000, more than half of District residents were identified as Christian: 2, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_LevelsЏ
Somerset Levels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Somerset Levels, or the Somerset Levels and Moors as they are less commonly but more correctly known, is a sparsely populated coastal plain and wetland area of central Somerset, South West England, between the Quantock and Mendip Hills. The Levels occupy an area of about 160,000 acres (650 km2), corresponding broadly to the administrative district of Sedgemoor but also including the south-eastern part of the Mendip district. The Somerset Levels are bisected by the Polden Hills; the areas to the south are drained by the River Parrett, and the areas to the North by the rivers Axe and Brue. The Mendip Hills separate the Somerset Levels from the North Somerset Levels. The Somerset Levels consist of marine clay "levels" along the coast, and inland (often peat-based) "moors"; agriculturally, about 70 percent is used as grassland and the rest is arable. Willow and teazel are grown commercially and peat is extracted.
One explanation for the county of Somerset's name is that, in prehistory, because of winter flooding humans restricted their use of the Levels to the summer, leading to a derivation from Sumorsaete, meaning land of the summer people. A Palaeolithic flint tool found in West Sedgemoor is the earliest indication of human presence in the area. The Neolithic people exploited the reedswamps for their natural resources and started to construct wooden trackways, including the world's oldest known timber trackway, the Sweet Track, dating from the 3800s BC. The Levels were the location of the Glastonbury Lake Village as well as two Lake villages at Meare Lake. Several settlements and hill forts were built on the natural "islands" of slightly raised land, including Brent Knoll and Glastonbury. In the Roman period sea salt was extracted and a string of settlements were set up along the Polden Hills. The discovery at Shapwick of 9,238 silver Roman coins, known as the Shapwick Hoard, was the second largest ever found from the time of the Roman Empire. A number of Saxon charters document the incorporation of areas of moor in estates. In 1685, the Battle of Sedgemoor was fought in the Bussex area of Westonzoyland at the conclusion of the Monmouth Rebellion.
As a result of the wetland nature of the Moors and Levels, the area contains a rich biodiversity of national and international importance. It supports a vast variety of plant and bird species and is an important feeding ground for birds. The Levels and Moors include 32 Sites of Special Scientific Interest, of which 12 are also Special Protection Areas. The area has been extensively studied for its biodiversity and heritage, and has a growing tourism industry.
People have been draining the area since before the Domesday Book. In the Middle Ages, the monasteries of Glastonbury, Athelney, and Muchelney were responsible for much of the drainage. The artificial Huntspill River was constructed during the Second World War as a reservoir, although it also serves as a drainage channel. The Sowy River between the River Parrett and King's Sedgemoor Drain was completed in 1972; water levels are managed by the Levels internal drainage boards. During 2009 and 2010 proposals to build a series of electricity pylons by one of two routes between Hinkley Point and Avonmouth, to transmit electricity from the proposed Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, attracted local opposition. Discussions have taken place concerning the possibility of obtaining World Heritage Site status for the Somerset Levels and Moors as a "cultural landscape".[1] It was suggested that if this bid were successful it could improve flood control, but only if wetland fens were created again; the plans were abandoned in June 2010.[2]
The Levels and Moors are a largely flat area, with the "Moors" referring to the inland plains, and the "Levels" being a coastal sand and clay barrier, roughly west of the M5 motorway. There are some slightly raised parts, called "burtles",[3] as well as higher ridges and hills. The Levels are about 6 metres (20 ft) above mean sea level (O.D.). The general elevation of the inland Moors is 3 to 3.7 metres (10 to 12 ft) O.D. and with peak tides of 7.6 to 7.9 metres (25 to 26 ft) O.D. recorded at Bridgwater and Burnham-on-Sea, respectively, the Moors lie below peak tides.[4] Large areas of peat were laid down in the Moors, particularly in the Brue Valley, during the Quaternary period after the ice sheets melted.[3] The area's topography consists of two basins mainly surrounded by hills, the runoff from which forms rivers that originally meandered across the plain but have now been controlled by embanking and clyses (the local name for a sluice).[5] The area is prone to winter floods of fresh water and occasional salt water inundations. The worst in recorded history was the Bristol Channel floods of 1607, which resulted in the drowning of an estimated 2,000 or more people, houses and villages swept away, an estimated 200 square miles (518 km2) of farmland inundated, and livestock destroyed.[6] Another severe flood occurred in 1872–1873, when over 107 square miles (277 km2) were underwater from October to March.[7]
Although underlain by much older Triassic age[3][8] formations that protrude to form what would once have been islands—such as Athelney, Brent Knoll, Burrow Mump and Glastonbury Tor—the lowland landscape was formed only during the last 10,000 years, following the end of the last ice age. Glastonbury Tor is composed of Upper Lias Sand. The Poldens and the Isle of Wedmore are composed of Blue Lias and Marl, while the Mendips are largely Carboniferous Limestone.[9] Although sea level changes since the Pliocene led to changes in sea level and the laying down of vegetation,[10] the peak of the peat formation took place in swamp conditions around 6,000 years ago, although in some areas it continued into medieval times.[11][12]
It is a mainly agricultural region, typically with open fields of permanent grass surrounded by ditches with willow trees. Access to individual areas of the Moors and Levels, especially for cattle, was provided by means of "droves", i.e. green lanes, leading off the public highways. Some of the old roads, in contrast to the old hollow ways found in other areas of England, are causeways raised above the level of the surrounding land, with a drainage ditch running along each side.[13]
Most of the settlements on the Levels are small villages. In the southern area the civil parish of Aller, which has a population of 374,[14] includes the hamlet of Beer (sometimes Bere) and the deserted medieval village of Oath on the opposite bank of the River Parrett. The area known as the Isle of Athelney was once a very low isolated island linked by a causeway to East Lyng, each end of which was protected by a semi-circular stockade and ditch. The ditch on the island is now known to date from the Iron Age, and was used by Alfred the Great as a fort before the Battle of Ethandun in May 878; in gratitude for his victory Alfred founded a monastery, Athelney Abbey,[7] on the Isle in 888, which survived until the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII in 1539. Bawdrip is a small village which has a population of 498.[15]Brent Knoll is a large village at the foot of a 137-metre (449 ft) hill that dominates the surrounding landscape; the name means Beacon Hill in Old English.[16] Brent Knoll has been inhabited since at least the Bronze Age.[17] Before the Somerset Levels were drained, Brent Knoll was an island known as the Isle (or Mount) of Frogs.[18]
Glastonbury (population 8,784[19]) and Street (11,066[19]) lie on opposite sides of the River Brue, and provide a central point for trade and commerce. Larger centres are generally on slightly higher ground around the edges of the Levels. Bridgwater is a market town, the administrative centre of the Sedgemoordistrict, and a major industrial centre. With a population of 33,698,[15] it straddles the major communication routes through South West England. Situated on the edge of the Somerset Levels, along both banks of the River Parrett and 10 miles (16 km) from its mouth, it was at one time a major port and trading centre. The hamlet of Dunball forms part of the port on the river. Burrowbridge lies on the River Parrett further inland. The name probably comes from the Old Englishburuh (fortified hill) and brycg (bridge).[20] In the village is Burrow Mump, an ancient earthwork now owned by the National Trust. Burrow Mump is also known as St Michael's Borough or Tutteyate.[21] It is a natural hill of Triassicsandstone capped by Keuper marl.[22] Excavations showed evidence of a medieval masonry building on the top of the hill.[23]
Along the coast, settlements such as Berrow are built on the line of sand dunes separating the low-lying marshes from the Bristol Channel. At the northern end Bleadon lies on the River Axe; and there was for many years a small harbour, sometimes known as Lympsham Wharf.[24] The arrival of the Bristol and Exeter Railway in 1841, which crossed the Axe on a bridge, obstructed river traffic beyond the wharf, making it the limit of navigation for coastal vessels.[24] An Act of 1915 authorised the drainage of the river and installation of a flood gate at Bleadon,[25] although attempts to control the water had occurred on Bleadon Level since medieval times, including an early windmill, in 1613, to pump water into the sea from behind a sea wall.[26]Burnham-on-Sea (population 18,401[27]) is at the mouth of the River Parrett where it enters Bridgwater Bay.[28] The position of the town on the edge of the Somerset Levels has resulted in a history dominated by land reclamation and sea defences since Roman times.[29] Burnham was seriously affected by the Bristol Channel floods of 1607, and various flood defences have been installed since then.[30] A concrete sea wall was built in 1911, and after the Second World War further additions to the defences were made, using the remains of a Mulberry harbour; the present curved concrete wall was completed in 1988.[31]Highbridge, which neighbours Burnham, is near the mouth of the River Brue and the villages of East and West Huntspill.[28]
Along with the rest of South West England the Somerset Levels have a temperate climate, which is generally wetter and milder than the rest of the country.[32] The annual mean temperature is approximately 10 °C (50.0 °F). Seasonal temperature variation is less extreme than most of the United Kingdom because of the adjacent sea. The summer months of July and August are the warmest, with mean daily maxima of approximately 21 °C(69.8 °F). In winter, mean minimum temperatures of 1 or 2 °C (33.8 or 35.6 °F) are common.[32] The Azores high pressure area influences the south-west of England's summer weather, but convective cloud sometimes forms inland, reducing the number of hours of sunshine. Annual sunshine rates are slightly less than the regional average of 1,600 hours.[32] In December 1998, there were 20 days without sun recorded at Yeovilton. Most rainfall in the south-west is caused by convection or Atlantic depressions, which are most active in autumn and winter, when they are the chief cause of rain. In summer, a large proportion of the rainfall is caused by the Sun heating the land, leading to convection and to showers and thunderstorms. Average rainfall is around 700 mm (28 in), and about 8–15 days of snowfall is typical. November to March have the highest mean wind speeds, and June to August have the lightest winds. The predominant wind direction is from the southwest.[32]
Yeovilton climate: Average maximum and minimum temperatures, and average rainfall recorded between 1971 and 2000 by the Met Office.
The Moors and Levels are formed from a submerged and reclaimed landscape. Early attempts to control the water levels were possibly made by the Romans (although records only date from the 13th century), but were not widespread.[33]
There was a port at Bleadney on the River Axe in the 8th century which allowed goods to be brought to within 3 miles (5 km) of Wells. In 1200, a wharf was constructed at Rackley near Axbridge. The Parrett was navigable up as far as Langport in 1600, with 15 to 20 ton barges. The Domesday Book recorded that drainage of the higher grounds was under way, although the moors at Wedmoor were said to be useless.[34] In the Middle Ages, the monasteries of Glastonbury, Athelney, and Muchelney were responsible for much of the drainage. In 1129, the Abbot of Glastonbury was recorded as inspecting enclosed land at Lympsham. Efforts to control flooding on the Parrett were recorded around the same date. In 1234, 722 acres (2.9 km2) were reclaimed near Westonzoyland and, from the accounts in the abbey's rent books, this had increased to 972 acres (393 ha) by 1240.[35] Flooding of adjacent moor land was partially addressed during the 13th century by the construction of a number of embankment walls to contain the Parrett. They included Southlake Wall, Burrow Wall, and Lake Wall.[36] The River Tone was also diverted by the Abbot of Athelney and other land owners into a new embanked channel, joining the Parrett upstream from its original confluence.[37]
Curry Moor pumping station
The main drainage outlets flowing through the Moors and Levels are the rivers Axe, Brue, Huntspill, Parrett, Tone, and Yeo, together with the King's Sedgemoor Drain, an artificial channel into which the River Cary now runs. Previously, the Cary ran into the Tone while the Brue ran through Meare Pool (now drained) and the Panborough Gap, and then into the Axe. Another accomplishment in the Middle Ages was the construction of the tidal Pillrow Cut, joining the Brue and Axe. In 1500, there was said to be 70,000 acres (283 km2) of floodable land of which only 20,000 acres (81 km2) had been reclaimed. In 1597, 50 acres (20 ha) of land were recovered near the Parrett estuary; a few years later, 140 acres (57 ha) near Pawlett were recovered by means of embankments; and three further reclamations, totalling 110 acres (45 ha), had been undertaken downstream of Bridgwater by 1660.[38]
In the early 17th century, during the time of King James I, abortive plans were made to drain and enclose much of Sedgemoor, which the local Lords supported but opposed by the Commoners who would have lost grazing rights.[39] In 1632, Charles I sold the Crown's interest in the scheme, and it was taken over by a consortium that included Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutch drainage engineer. However, the work was delayed by the English Civil War and later defeated in parliament after local opposition.[7] In 1638, it was reported that nearly 2,600 acres (11 km2) of Tealham and Tadham Moors were not reclaimed, with a total of 30,500 acres (123.43 km2) being undrained. Between 1785 and 1791, much of the lowest part of the peat moors was enclosed. In 1795, John Billingsley advocated enclosure and the digging of rhynes (a local name for drainage channels, pronounced "reens" in the east and rhyne to the west) between plots,[40] and wrote in his Agriculture of the County of Somerset that 4,400 acres (18 km2) had been enclosed in the last 20 years in Wedmore and Meare, 350 acres (1.4 km2) at Nyland, 900 acres (3.64 km2) at Blackford, 2,000 acres (8 km2) at Mark, 100 acres (0.4 km2) in Shapwick, and 1,700 acres (7 km2) at Westhay.[41] At Westhay Moor in the early 19th century, it was shown how peat bogs could be successfully drained and top-dressed with silt deposited via flooding, creating a very rich soil.[42] The character of the soil was also changed by the spreading of clay and silt from the digging of King's Sedgemoor Drain.[43]
Little attempt was made during the 17th and 18th centuries to pump water, possibly because the coal-driven Newcomen steam engines would have been uneconomical. It is unclear why windmills were not employed, as they were on the Fens of East Anglia, but only two examples have been recorded on the Levels: one at Bleadon at the mouth of the River Axe, where a sea wall had been built, and the other at Common Moor north of Glastonbury, which was being drained following a private Act of Parliament in 1721.[7] The first steam pumping station was Westonzoyland Pumping Station in 1830, followed by more effective ones from 1860. Automatic electric pumps are used today.[44]
The man-made Huntspill River was constructed during the Second World War with sluices at both ends to provide a guaranteed daily supply of 4,500,000 imperialgallons (20,500,000 l; 5,400,000 USgal) of "process water".[45] It was intended that in the summer, when water supply was lower, it would serve as a reservoir with water pumped from the moors; and in winter serve as a drainage channel, via gravity drainage.[45][46]Geotechnical problems prevented it from being dug as deep as originally intended and so gravity-drainage of the moors was not possible: thus, water is pumped up into the river throughout the year.[45] The Sowy River between the River Parrett and King's Sedgemoor Drain was completed in 1972.[47][48] The Levels and Moors are now artificially drained by a network of rhynes which are pumped up into "drains". Water levels are managed by the Levels internal drainage boards (IDBs); the Levels are not as intensively drained or farmed as the East Anglianfens, historically a similar area of low marsh. They are still liable to widespread fresh water flooding in winter. One of the approaches to reducing the risk of flooding within the catchment area of the Parrett is the planting of new woodlands.[49]
Controversy about the management of the drainage and flood protection has previously involved the activities of IDB's.[50][51] However, IDB's have been actively participating with the Parrett Catchment Partnership, a partnership of 30 organisations that aims to create a consensus on how water is to be managed, in particular, looking at new ways to achieve sustainable benefits for all local stakeholders.[52]
During 2009 and 2010, work was undertaken to upgrade sluice gates, watercourses, and culverts to enable seasonal flooding of Southlake Moor during the winter diverting water from the Sowy River onto the moor. It has the capacity to hold 1.2 million cubic metres as part of a scheme by the Parrett Internal Drainage Board to restore ten floodplains in Somerset. In spring, the water is drained away to enable the land to be used as pasture during the summer.[53] The scheme is also used to encourage water birds.[54]
The Somerset Levels consist of a coastal clay belt only slightly above mean sea level, with an inland peat belt at a lower level behind it.[55] Thus, the Levels are at risk from both tidal and land-based flood waters.[55] They were frequently flooded by the sea during high tides, a problem that was not resolved until the sea defences were enhanced in the early 20th century. In addition, the problems of high fresh water floods are aggravated by the unrestricted entry of the tide along the Parrett,[56] which is the only river in the Levels and Moors that does not have a clyse on it. Discussions on whether a clyse is needed for the Parrett and whether it should be sited at Bridgwater or nearer the mouth of the river date back to 1939, at start of Second World War, and have not been resolved.[56] The Environment Agency's current "Parrett Catchment Flood Management Plan", published December 2009, divides the Parrett catchment area into eight sub-areas, with the Somerset Levels and Moors falling into sub-area 6 and Bridgwater falling into sub-area 7.[57] As part of the published flood risk assessments for both these sub-areas, it is recognised that: at a future date a tidal clyse may be needed on the Parrett; this causes a funding dilemma; and, geomorphology studies of the Parrett and the Tone are needed to help address many of the uncertainties associated with a tidal exclusion project.[57]
During the great storm of 1703, waves came four feet (1.2 m) over the sea walls. The sea wall was again breached in 1799, filling the Axe valley with sea water. In 1872, another flood covered 7,000 acres (28 km2) and in 1919, 70,000 acres (283 km2) were inundated with sea water, poisoning the land for up to 7 years.[58] Since 1990, the drainage board has been charged with looking at the rhynes, cleaning them out and keeping them clear, under the overall responsibility of the Environment Agency. With rising sea levels, the work required to maintain the sea defences is likely to become more expensive, and it has been proposed that two inland seas be created.[59] Other studies have recommended maintaining the current defences for five years while undertaking further studies of available options.[60]
A Palaeolithic flint tool found in Westbury is the earliest indication of human presence in the area, dating from approximately 500,000 years ago.[61] Later during the 7th millennium BC the sea level rose and flooded the valleys, forcing the Mesolithic people to occupy seasonal camps on the higher ground, indicated by scatters of flints.[62] Subsequent winter flooding probably led to humans in prehistory only using the Levels in the summer, hence the county of Somerset may derive its name from Sumorsaete, meaning land of the summer people. An alternative suggestion is that the name derives from Seo-mere-saetan meaning "settlers by the sea lakes".[63] The Neolithic people continued to exploit the reedswamps for their natural resources and started to construct wooden trackways such as the Sweet and Post Tracks. The Sweet Track, named after the peat digger who discovered it in 1970 and dating from the 3800s BC, is the world's oldest timber trackway, once thought to be the world's oldest engineered roadway.[64] The track was built between what was in the early 4th millennium BC an island at Westhay and a ridge of high ground at Shapwick, close to the River Brue. The remains of similar tracks have been uncovered nearby, connecting settlements on the peat bog including the Honeygore, Abbotts Way, Bells, Bakers, Westhay, and Nidons trackways.[8]
The Levels contain the best-preserved prehistoric village in the UK,[65]Glastonbury Lake Village, as well as two others at Meare Lake Village.[66] Discovered in 1892 by Arthur Bulleid,[67] it was inhabited by about 200 people living in 14 roundhouses,[65] and was built on a morass on an artificial foundation of timber filled with brushwood, bracken, rubble and clay.[68] Investigation of the Meare Pool indicates that it was formed by the encroachment of raised peat bogs, particularly during the Subatlantic climatic period (1st millennium BC), and core sampling demonstrates that it is filled with at least 2 metres (6.6 ft) of detritus mud.[69][70]
The two villages within Meare Pool appear to originate from a collection of structures erected on the surface of the dried peat, such as tents, windbreaks and animal folds. Clay was later spread over the peat, providing raised stands for occupation, industry and movement, and in some areas thicker clay spreads accommodated hearths built of clay or stone.[71]
The area continued to be inhabited during the Bronze Age, when the population supported itself largely by hunting and fishing in the surrounding marshes, living on artificial islands connected by wooden causeways on wooden piles. There have been many finds of metalwork during peat cutting, which may have been devotional offerings. Brent Knoll has been settled by humans since at least the Bronze Age. It is the site of an Iron Agehill fort known as Brent Knoll Camp, with multiple ramparts (multivallate) following the contours of the hill.[72] Several settlements and hill forts were built on the natural "islands" of slightly raised land, including Brent Knoll, Glastonbury, and the low range of the Polden Hills. According to legend Ider son of Nuth, who was one of King Arthur's knights, went to the Mount of Frogs on a quest to slay three giants who lived there.[73][74][75] The fort has been claimed as the site of the Battle of Mons Badonicus.[76]
Sea salt was extracted during the Roman period, and a string of settlements were set up along the Polden Hills. Some possible settlement sites are also known in the Draycott and Cheddar Moors and around Highbridge.[77] The discovery at Shapwick of 9,238 silver Roman coins,[78][79] the second largest hoard ever found from the Roman Empire included coins dated from as early as 31–30 BC up until 224 AD.[80] The hoard also contained two rare coins which had not been discovered in Britain before,[79] and the largest number of silver denarii ever found in Britain.[78][81]
A number of Saxon charters document the incorporation of areas of moor in estates, suggested that the area continued to be exploited.[82] It is easy to see why the area acquired a number of legends, particularly of King Arthur and his followers, who some believe based his court in the hill fort at South Cadbury.[83] According to legend, Alfred the Great burnt cakes when hiding in the marshes of Athelney, after the Danish invasion in 875. After the battle of Edington the Danish king was baptised at Aller and a peace treaty signed at Wedmore.[84]
The Levels have few wooded areas, just occasional willow trees. The landscape is dominated by grassland, mostly used as pasture for dairy farming with approximately 70 percent of the area being grassland and 30 percent arable. From January until May, the River Parrett provides a source of European Eels (Anguilla anguilla) and young elvers, which are caught by hand netting as this is the only legal means of catching them.[86] A series of eel passes have been built on the Parrett at the King's Sedgemoor Drain to help this endangered species; cameras have shown 10,000 eels migrating upstream in a single night.[87][88] The 2003 BBC Radio 4 play Glass Eels by Nell Leyshon was set on the Parrett.[89]
The Levels and Moors, as part of the West Country, was a traditional producer of cider, with individual farms having orchards and producing their own cider, known as scrumpy. However, over 60% of Somerset's orchards have been lost in the last fifty years;[90] and apple production occupies less than 0.4% of the land. Cider is still produced in Somerset by Thatchers Cider and Gaymer Cider Company. Other local industries that once thrived on the Levels, such as thatching (using reeds) and basket making (using willow), have been in decline since the second half of the 20th century. Combined with the recent drop in farm incomes, this poses a potential threat to the "traditional" nature of the area as a whole. Subsidies are paid to farmers who manage their land in the traditional way.[91]
In October 2009, National Grid began public consultations over plans to build a line of electricity pylons, by one of two routes between Hinkley Point and Avonmouth. The plans attracted local opposition.[92][93] The first consultation process ended in January 2010.[93] They had proposed that each pylon would be 46 metres (151 ft) high: the consultation was only in respect of preferences between two alternate routes, not the size nor the use of large pylons. The proposed line, which is due to open by September 2017, will transmit 400 Kilovolts of electricity from the proposed Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.[93][94]Électricité de France has begun public consultations in respect of the local infrastructure needed for the construction programme to build Hinkley Point C;[95] but, as of January 2011, has not submitted applications for consents for the proposed power stations. It has, however, submitted a planning application for preliminary site preparation works, which it states that it will undo should consents for the power stations be refused.[96]
In 2010 and 2011, two proposals to build a total of 14 wind turbines, with Ecotricity to build five[97] or four[98] adjacent to the M5 Motorway near Brent Knoll and Électricité de France to build nine at East Huntspill,[94] are opposed by local groups on the grounds of their effect on the local environment and potential damage to the bird population.[99]
Willow has been cut and used on the Levels since humans moved into the area. Fragments of willow basket were found near the Glastonbury Lake Village, and it was used in the construction of several Iron Age causeways.[100] The willow was harvested using traditional methods of pollarding, where a tree would be cut back to the main stem. New shoots of willow, called "withies", would grow out of the trunk and these would be cut periodically for use.[101]
During the 1930s, over 9,000 acres (36 km2) of willow were being grown commercially on the Levels. Largely because of the replacement of baskets by plastic bags and cardboard boxes, the industry has severely declined since the 1950s. By the end of the 20th century only about 350 acres (1.4 km2) were grown commercially, near the villages of Burrowbridge, Westonzoyland, and North Curry.[102] The Somerset Levels is now the only area in the UK where basket willow is grown commercially. For weaving, the species Salix triandra (Almond Willow, Black Maul) is grown, while Salix viminalis (Common Osier) is ideal for handles, bases, and the structural members in furniture and hurdles. Products including baskets, eel traps, lobster pots, and furniture were widely made from willow throughout the area in the recent past.[103] Among the more unusual products still made are passenger baskets for hot air balloons,[104] the frames inside the Bearskin hats worn by the regiments of the Grenadier Guards,[105] and an increasing number of willow coffins.[106]
Another use of willow has been found by the Coate family, who make artist's charcoals in Stoke St Gregory. It has become in 30 years the leading artists' charcoal manufacturer in Europe, producing most of the natural charcoals sold under different2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Habsburgotto.jpg
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On the morning of Thursday, 7 July 2005, four homegrown terrorists detonated four bombs, three on London Underground trains in quick succession and a fourth aboard a double-decker bus later in Tavistock Square. Fifty-six people, including the bombers, were killed in the attacks, and about 700 were injured. The explosions were caused by homemade, organic peroxide-based devices packed into rucksacks.
08:50 – Three bombs on the London Underground exploded within fifty seconds of each other:
The first bomb exploded in an eastbound Circle Line sub-surface Underground train, number 204, travelling between Liverpool Street and Aldgate station. The train had left King's Cross St. Pancras station about eight minutes earlier. At the time of the explosion, the third carriage of the train was approximately 100 yards (90 m) along the tunnel from Liverpool Street. The parallel track of the Hammersmith and City Line from Liverpool Street to Aldgate East was also damaged.
The second bomb exploded in the second carriage of a westbound Circle Line sub-surface Underground train, number 216. The train had just left platform 4 at Edgware Road and was moving toward Paddington station. The train had left King's Cross St. Pancras station about eight minutes earlier. There were several other trains nearby at the time of the explosion. An eastbound Circle Line train (arriving at platform 3 at Edgware Road from Paddington) was passing next to the train and was damaged,[1] along with a wall that collapsed later. There were two other trains at Edgware Road: an unidentified train on platform 2, and a southbound Hammersmith & City line train that had just arrived at platform 1.
The third bomb exploded in a southbound Piccadilly line deep-level Underground train, number 311, travelling between King's Cross St. Pancras station and Russell Square. The bomb exploded about one minute after the train left King's Cross, by which time it had travelled about 500 yards (450 m). The explosion occurred at the rear of the first carriage of the train (car no 166), causing severe damage to the rear of that carriage, as well as the front of the second one.[2] The surrounding tunnel also sustained damage.
It was thought originally that there had been six, rather than three, explosions on the Underground. The bus bombing brought the reported total to seven; however, this error was corrected later that day. This was because the blasts occurred on trains that were between stations, causing the wounded to emerge from both stations, giving the impression that there was an incident at each station. Police also revised the timings of the tube blasts: initial reports had indicated that they occurred during a period of almost half an hour. This was due to initial confusion at London Underground, where the explosions were initially thought to be due to a power surge. One initial report, in the minutes after the explosions, involved a person under a train, while another concerned a derailment (both of which did actually occur, but only as a result of the explosions). A Code Amber Alert was declared at 09:19, and London Underground began to cease the network's operations, ordering trains into stations and suspending all services.[3] The effects of the bombs are thought to have varied due to the differing characteristics of the tunnels.[4]
The Circle Line is a "cut and cover" sub-surface tunnel, about 7 m (21 ft) deep. Because the tunnel contains two parallel tracks, it is relatively wide. The two explosions on this line were probably able to vent their force into the tunnel, reducing their destructive force.
The Piccadilly Line is a deep tunnel, up to 30 m (100 ft) underground, with narrow (3.56 m, or 11 ft 8¼ in) single-track tubes and just 15 cm (6 in) clearances. This confined space reflected the blast force, concentrating its effect.
Earlier, the bus had passed through the King's Cross area as it travelled from Hackney Wick to Marble Arch. At Marble Arch, the bus turned around and started the return route from Marble Arch to Hackney Wick. It left Marble Arch at 09:00 am and arrived at Euston bus station at 09:35 am, where crowds of people had been evacuated from the tube and were boarding buses.
The explosion ripped the roof off the top deck of the vehicle and destroyed the back of the bus. Witnesses reported seeing "half a bus flying through the air".
The detonation took place near the British Medical Association building on Upper Woburn Place, and a number of doctors in or near the building were able to provide immediate emergency medical assistance. BBC Radio 5 Live and The Sun newspaper later reported that two injured bus passengers said that they saw a man exploding in the bus. News reports have identified Hasib Hussain as the person with the bomb on the bus.[5] The bus was running off its normal route at the time of the explosion; it was in Woburn Place, because its usual route along Euston Road had been closed, due to the earlier bombing of the tube train between Kings Cross and Russell Square.
Hasib Hussain, who detonated the bomb on the bus at 9:47 am, seen here leaving Boots on the King's Cross station concourse at 9 am
The bus bomb exploded towards the rear of the vehicle's top deck, totally destroying that portion of it but leaving the front of the bus intact. Most of the passengers at the front of the top deck are believed to have survived, as did those on the front of the lower deck including the driver, but those at the top and lower rear of the bus suffered the brunt of the explosion. The extreme physical damage caused to the victims' bodies resulted in a lengthy delay in announcing the death toll from the bombing while the police determined how many bodies were present and whether the bomber was one of them. A number of passers-by were also injured by the explosion and surrounding buildings were damaged by fragments.
The bombed bus was subsequently removed by low loader (and covered by a tarpaulin) for forensic examination at a secure MOD site. The vehicle was ultimately returned to Stagecoach, and sold for breaking. A replacement bus for 17758 was a new Alexander Dennis Enviro400, fleet number 18500 (LX55 HGC), named "Spirit of London".
Mohammad Sidique Khan (aged 30): Khan, of Pakistani descent, detonated his bomb just after leaving Edgware Road and was heading for Paddington, at 8:50 a.m. He lived in Beeston, Leeds with his wife and young child, where he worked as a learning mentor at a primary school. His blast killed 7 people, including himself.
Shehzad Tanweer (aged 22): Tanweer, of Pakistani descent, detonated his bomb travelling between Liverpool Street and Aldgate, at 8:50 a.m. He lived in Leeds with his mother and father working in a fish-and-chip shop. His blast killed 8 people, including himself.
Germaine Lindsay (aged 19): Jamaican-born Lindsay, detonated his bomb travelling between King's Cross St. Pancras and Russell Square, at 8:50 a.m. He lived in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire with his pregnant wife and young son. His blast killed 27 people, including himself.
Hasib Hussain (aged 18): Hussain, of Pakistani descent, detonated his bomb at Tavistock Square, at 9:47 a.m. He lived in Leeds with his brother and sister-in-law. His blast killed 14 people, including himself.
Charles Clarke, Home Secretary when the attacks occurred, described the bombers as "cleanskins," meaning previously unknown to authorities.[7] On the day of the attacks, all four had travelled to Luton, Bedfordshire by car, then to London by train. They were recorded on CCTV arriving at King's Cross station at about 08:30 am On 12 July, the BBC reported that Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism chief, had said that property belonging to one of the bombers had been found at both the Aldgate and Edgware Road blasts.
Two of the bombers made videotapes describing their reasons for becoming what they called "soldiers". In a videotape broadcasted by Al Jazeera on 1 September 2005, Mohammad Sidique Khan, described his motivation. The tape had been edited and also featured Al Qaeda member, Ayman al-Zawahiri.[8]
I and thousands like me are forsaking everything for what we believe. Our drive and motivation doesn't come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. Our religion is Islam, obedience to the one true God and following the footsteps of the final prophet messenger. Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security you will be our targets and until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.
A second part of the tape continues
...I myself, I myself, I make dua (pray) to Allah... to raise me amongst those whom I love like the prophets, the messengers, the martyrs and today's heroes like our beloved Sheikh Osama Bin Laden, Dr Ayman al-Zawahri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and all the other brothers and sisters that are fighting in the... of this cause.
On 6 July 2006, a video statement by Shehzad Tanweer was broadcast by Al-Jazeera. In the video, which may have been edited[9] to include remarks by al-Qaeda member Ayman al-Zawahiri, Tanweer said:
What have you witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and become stronger until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq. And until you stop your financial and military support to America and Israel.
Tanweer argued that the non-Muslims of Britain deserve such attacks because they voted for a government which "continues to oppress our mothers, children, brothers and sisters in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya."[10]
There was initially much confused information from police sources as to the origin, method, and even timings of the explosions. Forensic examiners had thought initially that military grade plastic explosives were used, and, as the blasts were thought to have been simultaneous, that synchronised timed detonators were employed. This changed as more information became available. Home-made organic peroxide-based devices were used, according to a May 2006 report from the British government's Intelligence and Security Committee.[11]
Fifty-six people, including the four suicide bombers, were killed by the attacks[12] and about 700 were injured, of whom about 100 required overnight hospital treatment or more. The incident was the deadliest single act of terrorism in the United Kingdom since Lockerbie (the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which killed 270), and the deadliest bombing in London since the Second World War. More people were killed by the bombings than in any single Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) attack (in Great Britain or Ireland) during The Troubles.
Police examined about 2,500 items of CCTV footage and forensic evidence from the scenes of the attacks. The bombs were probably placed on the floors of the trains and bus.
Investigators identified four men whom they alleged had been suicide bombers. This would make 7 July incident the first suicide bombings in the British Isles.[13] The then French Interior Minister (later to become French President) Nicolas Sarkozy caused consternation at the British Home Office when he briefed the press that one of the names had been described the previous year at an Anglo-French security meeting as an asset of British Intelligence. The then Home SecretaryCharles Clarke said later that this was "not his recollection, to say the least".
Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) anti-terrorism centre, told The Guardian that "two unexploded bombs" were recovered as well as "mechanical timing devices", although this claim was explicitly rejected by the Metropolitan Police.[14]
Police raided six properties in the Leeds area on 12 July: two houses in Beeston, two houses in Thornhill, one house in Holbeck and one house in 18 Alexandra Grove, Hyde Park. One man was arrested. They also raided a residential property on Northern Road in the Buckinghamshire town of Aylesbury on 13 July.
According to West Yorkshire police, a significant amount of explosive material was found in the raids in Leeds and a controlled explosion was carried out at one of the properties. Explosives were also found in the vehicle associated with one of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, at Luton railway station and subjected to controlled explosions.[5][15][16][17]
There has been speculation regarding associations between the bombers and another alleged Islamist cell in Luton, Bedfordshire, which was ended during August 2004. That group was uncovered after Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan was arrested in Lahore, Pakistan. His laptop computer was said to contain plans for tube attacks in London, as well as attacks on financial buildings in New York and Washington. The group was subject to surveillance, but on 2 August 2004 the New York Times published his name, citing Pakistani sources. The news leak caused police in Britain and Canada to make arrests before their investigations were complete. The U.S. government later said they had given the name to some journalists as "background" information, for which Tom Ridge, the U.S. homeland security secretary, apologised.
When the Luton cell was ended, one of the London bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan (no known relation), was scrutinised briefly by MI5 who determined that he was not a likely threat and he was not surveilled.[18]
On 22 March 2007, three men were arrested in association with the 7 July bombings. Two men were arrested at 1 pm at Manchester Airport, attempting to board an airplane due to depart for Pakistan at about 4.30 pm that afternoon. They were apprehended by undercover officers who had been following the men as part of a surveillance operation. They had not intended to arrest the men that day, but believed they could not risk letting the suspects leave Britain. The other man was arrested in the Beeston area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, at an address on the street where one of the suicide bombers had lived before the attacks.[19]
On 9 May 2007 police made four further arrests, three in Yorkshire and one in Selly Oak, Birmingham. Hasina Patel, widow of the presumed ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan, was among those arrested for "commissioning, preparing or instigating acts of terrorism".[20]
Three of those arrested, including Patel, were released on 15 May 2007.[20] The fourth, Khalid Khaliq, an unemployed single father of three, was charged with possessing an al-Qaeda training manual on 17 July 2005, but this charge was not related to the 7 July bombing. Conviction for possession of a document containing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism has a maximum 10-year jail sentence.[21]
Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal was deported to his country of origin, Jamaica, from Britain on Friday 25 May 2006 after reaching the parole date in his prison sentence. He was found guilty of three charges of soliciting the murder of Jews, Americans and Hindus and two charges of using threatening words to stir up racial hatred during 2003 and after his appeal was sentenced to seven years imprisonment. During 2006 John Reid alleged, to MPs, that el-Faisal had influenced Jamaican-born Briton Germaine Lindsay.[22][23]
The Guardian reported 3 May 2007 that police had investigated Mohammad Sidique Khan twice during 2005. The newspaper said it "learned that on 27 January 2005, police took a statement from the manager of a garage in Leeds which had loaned Khan a courtesy car while his vehicle was being repaired. It also said that "On the afternoon of 3 February an officer from Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism branch carried out inquiries with the company which had insured a car in which Khan was seen driving almost a year earlier". Nothing about these inquiries appeared in the report by parliament's intelligence and security committee after it investigated the 7 July attacks. Scotland Yard described the 2005 inquiries as "routine", while security sources said they were related to the fertiliser bomb plot.
While no warnings before the 7 July bombings have been documented officially or acknowledged, the following are sometimes quoted as indications either of the events to come or of some foreknowledge.
One of the London bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan, was briefly scrutinised by MI5 who determined that he was not a likely threat and he was not put under surveillance.[24]
Some news stories, current a few hours after the attacks, questioned the British government's contention that there had not been any warning or prior intelligence. It was reported by CBS News that a senior Israeli official said that British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before the explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city. This was retracted later by Associated Press.[25] An Associated Press report used by a number of news sites, including The Guardian, attributed the initial report of a warning to an Israeli "Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity", but added Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom's later denial on Israel Defense Forces Radio: "There was no early information about terrorist attacks." A similar report on the site of right-wing Israeli paper Israel National News/Arutz Sheva attributed the story to "Army Radio quoting unconfirmed reliable sources."[26] Although the report has been retracted, the original stories are still circulated as a result of their presence on the news websites' archives.
In an interview with the Portuguese newspaper Público a month after the 2004 Madrid train bombings, Syrian-born cleric Sheik Omar Bakri Muhammad warned that "a very well-organised" London-based group which he called Al Qaeda Europe, was "on the verge of launching a big operation."[27] During December 2004 Bakri vowed that if Western governments did not change their policies, Muslims would give them "a 9/11, day after day after day."[28]
According to a 17 November 2004 post on the Newsweek website, US authorities during 2004 had evidence that terrorists were planning a possible attack in London. In addition, the article stated that, "fears of terror attacks have prompted FBI agents based in the U.S. Embassy in London to avoid travelling on London's popular underground railway (or tube) system."[29]
In an interview published by the German magazine Bild am Sonntag dated 10 July 2005, Meir Dagan, director of the Mossad, said that the Mossad office in London was alerted to the impending attack at 8:43, six minutes before the first bomb detonated. The warning of a possible attack was a result of an investigation into an earlier terrorist bombing in Tel Aviv, which may have been related to the London bombings.[30]
Then-French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy caused consternation at the British Home Office when he briefed the press that several of the secondary plotters had been arrested and released as part of an attempt to find their superiors, the year prior. This was denied adamantly by then-Home SecretaryCharles Clarke.
During October 2010, an independent Coroner's Inquest of the bombings began.[33] The Right Honourable Lady Justice Hallett, DBE has been appointed to hear the Inquest which will report during 2011.
Initial reports suggested that a power surge in the Underground power grid had caused explosions in power circuits. This was later ruled out by the National Grid plc, the power suppliers. Commentators suggested that the explanation had been made because of bomb damage to power lines along the tracks; the rapid series of power failures caused by the explosions (or power being ended by means of switches at the locations to permit evacuation) looked similar, from the point of view of a control room operator, to a cascading series of circuit breaker operations that would result from a major power surge. A couple of hours after the bombings, the Home SecretaryCharles Clarke confirmed the incidents were terrorist attacks.[34]
Although there were security alerts at many locations, no other terrorist incidents occurred outside central London. Suspicious packages were destroyed in controlled explosions in Edinburgh, Brighton, Coventry, Southampton, Portsmouth, Darlington and Nottingham. Security across the UK was increased to the highest alert level. The Times reported on 17 July 2005 that police sniper units were following as many as a dozen Al Qaeda suspects in Britain. The covert armed teams were ordered to shoot to kill if surveillance suggested that a terror suspect was carrying a bomb and he refused to surrender if challenged. A member of S019, Scotland Yard’s elite firearms unit, said: “These units are trained to deal with any eventuality. Since the London bombs they have been deployed to look at certain people.”[35]
Vodafone reported that its mobile telephone network reached capacity at about 10:00 am on the day of the incident, and it was forced to initiate emergency procedures to prioritise emergency calls (ACCOLC, the "access overload control scheme"). Other mobile phone networks also reported failures. The BBC speculated that the telephone system was stopped by the security services to prevent the possibility of mobile telephones being used to trigger bombs. Although this option was considered, it became clear later that the intermittent unavailability of both mobile and landline telephone systems was due to excessive usage.[citation needed]
A sign on the M25 London orbital road warns drivers to avoid the city
Tube stations closed
all across London, causing chaos.
For most of the day, central London's public transport system was largely ended because of the complete closure of the underground system, the closure of the Zone 1 bus networks, and the evacuation of Russell Square. Bus services restarted at 4 pm the same day, and most mainline train stations resumed service soon afterward. Tourist river vessels were pressed into service to provide a free alternative to the overcrowded trains and buses. Local Lifeboats were required to act as safety boats, including the Sheerness Lifeboat from the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. Thousands of people chose to walk home or to the nearest Zone 2 bus or train station. Most of the Underground apart from the affected stations restarted the next morning, though some commuters chose to stay at home.
Much of King's Cross station was also closed, with the ticket hall and waiting area being used as a makeshift hospital to treat casualties. Although the station reopened later during the day, only suburban rail services were able to use it, with GNER trains terminating at Peterborough (the service was fully restored on 9 July). King's Cross St. Pancras tube station remained available only to Metropolitan Line services in order to facilitate the ongoing recovery and investigation effort for a week, though Victoria Line services were restored on 15 July and Northern Line services on 18 July. St Pancras railway station, located next to King's Cross, was shut on Thursday afternoon with all Midland Mainline trains terminating in Leicester disrupting services to Sheffield, Nottingham and Derby.
By 25 July there were still disruptions to the Piccadilly Line (which was not running between Arnos Grove and Hyde Park Corner in either direction), the Hammersmith & City Line (which was only running a shuttle service between Hammersmith and Paddington) and the Circle Line (which was suspended in its entirety). The Metropolitan line resumed services between Moorgate and Aldgate on 25 July. The Hammersmith and City was also operating a peak-hours service between Whitechapel and Baker Street. Most of the tube network was however operating normally.
On 2 August the Hammersmith & City Line resumed normal service; the Circle Line service was still suspended, though all Circle Line stations are also served by other lines. The Piccadilly Line service resumed on 4 August.
There were limited reactions to the attack in the world economy as measured by financial market and exchange rate activity. The value of the British pound decreased 0.89 cents to a 19-month low against the US$. The FTSE 100 Index decreased by about 200 points during the two hours after the first attack. This was its greatest decrease since the start of the war in Iraq, and it triggered the London Stock Exchange's special measures, restricting panic selling and aimed at ensuring market stability. However, by the time the market closed it had recovered to only 71.3 points (1.36%) down on the previous day's three-year closing high. Markets in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain also closed about 1% down on the day.
US market indexes increased slightly, partly because the dollar index increased sharply against the pound and the euro. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 31.61 to 10,302.29. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased 7.01 to 2075.66. The S&P 500 increased 2.93 points to 1197.87 after decreasing as much as 1%. Every benchmark value gained 0.3%.[36]
The market values increased again on 8 July as it became clear that the damage caused by the bombings was not as great as thought initially. By end of trading the market had recovered fully to above its level at start of trading on 7 July. Insurers in the UK tend to re-insure their terrorist liabilities in excess of the first £75,000,000 with Pool Re, a mutual insurer established by the government with major insurers. Pool Re has substantial reserves and newspaper reports indicated that claims would easily be funded.
On 9 July, the Bank of England, HM Treasury and the Financial Services Authority revealed that they had instigated contingency plans immediately after the attacks to ensure that the UK financial markets could keep trading. This involved the activation of a "secret chatroom" on the British Government's Financial Sector Continuity website, which allowed the institutions to communicate with the country's banks and market dealers.[37]
Continuous news coverage of the attacks was broadcast throughout 7 July, by both BBC One and ITV1 uninterrupted until 7 pm. Sky News did not broadcast any advertisements for 24 hours. ITN confirmed later that its coverage on ITV1 was its longest uninterrupted on-air broadcast of its 50 year history. Television coverage was notable for the use of mobile telephone footage sent in by members of the public and live pictures from traffic CCTV cameras. Local and national radio also generally either suspended regular programming for news reports, or provided regular updates as part of scheduled programmes.[citation needed]
Many movies and drama broadcasts were cancelled or postponed due to taste. For example, BBC Radio 4 ended its scheduled Classic Serial without explanation; it was to have been John Buchan's Greenmantle, the story of an attempt by German secret agents to engineer a jihad against the British in the Middle East during World War I. ITV replaced the movies The X Files, in which a building is partly destroyed by a bomb, with Stakeout; and replaced The Siege, where a bomb destroys a bus full of passengers, with Gone in 60 Seconds.[citation needed]
The BBC soap-opera EastEnders was forced to re-edit that night's episode, which contained a sequence involving a house explosion, ambulances and survivors choking from smoke inhalation. The Big Brother 2005 isolated residence that was occurring at the time decided against telling the housemates of the day's attacks after the producers determined that all relatives and friends of the housemates were well. Sky One broadcast an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in place of Terror Attacks: Could You Survive ...?.[citation needed]
Also, Viacom-owned music channels MTV, VH1, TMF and all their sub-channels broadcasted a 'sombre' music playlist for the rest of the day, and into some of the next (the MTV studios were situated in Camden Town, close to some of the bomb sites). A two-part episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, directed by Quentin Tarantino and concerning a suicide bomber, and being trapped underground, due to be shown on 12 July on Five, was postponed for a week.[citation needed]
The BBC Online website recorded an all time bandwidth peak of 11 Gb/s at 12:00 on 7 July. BBC News received some 1 billion total accesses during the day of the event (including all images, text and HTML), serving some 5.5 terabytes of data. At peak times during the day there were 40,000 page requests per second for the BBC News website. The previous day's announcement of the 2012 Olympics being awarded to London caused a maximum of about 5 Gb/s. The previous all time maximum at bbc.co.uk was caused by the announcement of the Michael Jackson verdict, which used 7.2 Gb/s.[38]
On Tuesday 12 July it was reported that the far-right British National Party released leaflets showing images of the "Number 30 Bus" after it was destroyed. The slogan "Maybe now it's time to start listening to the BNP" was printed beside the photo. Then Home Secretary Charles Clarke described it as an attempt by the BNP to, "cynically exploit the current tragic events in London to further their spread of hatred".[39]
Governments and media outside the UK have regarded successive British governments as unduly lenient towards radical Islamist militants, so long as they were involved in activities outside the UK.[40] Britain's reluctance to extradite or prosecute terrorist suspects resulted in London being dubbed Londonistan.[41] The policies were believed to be a cynical quid pro quo, the UK accused of avoiding attacks at home in exchange for refusal to extradite.[40]
In the opinion of former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, before the identity of the bombers became known, the bombers were almost certainly born or based in Britain.[42] The attacks would have required extensive preparation and prior reconnaissance efforts, and a familiarity with bomb-making and the London transport network as well as access to significant amounts of bomb-making equipment and chemicals.
Some newspaper editorials in Iran have blamed the bombing on British or American authorities seeking to further justify their War on Terrorism, and have claimed that the plan that included the bombings also involved increasing harassment of Muslims in Europe.[43]
On 13 August 2005 The Independent newspaper reported, quoting police and MI5 sources, that 7 July bombers acted independently of an al-Qaeda terror mastermind someplace abroad.[44]
On 1 September 2005, it was reported that al-Qaeda officially claimed responsibility for the attacks in a videotape was broadcast by the Arab television network al Jazeera. But an official inquiry by the British government reported that the tape claiming responsibility had been edited after the attacks, and that the bombers did not have direct assistance from al Qaeda.[45] Zabi uk-Taifi, an al-Qaeda commander arrested in Pakistan in January 2009, may have had connections to 7 July 2005 bombings, according to Pakistani intelligence sources.[46]
A second claim of responsibility was posted on the Internet on 9 July, claiming the attacks for another Al Qaeda-linked group, Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades. The group has previously falsely claimed responsibility for events that were the result of technical problems, such as the 2003 London blackout and Britain's Northeast Blackout of 2003.[47]
As regards the bombings, a belief that the official version of events is incomplete or differs from the facts is an opinion of a minority. For example, a survey of 500 British Muslims undertaken by Channel 4 News found that 24% believed the four men blamed for the attacks did not perform them.[48] During 2006, the government had refused to hold a public inquiry, stating that "it would be a ludicrous diversion". Then Prime Minister Tony Blair said an independent inquiry would "undermine support" for MI5, while David Cameron said only a full inquiry would "get to the truth".[49] In reaction to revelations about the extent of security service investigations into the bombers prior to the attack, then Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis said: "It is becoming more and more clear that the story presented to the public and Parliament is at odds with the facts."[50] However, the decision against an independent public inquest was later reversed. A full public inquest into the bombings was subsequently begun from October 2010. Coroner Lady Justice Hallett stated that the inquest would examine how each victim died and whether MI5, if it had worked better, could have prevented the attack.[51]
There have been various conspiracy theories proposed about the bombings, including the suggestion that the bombers were 'patsies', based on claims about timings of the underground trains and the train from Luton, supposed explosions under the carriages, and allegations of the faking of the one time-stamped and dated photograph of the bombers at Luton station.[52][53] Claims made by one theorist in the internet video 7/7 Ripple Effect were examined by the BBC documentary series The Conspiracy Files, in an episode titled 7/7 first broadcast on 30 June 2009, which debunked many of the video's claims.[54]
On the same day of the bombings Peter Power gave interviews on BBC Radio 5 Live[55] and ITV[56] saying that he was working on a crisis management simulation drill, in the City of London, "based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning", when he heard that an attack was going on in real life. He described this as a co-incidence. He also gave an interview to the Manchester Evening News where he spoke of "an exercise involving mock broadcasts when it happened for real".[57] After a few days he dismissed it as a "spooky coincidence" on Canadian TV.[58]
People observing the two-minute silence in Trafalgar Square on the evening of 14 July 2005
The London Memorial Garden set up by the City of Westminster in the Victoria Embankment Park, in remembrance of the victims of the terrorist attacks of 7 July 2005.[59]
The Palazzo Valentini (the provincial seat of government in Rome) mourning the London Bombings. The posters read: "The Province of Rome (is) close to the suffering in London".
Since the bombings, the United Kingdom and other nations have devised many ways to honour the dead and missing. Most of these memorials included moments of silence, candle-lit vigils, and laying of flowers at the bombing sites. Foreign leaders have also honoured the dead by ordering their flags to be half-staffed, signed books of condolences at embassies of the United Kingdom, and issued messages of support and condolences to the British people.
The government ordered the Union Flag to be flown at half-mast on 8 July.[60] The following day, the Bishop of London led prayers for the victims during a service paying tribute to the role of women during World War II; a vigil for the Victims of the London Bombings. called by Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Muslim Association of Britain. was held from 5 pm, at Friends Meeting House garden, Euston Road.
A two minute silence for the victims of the bombings was held on 14 July 2005 throughout Europe.[61] Thousands attended a vigil at 18:00 on Trafalgar Square. After an initial silence there was a series of speakers for the next two hours. A memorial service was held at St Paul's Cathedral on 1 November 2005.[62] To mark the first anniversary of the attack, a two minute silence was obseC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Picture_of_the_day/July_2011GQ
Wikipedia:Picture of the day/July 2011 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
These featured pictures previously appeared (or shall appear) as Picture of the day as scheduled below. You can add the automatically updating Picture of the day to your userpage or talk page using {{pic of the day}} (text version) or {{POTD}} (short version). For instructions on how to make custom POTD layouts, see Wikipedia:Picture of the day.
A map of the native range of the four subspecies of painted turtle (Chrysemys picta), a pond turtle found in slow-moving fresh waters in North America.
A portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni, the daughter in law of Giovanni Tornabuoni. She was a member of the Albizzi family, who were rivals of the Medici and Alberti families, and were at the centre of Florentine oligarchy starting from 1382 in the reaction that followed the Ciompi revolt. However, after Cosimo de' Medici returned from exile in 1434 (arranged by Rinaldo degli Albizzi) and regained power, he in turn exiled all but one of the Albizzis from Florence. This painting was done around 1490, long after the Albizzis' fall from grace.
Macleay's Swallowtail (Graphium macleayanus) is a swallowtail butterfly native to Australia, named after Scottish entomologistAlexander Macleay. It is found in coastal areas of Eastern Australia and on Tasmania. It has a wingspan of about 55 mm (2.2 in), with females being larger than males.
Megaliths, some nicely decorated, were a part of the culture of the island of Nias off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. There were big stone statues, stone seats for the chieftains and stone tables where justice was done. There were also big stones to commemorate the deaths of important people. In this 1915 photo such a stone is hauled upwards. The story has it that it took 525 people three days to erect this stone in the village of Bawemataloeo.
Would you like to get more involved, find some new friends, or just lend a helping hand? The Welcoming Committee is a great way to contribute. There are no requirements for membership (other than the fact that you must be extra nice to newcomers) and it's wikifun!
Wikipedia's contents can be explored on several complementary pages. Some contents pages are comprehensive by topic, while others are comprehensive by the type of page. The top-level contents pages are listed below.
A portal introduces the reader to a subject by presenting images, categories and excerpts of key articles. Portals also guide editing by providing to-do lists.
Wikipedia's category system is generated from category tags at the bottom of articles and other pages. The top-level pages are:
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Category:Fundamental categories – the category containing the most fundamental ontological categories, such that every article category system can reasonably be expected to be within it
Abolitionism in the West was preceded by the New Laws of the Indies in 1542, in which Emperor Charles V declared free all Native American slaves, abolishing slavery of these races, and declaring them citizens of the Empire with full rights. The move was inspired by writings of the Spanish monk Bartolomé de las Casas and the School of Salamanca. Spanish settlers replaced the Native American slaves with enslaved laborers brought from Africa and thus did not abolish slavery altogether.
In East Asia, abolitionism was evidenced in, for instance, the writings of Yu Hyongwon, a 17th-century KoreanConfucian scholar who wrote extensively against slave-holding in 17th-century Korea.
Today, child and adult slavery and forced labour are illegal in most countries, as well as being against international law.
Some of the first court cases to challenge the legality of slavery took place in Scotland. The cases were Montgomery v Sheddan (1756), Spens v Dalrymple (1769), and set the precedent of legal procedure in British courts that would later lead to successful outcomes for the plaintiffs.[1]
The court case of 1569 involving Cartwright who had bought a slave from Russia ruled that English law could not recognise slavery. This ruling was overshadowed by later developments, but was upheld by the Lord Chief Justice in 1701 when he ruled that a slave became free as soon as he arrived in England.[2]
The last known form of enforced servitude of adults (villeinage) had disappeared in Britain at the beginning of the 17th century. But by the 18th century, traders began to import African and Indian and East Asian slaves to London and Edinburgh to work as personal servants. Men who migrated to the North American colonies often took their East Indian slaves or servants with them, as East Indians were documented in colonial records.[3][4] They were not bought or sold in London, and their legal status was unclear until 1772, when the case of a runaway slave named James Somersett forced a legal decision. The owner, Charles Steuart, had attempted to abduct him and send him to Jamaica to work on the sugar plantations. While in London, Somersett had been baptised and his godparents issued a writ of habeas corpus. As a result Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench, had to judge whether the abduction was legal or not under English Common Law, as there was no legislation for slavery in England.
In his judgment of 22 June 1772 Mansfield declared: "Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged." Although the exact legal implications of the judgement are actually unclear when analysed by lawyers, it was generally taken at the time to have decided that the condition of slavery did not exist under English law in England. This judgment emancipated the 10,000-14,000 slaves or possible slaves in England,[5] who were mostly domestic servants. It also laid down the principle that slavery contracted in other jurisdictions (such as the North American colonies) could not be enforced in England.[6]
The Somersett case became a significant part of the common law of slavery in the English speaking world, and helped launch the movement to abolish slavery.[7] After reading about the Somersett's Case, Joseph Knight, an enslaved African in Scotland, left his master John Wedderburn. A similar case to Steuart's was brought by Wedderburn in 1776, with the same result: chattel slavery was ruled not to exist under the law of Scotland. Nonetheless, legally mandated, hereditary slavery of Scots in Scotland existed from 1606[8] until 1799, when colliers and salters were legally emancipated by an act of the Parliament of Great Britain (39 Geo.III. c56). A prior law enacted in 1775 (15 Geo.III. c. 28) was intended to end what the act referred to as "a state of slavery and bondage,"[9] but it was ineffectual, necessitating the 1799 act.
Ignatius Sancho (c1729–1780) gained fame in his time as "the extraordinary Negro". To 18th-century British abolitionists, he became a symbol of the humanity of Africans and immorality of the slave trade.
Despite the ending of slavery in Great Britain, slavery was a strong institution in the Southern Colonies of British America and the West Indian colonies of the British Empire. By 1783, an anti-slavery movement was beginning among the British public. That year the first British abolitionist organization was founded by a group of Quakers. The Quakers continued to be influential throughout the lifetime of the movement, in many ways leading the campaign.[10] On 17 June 1783 the issue was formally brought to government by Sir Cecil Wray (Member of Parliament for Westminster), who presented the Quaker petition to parliament. Also in 1783, Dr Beilby Porteus issued a call to the Church of England to cease its involvement in the slave trade and to formulate a workable policy to draw attention to and improve the conditions of Afro-Caribbeanslaves. The exploration of the African continent, by such British groups as the African Association (1788), promoted the abolitionists' cause by showing Europeans that the Africans had legitimate, complex cultures. The African Association also had close ties with William Wilberforce, perhaps the most important political figure in the battle for abolition in the British Empire.
Black people also played an important part in the movement for abolition. In Britain, Olaudah Equiano, whose autobiography was published in nine editions in his lifetime, campaigned tirelessly against the slave trade
William Wilberforce (1759–1833), politician and philanthropist who was a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade.
In May 1787, the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed, referring to the Atlantic slave trade, the trafficking in slaves by British merchants who took manufactured goods from ports such as Bristol and Liverpool, sold or exchanged these for slaves in West Africa where the African chieftain hierarchy was tied to slavery, shipped the slaves to British colonies and other Caribbean countries or the American colonies, where they sold or exchanged them mainly to the Planters for rum and sugar, which they took back to British ports. This was the so-called Triangle trade because these mercantile merchants traded in three places each round-trip. Political influence against the inhumanity of the slave trade grew strongly in the late 18th century. Many people, some African, some European by descent, influenced abolition. Well known abolitionists in Britain included James Ramsay who had seen the cruelty of the trade at first hand, Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson, and other members of the Clapham Sect of evangelical reformers, as well as Quakers who took most of the places on the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, having been the first to present a petition against the slave trade to the British Parliament and who founded the predecessor body to the Committee. As Dissenters, Quakers were not eligible to become British MPs in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, so the Anglican evangelist William Wilberforce was persuaded to become the leader of the parliamentary campaign. Clarkson became the group's most prominent researcher, gathering vast amounts of information about the slave trade, gaining first hand accounts by interviewing sailors and former slaves at British ports such as Bristol, Liverpool and London.
Olaudah Equiano (c1745–1797) was one of the most prominent people of African heritage involved in the British debate for the abolition of the slave trade.
Mainly because of Clarkson's efforts, a network of local abolition groups was established across the country. They campaigned through public meetings and the publication of pamphlets and petitions. One of the earliest books promoted by Clarkson and the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was the autobiography of the freed slave Olaudah Equiano. The movement had support from such freed slaves, from many denominational groups such as Swedenborgians, Quakers, Baptists, Methodists and others, and reached out for support from the new industrial workers of the cities in the midlands and north of England. Even women and children, previously un-politicised groups, became involved in the campaign although at this date women often had to hold separate meetings and were ineligible to be represented in the British Parliament, as indeed were the majority of the men in Britain.
One particular project of the abolitionists was the negotiation with African chieftains for the purchase of land in West African kingdoms for the establishment of 'Freetown' – a settlement for former slaves of the British Empire and the United States, back in west Africa. This privately negotiated settlement, later part of Sierra Leone eventually became protected under a British Act of Parliament in 1807–8, after which British influence in West Africa grew as a series of negotiations with local Chieftains were signed to stamp out trading in slaves. These included agreements to permit British navy ships to intercept Chieftains' ships to ensure their merchants were not carrying slaves.
Blake's "A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows", an illustration to J. G. Stedman's Narrative, of a Five Years' Expedition, against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796).
In 1796, John Gabriel Stedman published the memoirs of his five-year voyage to Surinam as part of a military force sent out to subdue bosnegers, former slaves living in the inlands. The book is critical of the treatment of slaves and contains many images by William Blake and Francesco Bartolozzi depicting the cruel treatment of runaway slaves. It became part of a large body of abolitionist literature.
Plate to commemorate the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.
The Slave Trade Act was passed by the British Parliament on 25 March 1807, making the slave trade illegal throughout the British Empire. The Act imposed a fine of £100 for every slave found aboard a British ship. Such a law was bound to be eventually passed, given the increasingly powerful abolitionist movement. The timing might have been connected with the Napoleonic Wars raging at the time. At a time when Napoleon took the retrograde decision to revive slavery which had been abolished during the French Revolution and to send his troops to re-enslave the people of Haiti and the other French Caribbean possessions, the British prohibition of the slave trade gave the British Empire the high moral ground.
The act's intention was to entirely outlaw the slave trade within the British Empire, but the trade continued and captains in danger of being caught by the Royal Navy would often throw slaves into the sea to reduce the fine. In 1827, Britain declared that participation in the slave trade was piracy and punishable by death. Between 1808 and 1860, the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard.[11] Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.[12]
"To the Friends of Negro Emancipation", an engraving celebrating the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833.
After the 1807 act, slaves were still held, though not sold, within the British Empire. In the 1820s, the abolitionist movement again became active, this time campaigning against the institution of slavery itself. In 1823 the first Anti-Slavery Society was founded in Britain. Many of the campaigners were those who had previously campaigned against the slave trade. Sam Sharpe contributed to the abolition of slavery with his Christmas rebellion in 1831.
On 28 August 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act was given Royal Assent, which paved the way for the abolition of slavery within the British Empire and its colonies. On 1 August 1834, all slaves in the British Empire were emancipated, but they were indentured to their former owners in an apprenticeship system which was abolished in two stages; the first set of apprenticeships came to an end on 1 August 1838, while the final apprenticeships were scheduled to cease on 1 August 1840, six years later.
On 1 August 1834, an unarmed group of mainly elderly Negroes being addressed by the Governor at Government House in Port of Spain, Trinidad, about the new laws, began chanting: "Pas de six ans. Point de six ans" ("Not six years. No six years"), drowning out the voice of the Governor. Peaceful protests continued until a resolution to abolish apprenticeship was passed and de facto freedom was achieved. Full emancipation for all was legally granted ahead of schedule on 1 August 1838, making Trinidad the first British colony with slaves to completely abolish slavery.[13] The government set aside £20 million to cover compensation of slave owners across the Empire, but the former slaves received no compensation or reparations.[14]
In 1839, a successor organization to the Anti-Slavery Society was formed, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which worked to outlaw slavery in other countries and also to pressure the government to help enforce the suppression of the slave trade by declaring slave traderspirates and pursuing them. This organization continues today as Anti-Slavery International.
The slave trade was regulated by Louis XIV's Code Noir. The revolt of slaves in the largest French colony of St. Domingue in 1791 was the beginning of what became the Haïtian Revolution led by Toussaint L'Ouverture. The institution of slavery was first abolished in St. Domingue in 1793 by Sonthonax, who was the Commissioner sent to St. Domingue by the Convention, after the slave revolt of 1791, in order to safeguard the allegiance of the population to revolutionary France. The Convention, the first elected Assembly of the First Republic (1792–1804), then abolished slavery in law in France and its colonies on 4 February 1794. Abbé Grégoire and the Society of the Friends of the Blacks (Société des Amis des Noirs), led by Jacques Pierre Brissot, were part of the abolitionist movement, which had laid important groundwork in building anti-slavery sentiment in the metropole. The first article of the law stated that "Slavery was abolished" in the French colonies, while the second article stated that "slave-owners would be indemnified" with financial compensation for the value of their slaves. The constitution of France passed in 1795 included in the declaration of the Rights of Man that slavery was abolished.
However, Napoleon did not include any declaration of the Rights of Man in the Constitution promulgated in 1799, and decided to re-establish slavery after becoming First Consul, promulgating the law of 20 May 1802 and sending military governors and troops to the colonies to impose it. On 10 May 1802, Colonel Delgrès launched a rebellion in Guadeloupe against Napoleon's representative, General Richepanse. The rebellion was repressed, and slavery was re-established. The news of this event sparked the rebellion that led to the loss of the lives of tens of thousands of French soldiers, a greater loss of civilian lives, and Haïti's gaining independence in 1804, and the consequential loss of the second most important French territory in the Americas, Louisiana, which was sold to the United States of America. The French governments refused to recognise Haiti and only did so in the 1830s when Haiti agreed to pay a substantial amount of reparations. Then, on 27 April 1848, under the Second Republic (1848–52), the decree-lawSchœlcher again abolished slavery. The state bought the slaves from the colons (white colonists; Békés in Creole), and then freed them.
At about the same time, France started colonising Africa. Its activities there included transferring the population to mines, forestry, and rubber plantations under isolated, harsh working conditions often compared to slavery.
Debates about the dimensions of colonialism continue. On 10 May 2001, the Taubira law officially acknowledge slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade as a crime against humanity. 10 May was chosen as the day dedicated to recognition of the crime of slavery. Anti-colonial activists also want the French Republic to recognise African Liberation Day.
Although the crime of slavery was formally recognised, four years later, the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) voted on 23 February 2005 for a law to require teachers and textbooks to "acknowledge and recognise in particular the positive role of the French presence abroad, especially in North Africa." This resolution was met with public uproar and accusations of historic revisionism, both inside France and abroad. Because of this law, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, president of Algeria, refused to sign the envisioned "friendly treaty" with France. Famous writer Aimé Césaire, leader of the Négritude movement, refused to meet UMP leader Nicolas Sarkozy, who cancelled his planned visit to Martinique. President Jacques Chirac (UMP) repealed the controversial law at the beginning of 2006.
In the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (both now part of Romania), the enslavement of the Roma (often referred to as Gypsies) was still legal at the beginning of the 19th century. Abolitionism was associated with the progressive pro-European and anti-Ottoman movement, which gradually gained power in the two principalities. Between 1843 and 1855, all of the 250,000 enslaved Roma people were liberated. Many migrated to Western Europe and North America.
Bartolomé de las Casas was a 16th-century SpanishDominicanpriest, the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, who as a settler in the New World witnessed, and was driven to oppose, the poor treatment of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists and advocated before King Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor on behalf of rights for the natives. Originally having proposed to replace the slave labor of the natives with the importation of slaves from Africa, he eventually recanted this stance as well, and became an advocate for the Africans in the colonies.[15][16] His book, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, is largely responsible for the passage of the new Spanish colonial laws known as the New Laws of 1542, which abolished native slavery for the first time in European colonial history and ultimately led to the Valladolid debate.
Hugh Elliot was a noted abolitionist. Whilst Governor in the British West Indies, he was reported to be the driving force behind the arrest, trial and execution of a wealthy white planter Arthur Hodge for the murder of a slave.
Slavery was abolished in most of Latin America during the Independence Wars (1810–1822), but remained a practice in the region up to 1873 in Puerto Rico, 1886 in Cuba, and 1888 in Brazil. The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata declared freedom of wombs in 1813, but without abolishing slavery completely. The United Provinces would gave room to Argentina and Uruguay. Argentina abolished slavery with the signing of the Argentine Constitution of 1853. Slavery was abolished in Uruguay during the Guerra Grande, by both the government of Fructuoso Rivera and the government in exile of Manuel Oribe.
In some parts of Africa and in much of the Islamic world, it persisted as a legal institution well into the 20th century[citation needed].
With slaves escaping to New York and New England, legislation for gradual emancipation was passed in Upper Canada (1793) and Lower Canada (1803). In Upper Canada the Assembly no slaves could be imported; slaves already in the province would remain enslaved until death, no new slaves could be brought into Upper Canada, and children born to female slaves would be slaves but must be freed at age 25. In practice some slavery continued until abolished in the entire British Empire in the 1830s.[17]
The first American movement to abolish slavery came in the spring of 1688 when German and Dutch Quakers of Mennonite descent in Germantown, Pennsylvania (now part of Philadelphia) wrote a two-page condemnation of the practice and sent it to the governing bodies of their Quaker church, the Society of Friends. Though the Quaker establishment took no immediate action, the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery, was an unusually early, clear and forceful argument against slavery and initiated the process that finally led to the banning of slavery in the Society of Friends (1776) and in the state of Pennsylvania(1780).
Thomas Paine (1737–1805), whose 1775 article "African Slavery in America" was the first article published in what would become the United States which advocated abolishing slavery and freeing the slaves.
The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the first American abolition society, formed 14 April 1775, in Philadelphia, primarily by Quakers who had strong religious objections to slavery. The society ceased to operate during the Revolution and the British occupation of Philadelphia. After the Revolution, it was reorganized in 1784, with Benjamin Franklin as its first president.[20]Rhode Island Quakers, associated with Moses Brown, co-founder of Brown University, and who also settled at Uxbridge, Massachusetts prior to 1770, were among the first in America to free slaves. Benjamin Rush was another leader, as were many Quakers. John Woolman gave up most of his business in 1756 to devote himself to campaigning against slavery along with other Quakers.[21] The first article published in what later became the United States advocating the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery was allegedly written by Thomas Paine. Titled "African Slavery in America", it appeared on 8 March 1775 in the Postscript to the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, more popularly known as The Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Museum.[22]
Through the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 under the Congress of the Confederation, slavery was prohibited in the territories north west of the Ohio River. By 1804, abolitionists succeeded in passing legislation that would eventually (in conjunction with the 13th amendment) emancipate the slaves in every state north of the Ohio River and the Mason-Dixon Line. However, emancipation in the free states was so gradual that both New York and Pennsylvania listed slaves in their 1840 census returns, and a small number of black slaves (18) were held in New Jersey in 1860.[23][24]
The principal organized bodies to advocate this reform were the Pennsylvania Antislavery Society and the New York Manumission Society. The last was headed by powerful politicians: John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, later Federalists and Aaron Burr, later Democratic-Republican Vice-President of the United States. That bill did not pass, because of controversy over the rights of freed slaves; every member of the Legislature, but one, voted for some version of it. New York did enact a bill in 1799, which did end slavery over time, but made no provision for the freedmen. New Jersey in 1804 was the last northern state to enact the gradual elimination slavery (again in a gradual fashion); there were still eighteen "perpetual apprentices" in New Jersey in the 1860 Census. Despite the actions of abolitionists, free blacks were subject to racial segregation in the North.[25]
At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, agreement was reached that allowed the Federal government to abolish the importation of slaves into the United States, but not prior to 1808. By that time, all the states had passed individual laws abolishing or severely limiting the international buying or selling of slaves.[26] The importation of slaves into the United States was officially banned on January 1, 1808.[27] but not its internal slave trade.
After 1776, Quaker and Moravian advocates helped persuade numerous slaveholders in the Upper South to free their slaves. Manumissions increased for nearly two decades. Many individual acts of manumission freed thousands of slaves in total. Slaveholders freed slaves in such number that the percentage of free Negroes in the Upper South increased sharply from one to ten percent, with most of that increase in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. By 1810 three-quarters of blacks in Delaware were free. The most notable of individuals was Robert Carter III of Virginia, who freed more than 450 people by "Deed of Gift", filed in 1791. This number was more slaves than any single American had freed or would ever free.[28] Often slaveholders came to their decisions by their own struggles in the Revolution; their wills and deeds frequently cited language about the equality of men supporting their manumissions. Slaveholders were also encouraged to do so because the economics of the area was changing. They were shifting from labor-intensive tobacco culture to mixed crop cultivation and did not need as many slaves.[29]
The free black families began to thrive, together with African Americans free before the Revolution, mostly descendants of unions between working class white women and African men.[30] By 1860, in Delaware 91.7 percent of the blacks were free, and 49.7 percent of those in Maryland. These first free families often formed the core of artisans, professionals, preachers and teachers in future generations.[29]
During the Congressional debate on the 1820 Tallmadge Amendment, which sought to limit slavery in Missouri as it became a state, Rufus King declared that "laws or compacts imposing any such condition [slavery] upon any human being are absolutely void, because contrary to the law of nature, which is the law of God, by which he makes his ways known to man, and is paramount to all human control." The amendment failed and Missouri became a slave state. According to historian David Brion Davis, this may have been the first time in the world that a political leader openly attacked slavery's perceived legality in such a radical manner.
Beginning in the 1830s, the U.S. Postmaster General refused to allow the mails to carry abolition pamphlets to the South.[31] Northern teachers suspected of abolitionism were expelled from the South, and abolitionist literature was banned. Southerners rejected the denials of Republicans that they were abolitionists. They pointed to John Brown's attempt in 1859 to start a slave uprising as proof that multiple Northern conspiracies were afoot to ignite bloody slave rebellions. Although some abolitionists did call for slave revolts, no evidence of any other Brown-like conspiracy has been discovered.[32] The North felt threatened as well, for as Eric Foner concludes, "Northerners came to view slavery as the very antithesis of the good society, as well as a threat to their own fundamental values and interests".[33] However, many conservative Northerners were uneasy at the prospect of the sudden addition to the labor pool of a huge number of freed laborers who were used to working for very little, and thus seen as being willing to undercut prevailing wages.[citation needed]. The famous, "fiery" Abolitionist, Abby Kelley Foster, from Massachusetts, was considered an "ultra" abolitionist who believed in full civil rights for all black people. She held to the views that the freed slaves would colonize Liberia. Parts of the anti-slavery movement became known as "Abby Kellyism". She recruited Susan B Anthony to the movement.
In the early part of the 19th century, a variety of organizations were established advocating the movement of black people from the United States to locations where they would enjoy greater freedom; some endorsed colonization, while others advocated emigration. During the 1820s and 1830s the American Colonization Society (A.C.S.) was the primary vehicle for proposals to return black Americans to freedom in Africa. It had broad support nationwide among white people, including prominent leaders such as Abraham Lincoln,[34]Henry Clay and James Monroe, who saw this as preferable to emancipation, with Clay stating: "unconquerable prejudice resulting from their color, they never could amalgamate with the free whites of this country. It was desirable, therefore, as it respected them, and the residue of the population of the country, to drain them off".[35] Clay argued that as blacks could never be fully integrated into society due to "unconquerable prejudice" by white Americans, it would be better for them to emigrate to Africa.[35] There was however, considerable opposition among African Americans, many of whom did not see colonization as a viable or acceptable solution to their daunting problems in the United States. One notable opponent of such plans was the wealthy free black abolitionist James Forten of Philadelphia.
After a series of attempts to plant small settlements on the coast of West Africa, the A.C.S. established the colony of Liberia in 1821–22. Over the next four decades, it assisted thousands of former slaves and free black people to move there from the United States. The disease environment they encountered was extreme, and most of the migrants died fairly quickly. Enough survived to declare independence in 1847. American support for colonization waned gradually through the 1840s and 1850s, largely because of the efforts of abolitionists to promote emancipation of slaves and granting of American citizenship. Americo-Liberians ruled Liberia continuously until the military coup of 1980.[36]
The emigrationist tradition dated back to the Revolutionary War era. Initially, the thought was that free African Americans would want to emigrate to Africa, but over time other ideas became popular. After Haiti became independent, it tried to recruit African Americans to migrate there after it re-established trade relations with the United States. The Haytian Union was the name of a group formed to promote relations between the countries.[37]
Cincinnati's Black community sponsored founding the Wilberforce Colony, an initially successful settlement of African American immigrants to Canada. The colony was one of the first such independent political entities. It lasted for a number of decades and provided a destination for about 200 black families emigrating from a number of locations in the United States.[37]
The Second Great Awakening of the 1820s and 1830s in religion inspired groups that undertook many types of social reform. For some that meant the immediate abolition of slavery because it was a sin to hold slaves and a sin to tolerate slavery. "Abolitionist" had several meanings at the time. The followers of William Lloyd Garrison, including Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass, demanded the "immediate abolition of slavery", hence the name. A more pragmatic group of abolitionists, like Theodore Weld and Arthur Tappan, wanted immediate action, but that action might well be a program of gradual emancipation, with a long intermediate stage. "Antislavery men", like John Quincy Adams, did not call slavery a sin. They called it an evil feature of society as a whole. They did what they could to limit slavery and end it where possible, but were not part of any abolitionist group. For example, in 1841 Adams represented the Amistad African slaves in the Supreme Court of the United States and argued that they should be set free.[1] In the last years before the war, "antislavery" could mean the Northern majority, like Abraham Lincoln, who oppose' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BridgwaterՏ
Bridgwater is a market town and civil parish in Somerset, England. It is the administrative centre of the Sedgemoordistrict, and a major industrial centre. Bridgwater is located on the major communication routes through South West England. According to the 2001 census, the town had a population of 33,698 .[1]
Bridgwater is situated, on the edge of the Somerset Levels, in a level and well-wooded country, having to the north the Mendip range and on the west the Quantock hills. The town lies along both sides of the River Parrett, 10 miles (16 km) from its mouth, has been a major port and trading centre and maintains a large industrial base. It is linked to Taunton by the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal. Bridgwater is located between two junctions of the M5 motorway and Bridgwater railway station is on the main railway line between Bristol and Taunton.
Historically, the town had a politically radical tendency, being involved in several events of note on the national stage, and was defended by its own castle. The battlefield of the Battle of Sedgemoor, where the Monmouth Rebellion was finally crushed in 1685 is nearby. Among several places of worship the chief is the Church of St Mary. A house in Blake Street, largely restored, was the birthplace of Admiral Blake in 1598, and is now the Blake Museum. The town has its own arts centre and plays host to the annual Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival.
It is thought that the town was originally called Brigg, meaning Quay. It has been argued that the name may instead come from the Old English brycg (gang plank) or Old Norse bryggja (quay), though this idea has been opposed on etymological grounds.[2] In the Domesday Book the town is listed as Brugie, while Brugia was also used. After the Norman invasion the land was given to Walter Douai[3] (a Norman prince), hence becoming known variously as Burgh-Walter, Brugg-Walter and Brigg-Walter, eventually corrupted to Bridgwater. An alternative version is that it derives from "Bridge of Walter" (i.e. Walter's Bridge).[4][5]
Bridgwater is mentioned both in the Domesday Book and in the earlier Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dating from around 800, owing its origin as a trade centre to its position at the mouth of the chief river in Somerset. It was formerly part of the Hundred of North Petherton.[6] In a legend of Alfred the Great, he burnt some cakes while hiding in the marshes of Athelney near Bridgwater, after the Danish invasion in 875, while in 878 the major engagement of the Battle of Cynwit may have been at nearby Cannington.[7]
A map of Bridgwater from 1946
William Briwere was granted the lordship of the Manor of Bridgwater by John of England in 1201,[5] and founded Bridgwater Friary.[8] Through Briwere's influence, King John granted three charters in 1200; for the construction of Bridgwater Castle, for the creation of a borough, and for a market.[2][9]Bridgwater Castle was a substantial structure built in Old Red Sandstone, covering a site of 8 or 9 acres (32,000 to 36,000 m²). A tidal moat, up to 65 feet (20 m) wide in places, flowed about along the line of the modern thoroughfares of Fore Street and Castle Moat, and between Northgate and Chandos Street. The main entrance opposite the Cornhill was built with a pair of adjacent gates and drawbridges. In addition to a keep, located at the south-east corner of what is now King Square, documents show that the complex included a dungeon, chapel, stables and a bell tower. Built on the only raised ground in the town, the castle controlled the crossing of the town bridge. A 12 feet (4 m) thick portion of the castle wall and water gate can still be seen on West Quay, and the remains of a wall of a building that was probably built within the castle can be viewed in Queen Street. The foundations of the tower forming the north-east corner of the castle are buried beneath Homecastle House.[10] William Briwere also founded St John's hospital[11] which, by the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII, was worth the substantial sum of almost 121 pounds,[12] as well as starting the construction of the town's first stone bridge. William Briwere also went on to found the FranciscanBridgwater Friary in the town.[13]
During the 11th century Second Barons' War against Henry III, Bridgwater was held by the barons against the King. Other charters were granted by Henry III in 1227 (confirmed in 1318, 1370, 1380), which gave Bridgwater a gild merchant which was important for the regulation of trade allowing gild members to trade freely in the town, and to impose payments and restrictions upon others.[5] Bridgwater's peasants under Nicholas Frampton took part in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381,[14] sacking Sydenham House, murdering the local tax collectors and destroying the records.[15]
It was incorporated by charter of Edward IV (1468),[2] confirmed in 1554, 1586, 1629 and 1684. Parliamentary representation began in 1295 and continued until the Reform Act of 1870 when the original borough constituency was disenfranchised for corruption in 1870.[16][17] From 4 July 1870 the town was incorporated within the county constituency of West Somerset. When there was a redistribution of Parliamentary seats to take effect at the 1885 general election, a new county division of Bridgwater was created.[18] A Saturday market and a fair on 24 June were granted by the charter of 1201. Another fair at the beginning of Lent was added in 1468, and a second market on Thursday, and fairs at Midsummer and on 21 September were added in 1554. Charles II granted another fair on 29 December. The importance of these markets and fairs for the sale of wool and wine, and later of cloth in declined after medieval times. The shipping trade of the port revived after the construction of the new dock in 1841, and corn and timber have been imported for centuries.[19]
Gunpowder PlotterGuy Fawkes is celebrated as a local hero during the carnival season, including a grand illuminated procession through Bridgwater town centre, which culminates in the Squibbing.[20]
The statue of Robert Blake at Cornhill, Bridgwater, with St Mary's Church in the background (1998).
In the English Civil War the town and the castle were held by the Royalists under Colonel Francis Wyndham, a personal acquaintance of the King. British history might have been very different had his wife, Lady (Crystabella) Wyndham, been a little more accurate with a musket shot that missed Cromwell but killed his aide de camp.[21] Eventually, with many buildings destroyed in the town, the castle and its valuable contents were surrendered to the Parliamentarians on 21 July 1645. The castle itself was deliberately destroyed the following year, while in 1651 Colonel Wyndham made arrangements for Charles II to flee to France following the Battle of Worcester.[19]
Following the restoration of the monarchy, in 1663 the non-conformist Reverend John Norman, vicar from 1647 to 1660, was one of several 'religious fanatics' confined to their homes by Lord Stawell'smilitia. A large religious meeting house, thought to have been Presbyterian, was demolished and its furniture burned on the Cornhill in 1683.[22] By 1688, matters had calmed down enough that a new chapel, Christ Church, was founded in Dampiet Street, the congregation of which became Unitarian in 1815.[22][23]
In the 1685 Monmouth Rebellion, the rebel James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth was proclaimed King on the Cornhill in Bridgwater and in other local towns. He eventually lead his troops on a night-time attack on the King's position near Westonzoyland.[24] Unfortunately surprise was lost when a musket was accidentally discharged, and the Battle of Sedgemoor resulted in defeat for the Duke. He later lost his head in the Tower of London,[25] and nine locals were executed for treason.[19]
Bridgwater became the first town in Britain to petition the government to ban slavery in 1785.[26] In 1896, the trade unionists of Bridgwater's brick and tile industry were involved a number of strikes. The Salisbury government sent troops to the town to clear the barricades by force after the reading of the Riot Act.[27]
In World War II the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal formed part of the Taunton Stop Line, designed to prevent the advance of a German invasion. Pillboxes can still be seen along its length. The first bombs fell on Bridgwater on 24 August 1940, destroying houses on Old Taunton Road, and three men, three women and one child were killed. Later a prisoner of war camp was established at Colley Lane, holding Italian prisoners.[29] During the preparations for the invasion of Europe, American troops were based in the town.[30]
The first council estate to be built was in the 1930s at Kendale Road, followed by those at Bristol Road. The 1950s saw the start of a significant increase in post-war housebuilding, with council house estates being started at Sydenham and Rhode Lane and the former cooperative estate near Durleigh.[31]
Monday 4th April 2011 saw the first sighting of a mystery object in the River Parrett, the object came to be known as TurtlePig due to its apparent likeness to both animals, and witnesses inability to distinguish what exactly the object was. The event attracted large crowds, news spread quickly and the story was mentioned on Radio 1 and briefly trended on Twitter, the popular social network. One local was quoted as saying that the object resembled a floating stone. Bridgwater Mercury - 'Mystery object brings town to standstill'
Historically, the main port on the river was at Bridgwater; the river being bridged at this point, with the first bridge being constructed in 1200 AD.[36]Quays were built in 1424; with another quay, the Langport slip, being built in 1488 upstream of the Town Bridge.[37] A Customs House was sited at Bridgwater, on West Quay; and a dry dock, launching slips and a boat yard on East Quay.[38] The river was navigable, with care, to Bridgwater Town Bridge by 400 to 500 tonnes (440 to 550 tons) vessels.[39] By trans-shipping into barges at the Town Bridge the Parrett was navigable as far as Langport and (via the River Yeo) to Ilchester. After 1827, it was also possible to transfer goods to Taunton via the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal at Huntworth.[40] A floating harbour was constructed between 1837–1841 and the canal was extended to the harbour.[41] The harbour area contained flour mills, timber yards and chandlers.[41]
Shipping to Bridgwater expanded with the construction of the docks and reached a peak in the nineteenth century between 1880 and 1885; with an average of 3,600 ships per year entering the port.[41] Bridgwater also built some 167 ships; the last one being the Irene launched in 1907.[42] Peak tonnage occurred in 1857, with 142 vessels totalling 17,800 tonnes (19,600 tons).[43]
Combwich Pill, a small creek near the mouth of the river, had been used for shipping since the 14th century; and a wharf in the 18th century was used for the unloading of coal and the loading of tiles. From the 1830s, with the development of the brick and tile industry in the Bridgwater area, Combwich wharf was used by two local brickyards to import coal and export tiles to Wales and parts of Gloucestershire.[44] This traffic ceased in the 1930s; and in the late 1950s the wharf was taken over by the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) to bring in materials for the construction of the Hinkley Point nuclear power stations.[45]Hinkley Point A nuclear power station being ordered in 1957, with a scheduled completion date of 1960, but was not completed until 1965.[46] This was followed by Hinkley Point B nuclear power station which began operation in 1976.[47]
Dunball Wharf. To the right is Dunball clyce where the King's Sedgemoor Drain flows into the River Parrett
Dunball wharf was built in 1844 by Bridgwater coal merchants,[48] and was formerly linked to the Bristol and Exeter Railway by a rail track which crossed the A38. The link was built in 1876 by coal merchants, and was originally operated as a horse-drawn tramway. In 1875, the local landowner built The Dunball Steam Pottery & Brick & Tile Works adjacent to the wharf.[49]
Although ships no longer dock in the town of Bridgwater, 90,213 tonnes (99,443 tons) of cargo were handled within the port authority's area in 2006, most of which was stone products via the wharf at Dunball.[50] It is no longer linked to the railway system. The link was removed as part of the railway closures made as a result of the Beeching Report in the 1960s. Dunball railway station, which had opened in 1873, was closed to both passengers and goods in 1964.[51] All traces of the station, other than "Station Road" have been removed. The wharf is now used for landing stone products, mainly marine sand and gravels dredged in the Bristol Channel.[52] Marine sand and gravel accounted for 55,754 tonnes (61,458 tons) of the total tonnage of 90,213 tonnes (99,443 tons) using the Port facilities in 2006, with salt products accounting for 21,170 tonnes (23,340 tons) in the same year,[50] while the roll-on roll-off berth at Combwich is used occasionally for the transfer of heavy goods for the two existing Hinkley Point nuclear power stations. With the possible future construction of the two Hinkley Point C nuclear power stations by EDF Energy, it is proposed that Combwich wharf be employed to transfer heavy goods to the sites.[53] Combwich Pill is the only site where recreational moorings are available in the estuary.[35]
Sedgemoor District Council acts as the Competent Harbour Authority for the port, and has provided pilotage services for all boats over 98 feet (30 m) using the river since 1998, when it took over the service from Trinity House. Pilotage is important because of the constant changes in the navigable channel resulting from the large tidal range, which can exceed 39 feet (11.9 m) on spring tides. Most commercial shipping travels upriver no further than Dunball wharf, which handles bulk cargoes.[35]
The War Memorial in King's Square with the offices of Sedgemoor District Council in the background
The Local Government Act 1972 removed the historic status of Bridgwater as a Borough, as it became part of the district of Sedgemoor, which has its headquarters in King's Square.
Bridgwater Town Council was created in 2003,[54] with sixteen elected members representing six wards of the town; Bower (three), Eastover (two), Hamp (three), Quantock (three), Sydenham (three) and Victoria (two). With powers or functions over allotments, bus shelters, making of byelaws, cemeteries, clocks, crime prevention, entertainment and arts, highways, litter, public buildings, public conveniences, recreation, street lighting, tourism, traffic calming, community transport and war memorials.
The Bridgwater constituency has been represented in Parliament since 1295. After the voting age was lowered in January 1970, Susan Wallace became the first 18-year-old person to vote in the UK,[56] during the 1970 Bridgwater by-election that elected Tom King, who took the title Baron King of Bridgwater in 2001.[57] At the in 2010 it became part of the new Bridgwater and West Somerset constituency.[58]
Bridgwater is centred on an outcrop of marl in an area dominated by low-lying alluvial deposits. There are local deposits of gravels and sand.[2] It is situated in a level and well-wooded area, on the edge of the Somerset Levels. To the north are the Mendip range and on the west the Quantock hills. The town lies along both sides of the River Parrett, 10 miles (16 km) from its mouth, which then flows to discharge into the Bridgwater BayNational Nature Reserve. It consists of large areas of mud flats, saltmarsh, sandflats and shingle ridges, some of which are vegetated. It has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest since 1989,[63] and is designated as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention.[64] The risks to wildlife are highlighted in the local Oil Spill Contingency Plan.[65]
Fore street with a very rare covering of snow. Admiral Robert Blake statue and Cornhill just visible in the background
Along with the rest of South West England, Bridgwater has a temperate climate which is generally wetter and milder than the rest of the country.[66] The annual mean temperature is approximately 10 °C (50.0 °F). Seasonal temperature variation is less extreme than most of the United Kingdom because of the adjacent sea temperatures. The summer months of July and August are the warmest with mean daily maxima of approximately 21 °C(69.8 °F). In winter mean minimum temperatures of 1 °C(33.8 °F) or 2 °C(35.6 °F) are common.[66] In the summer the Azores high pressure affects the south-west of England, however convective cloud sometimes forms inland, reducing the number of hours of sunshine. Annual sunshine rates are slightly less than the regional average of 1,600 hours.[66] In December 1998 there were 20 days without sun recorded at Yeovilton. Most the rainfall in the south-west is caused by Atlantic depressions or by convection. Most of the rainfall in autumn and winter is caused by the Atlantic depressions, which is when they are most active. In summer, a large proportion of the rainfall is caused by sun heating the ground leading to convection and to showers and thunderstorms. Average rainfall is around 700 mm (28 in). About 8–15 days of snowfall is typical. November to March have the highest mean wind speeds, and June to August have the lightest winds. The predominant wind direction is from the south-west.[66]
Yeovilton climate: Average maximum and minimum temperatures, and average rainfall recorded between 1971 and 2000 by the Met Office.
As early as 1300, the port exported wheat, peas and beans to Ireland, France and Spain, and by 1400 was also exporting cloth from Somerset and the adjoining counties. By 1500 it was the largest port in Somerset,[69] later becoming the fifth largest in England,[70][71][72] until eclipsed by Bristol in the 18th century.[73] In its heyday, imports included wine, grain, fish, hemp, coal and timber. Exports included wheat, wool, cloth, cement, bricks and tiles. Unlike Bristol, Bridgwater was never involved in the slave trade and, in 1797, was the first town in Britain to petition the government to ban it.[74]
The Bridgwater ship the Emanuel was one of three that took part in Martin Frobisher's 1577 search for the Northwest Passage. In 1828, 40 ships were registered in the port, averaging 60 tons each.[75]
Bridgwater was the leading industrial town in Somerset and remains a major centre for manufacturing.[76] A major manufacturing centre for clay tiles and bricks in the 19th century, including the famous "Bath brick", were exported through the port.[77] In the 1890s there were a total of 16 brick and tile companies, and 24 million bricks per annum were exported during that decade alone.[78] These industries are celebrated in the Somerset Brick and Tile Museum on East Quay.[79]
These industries collapsed in the aftermath of World War II due to the failure to introduce mechanisation, although the automated Chilton Tile Factory, which produced up to 5 million tiles each year, lasted until 1968.[80] The importance of the Bath Brick declined with the advent of detergents and other cleaning products. Dunware ponds used to make bricks and can still be found along the paths.
During the 19th century, Castle House (originally named Portland Castle after Portland cement), reputedly the first domestic house in the UK to be built from concrete,[81] was constructed in 1851 by John Board, a local brick and tile manufacturer. The building is now Grade II* listed,[82] and in 2004 was featured in the BBCtelevision programme Restoration.[83]
In the 19th century, Bridgwater was also home to a number of ironfoundries. George Hennet's Bridgwater Iron Works worked on bridges, railways and machinery for Brunel and Robert Stephenson. This location allowed the import by boat of raw materials from Wales and the dispatch of finished work to south Devon using the Bristol and Exeter Railway. The carriage workshops for the latter were on an adjacent site. The works passed to his son and then traded as Hennet, Spink & Else. Some of the ironwork was produced for the Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash, Cornwall. In 1873 it became the Bridgwater Engineering Company Limited but this failed in 1878.[84] W&F Wills Ltd produced steam locomotives and fingerposts.[26]
At the start of World War II, the government built a factory to manufacture high explosives at Puriton near Bridgwater.[85] Called ROF Bridgwater, the plant is today owned by BAE Systems and closed after decommissioning was completed in July 2008.[86]
British Cellophane Ltd, a joint venture between La Cellophane SA and Courtaulds opened a major factory producing cellophane in Bridgwater 1937. The factory produced Bailey Bridges during World War II for the invasion of Europe. Bought by UCB Films in 1996, the town suffered a blow in 2005 when Innovia Films closed the cellophane factory.[87] At one time the factory employed around 3,000 people, although at the time of closure this had been reduced to just 250. However recovery has begun with the establishment of new businesses on the Express Park business park including the relocation of Gerber Juice and new enterprises Toolstation and Interpet as well as the Exel centre for the NHS Logistics Authority.[88]
Bridgwater is now a major centre of industry in Somerset, with industries including the production of plastics, engine parts, industrial chemicals, and foods. Bowerings Animal Feed Mill is now the only industry still located at the docks. Being close to the M5 motorway and half way between Bristol and Exeter, Bridgwater is also home to two major distribution centres, while retailer Argos has a regional distribution centre based at Huntworth. A new £100 m Regional Agricultural Business Centre opened in 2007, following construction which began in 2006.[89][90]
Bridgwater is home to the Somerset Brick and Tile Museum, built on part of the former Barham Brothers site (brick and tile manufacturers between 1857 and 1965). Castle House was built in 1851 and was one of the first to make extensive use of concrete demonstrating "an innovative interpretation of traditional masonry features in concrete".[81]
A house in Blake Street, largely restored, is believed to be the birthplace of Robert Blake in 1598, and is now the Blake Museum. It was built in the late 15th or early 16th century, and has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II* listed building.[91] His statue from 1898 by D W Pomeroy has been repositioned from the front of the Corn Exchange to face down Cornhill.[92]Sydenham Manor House was previously a manor estate built in the early 16th century, which was refronted and rebuilt after 1613.[93] It now stands in the grounds of the former British Cellophane plant. Its owners were on the losing side in the Civil War and again in the Monmouth Rebellion.[94] The public library by E Godfrey Page dates from 1905.[95]
As trade expanded during the Industrial Revolution, Bridgwater was linked to Taunton by the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal (1827), although initially it ran from a basin south of Bridgwater at Huntworth. As trade grew docks were built in the town, linked to an extension of the canal, with both opening in 1841. The docks were dredged by a scraper-dredger Bertha similar to the one Brunel had designed for the Bristol Floating Harbour. 14 June 1841 saw the opening of the Bristol and Exeter Railway from Bristol to Bridgwater. The railway also opened a coach and wagon works in the town; the last of the buildings is currently in 2005 scheduled for demolition. Bridgwater railway station, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel is now a Grade II listed building.[96] An end to the unequal competition between rail and canal came in 1867 when the Bristol and Exeter Railway purchased the canal.[97] A number of local branches were also built, for example to serve the Northgate Brewery (now replaced by a car park north of Angel Crescent) and the former British Cellophane factory. The Somerset and Dorsetbranch line to Edington was opened in 1890.[98] Its former Bridgwater station is now occupied by J Sainsbury.
Bridgwater Docks South Side in 1968
The importance of shipping and the docks started to decline after 1886, the year in which the opening of the Severn Tunnel caused a severe drop in coal imports by sea. The situation worsened as the railways were extended into Somerset and beyond, and ships became too big for the port. The last commercial use of the docks was when coal imports ceased on 31 July 1971, and although they now house a marina they are currently little used. The surrounding quays have been developed for housing, although the remains of wooden quays on the riverbank can still be seen. All but a small remnant of the mump (a huge mound of spoil from the original dock excavations) was removed in the 1980s to make way for the development on the north side of the dock. Due to the port, ship building was also an important industry, and around 140 ships were built in the town during the 19th century by companies including David Williams, Joseph Gough, Watsons and William Lowther. F J Carver and Son owned a small dry dock on East Quay and constructed the last ship to built in the town - the Irene.[99] The former associated industry of rope making is commemorated in street furnishings and paving on East Quay and in the name of Ropewalk street.
The Drove Bridge, which marks the current extent of the Port of Bridgwater is the nearest to the mouth and the newest road bridge to cross the river. With a span of 184 feet (56 m), the bridge was constructed as part of the Bridgwater Northern Distributor road scheme (1992), and provides a navigable channel which is 66 feet (20 m) wide with 8.2 feet (2.5 m) headroom at normal spring high tides.[100] Upstream of this is the retractable bridge built in 1871 to the design of Sir Francis Fox, the engineer for the Bristol and Exeter Railway. It carried a railway siding over the river to the docks, but had to be movable, to allow boats to proceed upriver. An 80-foot (24 m) section of railway track to the east of the bridge could be moved sideways, so that the main 127-foot (39 m) girders could be retracted, creating a navigable channel which was 78 feet (24 m) wide.[101] It was manually operated for the first eight months, and then powered by a steam engine, reverting to manual operation in 1913, when the steam engine failed. The bridge was last opened in 1953, and the traverser section was demolished in 1974, but public outcry at the action resulted in the bridge being listed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and the rest of the bridge was kept.[102] It was later used as a road crossing, until the construction of the Chandos road bridge alongside it, and is now only used by pedestrians. Parts of the steam engine were moved to Westonzoyland Pumping Station Museum in 1977.[101]
The next bridge is the Town Bridge. There has been a bridge here since the 13th century, when Bridgwater was granted a charter by King John. The present bridge was designed by R. C. Else and G. B. Laffan, and the 75-foot (23 m) cast iron structure was completed in 1883.[73][103] It replaced an earlier bridge, which was the first cast iron bridge to be built in Somerset when it was completed in 1797.[103] The stone abutments of that bridge were reused by the later bridge, which formed the only road crossing of the river in Bridgwater until 1958.[101] Above the bridge there were two shoals, called The Coals and The Stones, which were a hazard to barge traffic on the river, and bargees had to choose carefully when to navigate the river, to ensure that there was sufficient water to carry them over these obstructions.[104] In March 1958 a new reinforced concrete road bridge, the Blake Bridge, was opened as part of a bypass to take traffic away from the centre of Bridgwater.[105] It now carries the A38 and A39 roads. On the southern edge of Bridgwater there is a bridge which carries the Bristol and Exeter Railway across the River Parrett. Isambard Kingdom Brunel designed a brick bridge, known as the Somerset Bridge, with a 100 feet (30 m) span but a rise of just 12 feet (3.7 m). Work started in 1838 and was completed in 1841. Brunel left the scaffold supporting the centre of the bridge in place as the foundations were still settling but was forced to remove it in 1843 to reopen the river for navigation. Brunel demolished the brick arch and had replaced it with a timber arch within six months without interrupting the traffic on the railway. This was in turn replaced in 1904 by a steel girder bridge.[106] Slightly further east is a modern concrete bridge which carries the M5 motorway over both the river and the railway line. It was started in 1971 and opened in 1973.[107]
Bridgwater was selected as the first town in the South West, outside of Bristol, to be selected for the UK government's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative, which aimed to rebuild and renew nearly every secondary school in England.[110] Within Bridgwater, Building Schools for the Future was to redevelop all of the four secondary schools and two special provision schools at an expected cost of around £100 million.[111] This included the complete relocation and rebuilding of a new school combining the both Haygrove and Penrose School. In July 2010, several components of the Bridgwater BSF programme were cancelled and others were singled out for further review.[112][113] Following a meeting with Education Secretary Michael Gove, Bridgwater MP Ian Liddell-Granger announced that the fate of all six affected schools would be subject to review, including the ones that were cancelled.[114]
Further Education is provided by Bridgwater College which was formerly Bridgwater Technical School.[115] The site of the Poplar School Of Engineering And Navigation was later used for Dr Morgan's Grammar School For Boys. Other schools which have since closed include: Bridgwater Grammar School For Boys, Bridgwater Grammar School For Girls and Westover Senior Council School.
(diff | hist) . . N National Cookie Day; 17:47 . . (+1,097) . . HelloImALion(talk | contribs)(←Created page with '{{New unreviewed article|source=ArticleWizard|date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}} '''National Cookie Day''' is a nationally recognized holiday,...')
(diff | hist) . . m Nick Griffin; 17:47 . . (-74) . . Alexandre8(talk | contribs)(Undid revision 438271870 by Snowded (talk) Ok, so I'll just completely remove it? It's unsourced. I was trying to reach a compromise.)
(diff | hist) . . Green Day; 17:47 . . (-71) . . WikHead(talk | contribs)(Filling in 3 references using Reflinks - NOTE - Spam filter has forced the removal of <ref name="autogenerated2"> when blue-linked)
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Source: moblog.co.uk, where it was released under a Creative Commons Attribution generic licence, 2.5. First posted at Wikinews.
Subject: Adam Stacey, on a tube train between King's Cross and Russell Square, London, July 7, 2005, during the 7 July 2005 London bombings.
More information: For how the photograph came to be taken, see Seward, Zachary. "Phones Offer Snapshot Of Terror", Forbes, July 8, 2005.
Photographer: Eliot Ward took this photograph of Adam Stacey using Ward's cell phone camera.
I (SlimVirgin) am currently trying to contact Eliot Ward or Adam Stacey to confirm the licence. In the meantime, this is all I know:
Copyright seems to have been assumed by Adam Stacey. The image was uploaded from the cell phone to MoblogUK by Alfie Dennen of Moblog at Stacey's request. It states clearly on Moblog here that it was released under a Creative Commons licence, and if you click on the CC link, it goes to the CC attribution 2.5 generic page. The Forbes article says:
In a picture snapped on his friend's Sony Ericsson V800 camera phone, Adam Stacey covers his mouth to avoid smoke inhalation between the King's Cross and Russell Square subway stations in London yesterday ... Ward's photo, taken between the King's Cross and Russell Square stations, where at least 21 people were killed, quickly made its way from his phone to MoblogUK, a photo-sharing site for camera phones.
In or around December 2005, Time magazine used the image as one of their images of the year; see Best Photos of the Year 2005, image 20/24, Time magazine, accessed January 18, 2010. Stacey wrote to Dennen at that time appearing to confirm that he had released it: "I do remember them calling me at some point asking if they could use the picture, but it was after I had spoken to you and agreed to the Creative Commons license. I think they were trying to offer me money for the pic but I said I didn't want any and that anyone could use it if they wanted." I'll forward the email to permissions.
Parking this link about "works for hire" here, in case it becomes relevant. SlimVirginTALKcontribs 21:23, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
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(This image in under a [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ CC] license and is from [http://moblog.co.uk/view.php?id=77571 here] posted first at Wikinews)
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